DALLAS, Texas – Jan. 17, 2024 – BackBox, the world’s most trusted network automation platform, announces that John Evarts has joined the company as Chief Operating Officer, reporting to CEO Andrew Kahl. John will lead go-to-market functions with responsibility for Sales, Marketing, and Corporate Finance.
“John brings both range and depth to this role, and his initial focus will be on establishing operational metrics that will help us measure our growth more consistently and predictably,” said BackBox CEO Andrew Kahl. “Growing our executive team has been a key factor to our success this past year. With John’s track record in operational planning and strategy for companies of our size and scale, the sky is the limit for BackBox.”
John is an established sales enablement technology leader who has helped lead several early-stage software companies through significant growth periods. Most recently, he served as President & Chief Operating Officer at Mediafly. During his almost 14-year tenure at the company, John accelerated corporate development initiatives including deal sourcing, due diligence, and integration for eight company acquisitions.
John also serves in an advisory role for startups and is an advisory board member with VITALIZE Venture Capital. John earned his MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business; he is an Executive in Residence at the school, where he speaks and mentors students and alumni. In 2021, he received the Chicago Booth Career Services Alumni Award for his service.
John will work closely with Michael Calonica and Isabelle Papoulias, both of whom joined the BackBox leadership team in 2023. Michael serves as Senior Vice President of Global Sales, and previously scaled inside sales teams for HYCU, LogicMonitor, and AlienVault.
Isabelle serves as Senior Vice President of Global Marketing and was previously Chief Marketing Officer and then EVP of Operations & Global Expansion for Mediafly. She has also held senior global account management roles for Fortune 1000 technology brands at large advertising agencies.
“Enterprise network teams worldwide are struggling to secure their networks amidst the challenges of rapidly changing infrastructure, limited resources, and overall complexity,” said Evarts. “Isabelle and Mike have already built a strong marketing and sales execution engine to meet the demands of companies looking to address these challenges. I’m honored to be part of an incredibly talented and passionate team that is focused on helping network teams shine with BackBox.”
