After successfully guiding video giant Vimeo for three years as CEO and putting the company on the path to its 2021 public debut, Dae Mellencamp has joined the executive team at local same-day content startup Soona.
Mellencamp was announced as Soona’s new chief operating officer this week and is tasked with overseeing the areas of the business that support the virtual shoot experience from the creative crews.
Prior to the full-time role, Mellencamp served on Soona’s advisory board for two years and became passionate about the role the company was playing in content creation.
So, when she left her COO role at streaming company Denver’s Gaia at the end of 2020, she began discussing potential options with Soona co-founder Liz Giorgi and Hayley Anderson.
“The more I got to know the company, the more it really did become something that I wanted to be part of in a much deeper way,” Mellencamp said.
For Soona’s co-founders, Vimeo was always a company to admire in the creative technology space and Giorgi said Mellencamp was a clear trailblazer at the helm. She served in the role of CEO or president from 2009 until departing in 2015.
“Getting to know Dae it was just so clear to us that her leadership style, obsession for customer experience and real tenacity for understanding the why behind what a customer is doing was deeply connected to the things that Hayley and I believe in,” Giorgi said. “That technology can make every part of the creative process better, for the creative and the customer.”
Soona, which was founded in 2019, is a fast-casual content platform that helps brands make professional-quality photos and videos. The company has over 7,000 customers including Lola Tampons, The Sill and Wild Earth, and has three hubs in Denver, Minneapolis and Austin, Texas.
Just as she did at Vimeo, Mellencamp enters at an exciting time of growth for Soona and said she looks to add her expertise.
“I’ve seen that growth, the high-ceiling, fast-paced growth a number of times and I think I can help add value on that to the company, through the different experiences I’ve had at Vimeo and other businesses in the digital world,” she said.
For Giorgi, representation has always been at the forefront of her mission in building Soona. The company is known for introducing the Candor Clause, an open-source legal framework for promoting gender and racial equity in venture capital.
Giorgi said adding Mellencamp to that mix was a natural fit, given her history in promoting representation in the technology space.
“Her track record is one that is so clearly that of integrity and representing the things we value here at Soona,” Giorgi said.
