Technology veteran Andrew Burton departs Rapid7 to take on CEO role at e-commerce specialist commercetools

Andrew Burton is joining composable commerce platform, commercetools, as its new CEO.

He was previously President and COO at Rapid7 and comes onboard as commercetools is said to be prepping an IPO.

In a LinkedIn post, Co-founder Dirk Hoerig, said: “Andrew and I will work closely together and execute on the vision to further grow commercetools to the globally leading enterprise commerce technology company.”

“As co-founder, I will continue to serve on the board, and will take the role of the Chief Innovation Officer. In that I will put my main focus on the following segments: key customers and partnership development, product innovation, communications and investor relations.”

“Andrew brings a ton of experience to commercetools. As former President and COO at Rapid7, he has seen significant growth while running a publicly listed company.”

“Andrew and I got to know each other almost two years ago and it became quickly apparent that by working together we could take commercetools to the next level of growth and success.”

He added: “The last 14 years have been an amazing roller coaster ride: When we decided in 2010 to build a new commerce software for the enterprise market from scratch we have not thought about achieving $100 million or more in revenue.”

“But we had the vision of building the leading enterprise commerce software company - not by creating fancy slide decks - but by providing the best products that help our customers today, and that make their businesses future-proof for whatever is coming next.”

“Executing against this vision is what brought us here today and it's as well the foundation for our future success - because we have a lot of things planned for the upcoming years.”

commercetools is now, he noted, the largest privately held commerce software company serving over 500 customers globally and helping them to realise over $35 billion GMV through its software.

“We are the clear leader in modern enterprise commerce software and - at least from my view - provide the best products for companies that not only require flexibility and scalability, but that also want to operate cost efficiently and put more focus on innovation than on keeping the lights on.”

“I would have never estimated more than a decade ago, that one time we will empower companies like Sephora, BMW, John Lewis, Porsche, Burberry, Ulta Beauty and many more of the most known brands to run their digital business with us.”

He concluded: “Building the company up to $150 million ARR and beyond has been amazing but would not have been possible without an amazing team that made this all happen.”

“And even at the size today we continue to grow at a high pace. That strong momentum makes now the perfect timing to enhance our leadership team as we are about to ignite the next stage of this business rocket that we are flying.”

“Andrew has had a significant impact helping his previous company to grow from ~$150 million ARR a few years ago to over $800 million in ARR today. Our plans are not less ambitious. Together with almost 650 commercetoolers I am excited to see what is next and to make our future plans become reality.”