Neustar, a below-the-radar data analytics company, is hiring its first CMO as it attempts to raise its profile in the ad industry.
Lisa Joy Rosner is joining after most recently serving as CMO for NetBase Solutions, a social media analytics company she left last fall. After several stints with start-ups, she said she left to shift to a public company.
"I was looking for a great company with phenomenal assets and people who needed to find their voice and tell their story," Ms. Rosner said. Neustar fit the bill.
"Everything's there," she added, "but no one knows who we are."
Founded in 1996, Neustar primarily served as a telecom services firm, as the holder of "number portability" information on U.S. caller ID information. In the past year, it's begun efforts to leverage its data for marketing, buying the CRM data management firm Aggregate Knowledge for $119 million in October.
Prior to NetBase, Ms. Rosner served with various Silicon Valley data and cloud marketing including Oracle and MyBuys, a competitor to Aggregate Knowledge. While she served at NetBase, the firm netted contracts with five major consumer product good companies, including Coca-Cola and P&G, as well as the business management firm SAP.
In 2013, Ms. Rosner was named a "B2B Marketer of the Year," by the Sage Group, and a "Silicon Valley Woman of Influence."
"Lisa Joy's reputation and track record speak for themselves," Lisa Hook, Neustar's CEO, said in a statement.
Neustar's data portfolio is currently stretched over three departments: marketing services, information technology and networks operations. They operate as "three disparate businesses," Ms. Rosner said. "Now, what we're doing is creating one Neustar brand and one marketing department."
Lately, the company has been aggressively promoting itself in advertising circles, touting the wealth and sharpness of its data -- a coupling of segmented CRM information with anonymous telecom services information -- and its telecom history as a data verfication company as a tool for marketers. Ms. Rosner said the company can rival marketing data providers like Oracle and Adobe.
Neustar reported revenues of $902 million in 2013.
Ms. Rosner would not specify her marketing outlays, but did hint at her CMO strategy. "My first hire is going to be a VP of digital," she said. "Neustar does not have one now."
