Critical Mention Announces Substantial Growth and Management Changes and Promotions

NEW YORK, Oct. 20, 2016 -- Critical Mention, Inc., the leader in real-time media monitoring and analytics, announces significant growth in its user base driven in part by enhancements to its technology platform and content sets subscribed to by thousands of clients in the public relations, marketing and public policy sectors. In addition, Critical Mention has named a new CEO, a promoted its sales executive and consolidated management of its technology teams.

Management Changes

Don Yount has been named CEO. He had been serving as the company’s president since March and succeeds Sean Morgan, who founded the company and built it into a global media monitoring company.  Sean will continue to serve as chairman of the Board of Directors.

Yount joined Critical Mention after having served as president of Corente, a cloud networking-technology company. During his tenure there, Corente expanded its software-as-a-service-based networking solution to include multiple, large-scale distribution partnerships on top of its direct-to-user model, ultimately leading to an acquisition by Oracle. 

Prior to Corente, Yount served as executive vice president and COO of TVI Corp., operating principal at Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds, and in executive positions in corporate strategy and finance at several high-tech firms in the telecom, datacom, software development and media industries. 

“Don is a terrific executive, and we’re so pleased he’ll apply his management expertise to take Critical Mention to the next stage of development,” said Morgan. “We expect Critical Mention’s already impressive growth to accelerate further, building on our unmatched technology infrastructure, intuitive user experience, and ever-growing sets of real-time media content.” 

“I am looking forward to building upon the foundation Sean has built since starting the company,” said Yount. “With a strong customer base, truly superior technology and an impressively talented team, I believe Critical Mention is poised to further expand its reach in the media monitoring market.”

Other organizational changes include promotion of Steve Shannon to SVP, Sales and Marketing. Steve has led the Critical Mention sales and account management teams for seven years, and with this promotion, will drive an integrated approach to growing the Critical Mention brand and customer base.

Also, Critical Mention has consolidated all aspects of its technology teams into two groups, Engineering and Technical Operations, to create greater efficiency in development and delivery of content through the Critical Mention platform. Both groups report to SVP Nancy Ellman, who has recently driven a number of major technology upgrades at Critical Mention, including a more robust, redundant cloud-based infrastructure that strengthens service uptime under virtually any circumstances.

Growth in Customer Base and Content Sets

Sales have accelerated in 2016. New customer acquisition grew 45% in the third quarter and new bookings revenue increased 67% over the same period last year while sales headcount remained steady. In 2016, Critical Mention is hitting all-time highs for client renewals in both number of subscriptions and revenue.

“More public relations professionals are finding that the real-time speed and simplicity of the Critical Mention media monitoring and reporting platform save them a lot of time and frees them to focus on their core responsibilities,” said Yount. “It’s really a complete, reliable solution backed by 24/7/365 customer support. We understand that more than ever, PR professionals need to be in the know to do the work they want to do.”

About Critical Mention

Critical Mention is the leading global media monitoring platform, delivering real-time broadcast, online and social media content and advanced analytics tools. Founded in 2002 in New York City, Critical Mention serves customers in business, government and non-profit sectors delivering real-time media content.   For more information, visit http://www.criticalmention.com or Follow us on Twitter @CriticalMention or contact Steve Shannon at 212-398-1141 or email [email protected].