NEW YORK, March 8, 2018 — WayUp, the leading career platform for college students and recent graduates, today announced the addition of five senior executives to the company’s leadership team. Despite building a business focused on helping companies hire less experienced talent, the company decided it was time to bring in a new layer of experience after raising its $18.5M Series B.
These key hires will oversee sales, marketing, product, finance, and engineering, and come to WayUp from companies including Shutterstock, CareerBuilder, Bluefly, and more. These new executives will join WayUp’s Co-Founders, Liz Wessel and JJ Fliegelman, and the rest of the WayUp team to increase WayUp’s portfolio of customers and continue growing its user base of four million students and recent graduates. The executive team is now 50% female, and also includes three former CEO’s.
“Establishing our first-ever executive team is a milestone in WayUp’s growth story,” said Liz Wessel, CEO and Co-Founder of WayUp. “Over the last year alone, we quadrupled our user base, helping more people than ever before find their first job. I believe our new executive team will bring crucial and relevant experience so we can help millions more students and recent graduates connect with the best employers in the nation.”
Beth Prunier joins WayUp in the role of Senior Vice President of Sales. She has moved from Boston to New York City to join the company, despite being a lifelong Red Sox fan. As a seasoned sales leader for career sites such as CareerBuilder and Simply Hired, Prunier brings expertise in scaling sales teams and acquiring enterprise customers. Most recently, she served as the Chief Sales Officer at MV Transportation, where she was responsible for creating and implementing a long-term sustainable sales strategy within the college and Fortune 500 market. Prunier will oversee all new business acquisition at WayUp.
In the role of Chief Marketing Officer is Carly Rosenberg, who joins WayUp from Bluefly, where she was President. Rosenberg joined Bluefly in 2014 with fourteen years of experience in ecommerce and digital marketing at brands including Ann Taylor, J.Crew, Saks Fifth Avenue. She brings to WayUp a passion for strategic marketing that has earned her industry-wide recognition, including being named one of the Top 50 Women in Brand Marketing by Brand Innovators. Rosenberg is not new to helping students, as she serves on the MBA Advisory Board for Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. She’ll be managing all marketing functions including enterprise and consumer strategies.
Joining WayUp as the Vice President of Product is David Paltiel, who will be responsible for building, designing, and optimizing the WayUp experience for both job seekers and employers. Before coming to WayUp, Paltiel was the interim Co-CEO for Pond5, a marketplace for stock media. He has held product leadership roles at companies including Fab.com, Quidsi, and Signpost, and brings to WayUp years of expertise launching and developing both consumer and business products.
Appointed Vice President of Finance and Operations, Michael Kovach comes to WayUp from Shutterstock, where he served as the Vice President of Finance since 2013. An accomplished finance executive with a proven record of success, Kovach has more than 20 years of experience in all facets of financial and operational management, accounting, and administration. Before Shutterstock, Kovach spent nearly 14 years at LivePerson, where he held many positions from Controller to Senior Vice President of Finance. He has extensive experience with high-growth startups, and is excited to be a core part of WayUp as it scales.
Nathan Potter is WayUp’s Vice President of Engineering. A seasoned technology leader with over two decades of experience in software development, Potter joins WayUp after serving as the Chief Technology Officer of Amplify Literacy, a leading edtech company, and before that, as the VP of Engineering of Chartbeat, where he scaled their technical team from 5 to 40. Potter is looking forward to growing the engineering organization and building a strong technical culture at WayUp.
About WayUp
WayUp is the go-to platform for millions of early-career professionals to explore job and internship opportunities, receive advice, and get discovered by employers. Top companies (including Fortune 500s, startups, and nonprofits) use WayUp’s platform to reach, recruit and engage with the new generation of early-career talent. Since launching in 2014, WayUp has helped millions of candidates launch their careers. https://www.wayup.com/