Vocent Solutions, Inc., the leader in voice security solutions, today announced that Jeffrey A. Scheel has joined the company as president and chief executive officer (CEO). The company also announced that it closed a Series C round of $6.4 million in financing from existing investors.
The round was led by Menlo Ventures and included broad participation from prior institutional and individual investors.
Scheel will leverage his 18-year track record of success in enterprise software and systems to further solidify Vocent's leadership in delivering voice security solutions that both enhance the trusted account relationship between consumers and companies and improve the security of corporate networks. Prior to joining Vocent, Scheel was VP & GM for CRM Products at Siebel Systems, Inc., where he led product management and marketing for Siebel's core sales, service, call center, help desk, customer order management and partner relationship management product lines in addition to leading industry analyst relations for the company. In a career with Siebel that began in 1996, Scheel was also VP & GM for Alliances, VP & GM for sales and mobile products, and early in the company's history helped found the alliances program while developing critical relationships with systems integrators like Accenture and IBM Business Consulting Services.
"The fundamental security paradigm for call centers has not changed in the last 20 years," said Scheel. "Customers are both more loyal to and more profitable for companies when they know their personal financial or identity information is being protected. Vocent has demonstrated real success in building trusted relationships for companies through multi-factor authentication. Their voice security platform is driving real return on investment and security compliance for customers like US Bank, The Hartford and Cox Communications. The additional funding commitment from Menlo and our existing investors enables Vocent to exploit its technology leadership and its Confirmed Caller application to prevent fraud in a broad range of customer-facing call centers that must secure high-value accounts from theft or abuse. I am excited to add my complementary experience to this winning team."
"We are pleased to see Vocent gaining additional traction at a time when identity theft and fraud continue to be top priorities for banks, brokerage firms and credit-card issuers," said DuBose Montgomery, Managing Director, Menlo Ventures. "Jeff Scheel's proven ability to drive value for companies through the intelligent deployment of CRM applications is a real asset for the company. This leadership addition makes us even more confident that Vocent will build a robust business by enabling companies to deepen and broaden their trusted relationship with customers."
"I am pleased that we were able to attract an experienced software executive who understands the role our solutions play in building trusted customer relationships," said Chuck Buffum, Founder and EVP of Vocent. "Jeff Scheel's experience building and delivering high-impact enterprise applications complements the call-center, speech-technology and authentication-process expertise of the founding team. With this additional funding and enhanced leadership, we are more focused than ever on demonstrating and delivering the value of Vocent's solutions to some of the largest and most demanding companies in the world."