Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ: BLKB), the world's leading cloud software company powering social good, announced today that Catherine Cook LaCour has been named Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), overseeing global marketing and the Blackbaud Institute for Philanthropic Impact™.
LaCour takes the reins as CMO for the social good software leader with a career track record of breakthrough results in the public, private and social sectors. Prior to joining Blackbaud in 2010, she served as vice president of marketing & product management at Regent Education and vice president of marketing and business development for Infotech Strategies. She also served in Africa for the International Telecommunications Union, an arm of the United Nations.
During her tenure at Blackbaud, LaCour has served in multiple marketing leadership roles. Over the last three years as senior vice president, she re-engineered Blackbaud's corporate marketing function from the ground up and led the company to re-imagine its brand to better align with its purpose-driven mission and values. Under her leadership, Blackbaud has been honored with more than fifty noteworthy accolades and named to Fortune's prestigious 56 "Companies Changing the World" list in 2017. She also launched the Blackbaud Institute for Philanthropic Impact to advance research and collaboration that accelerates social impact around the world.
"As we embrace our commitment to help every organization in the social good community achieve digital transformation, there is no more qualified leader than Catherine LaCour to lead our global marketing strategy," said Mike Gianoni, president and CEO of Blackbaud. "Her track record of building high-impact marketing teams coupled with her passion for creating remarkable customer experiences will play a critical role in our next season of innovation and growth."
LaCour is co-chair of Blackbaud's women's executive networking community and is actively involved as part of Fortune's Most Powerful Women network. She regularly convenes leaders across sectors—in conjunction with platforms like the World Economic Forum and UN Week—to drive partnerships that strengthen the social economy. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Women's Refugee Commission, a nonprofit advocating for laws, policies and programs to improve the lives and protect the rights of refuge women and children. She also serves on the College of CharlestonGraduate School's Advisory Board. LaCour is a distinguished fellow with the Liberty Fellowship (a part of The Aspen Institute Global Leadership Network), a worldwide community of leaders from business, government and the nonprofit sectors who share a commitment to enlightened leadership and to using their creativity, energy and resources to tackle the foremost societal challenges of our times. She was recently invited by Secretary Bobby Hitt to serve on South Carolina Department of Commerce's Council for Innovation Initiatives.
LaCour is a sought-after expert on marketing and social impact, who regularly speaks at events like TEDx, the Social Innovation Summit, and more. She has a Master of Business Administration from American Graduate School of International Management (Thunderbird) and a Bachelor of Science in Business from the College of Charleston.
"For Blackbaud, excellence in marketing is about a relentless pursuit of new ways to delight customers, to connect organizations and people, and to inspire innovation in ways that drives unprecedented impact," said LaCour. "As a shared value company, we're more bullish than ever about flexing this muscle for the good of the entire social economy."
For more about LaCour, and Blackbaud's full executive leadership team, visit www.blackbaud.com/company/executive-leadership.aspx.
About Blackbaud
Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB) is the world's leading cloud software company powering social good. Serving the entire social good community—nonprofits, foundations, corporations, education institutions, healthcare institutions and individual change agents—Blackbaud connects and empowers organizations to increase their impact through software, services, expertise, and data intelligence. The Blackbaud portfolio is tailored to the unique needs of vertical markets, with solutions for fundraising and CRM, marketing, advocacy, peer-to-peer fundraising, corporate social responsibility, school management, ticketing, grantmaking, financial management, payment processing, and analytics. Serving the industry for more than three decades, Blackbaud is headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina and has operations in the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit www.blackbaud.com.
