Autotask Corp. has announced the appointment of a new CEO, Mark Cattini, as its founder Bob Godgart, moves on to become chairman and chief visionary officer (CVO) of the company.
Godgart founded the company nearly 10 years ago and since then, Autotask has grown to about 200 employees with close to 40,000 users in 43 countries around the world.
“I’m really an entrepreneur at heart and we’ve built a great company to get to where we are now,” Godgart said. “I needed someone to run the company full-time day to day so I could do other things.”
In his new role as CEO, Cattini will run Autotask’s day to day operations, while Godgart will work closely with customers and strategic partners to “figure out what the company does next.” Godgart said he’ll also work closely with Cattini so that as his right hand man, he can answer any questions or provide support when needed.
While it’s still too early to outline the company’s future goals, right now, Godgart said the company has “done well in the managed services space. So far, however, the Autotask products today seem to be a nice-to-have. I want them to be a need-to-have.”
Having just joined Autotask this month, Cattini said it’s early days as he’s still getting to know the company and the market.
“What I’m focusing on now is figuring out how we can do what we’re doing better,” Cattini said. “I’m keeping my mind open and will bring a fresh perspective to the company to help give (Godgart) some space to figure out what’s going to happen next.”
Since Autotask acquired VARStreet earlier this year and brought its VARStreet by Autotask solutions to market, Godgart said the VARStreet user base has increased four times in the US market. In Canada, there are six customers currently using the beta version. However, starting next year, Godgart said there will be a widespread release of the solutions, which are designed for VARs, MSPs and solution providers who want an easier, more affordable way to manage, buy and sell technology products.
Godgart said up next for Autotask’s plans for VARStreet is to announce new enhancements and features at its upcoming Autotask Community Live event in Miami, Fla. next May.
“Autotask was built on the cloud and we’ll be doing some things in the mobile space where we’ll leverage the cloud,” Godgart said.
As for plans for the Canadian market, Godgart says Autotask will continue to serve the Canadian partner space.
“Right now about 10 per cent of our new customer acquisitions come from Canada,” he said. “Probably in 2012, we’ll start to handle some of the French-speaking Canadian customers by providing some translation capabilities.”
Follow Maxine Cheung on Twitter: @MaxineCheungCDN.