During my time on work experience in The PorterShed, Eyre Square, Galway I was asked to conduct an interview with one of the businesses based in the new Innovation Centre. I chose the team Altocloud because they had the widest range of employees for me to interview and I found what they did interesting. I spoke to Maricka Burke-Keogh, Head of Digital Marketing at Altocloud.
Altocloud is a digital customer engagement solution launched in 2014 by Barry O’Sullivan, Dan Arra and Joe Smyth. Altocloud specialise in customer journey analytics and real time messaging which helps businesses increase inbound sales velocity and customer success.
Altocloud’s HQ is in Silicon Valley, California and the European HQ is based here in Galway, in the PorterShed. The business is led by Barry O’Sullivan, an investor on Dragon’s Den, and formerly a senior executive at Cisco where he led multi-billion dollar businesses, including Cisco’s VoIP Collaboration WebEx businesses.
Maricka, Head of Digital Marketing at the company, was the winner of JCI Galway ‘The Outstanding Young Person of the Year Award’ in 2013, is the brainchild behind Online Marketing in Galway (OMiG ) and has previously held positions with IMS Marketing and Google.
According to Maricka, “Altocloud uses innovative software to look at customer journey analytics and digital messaging” which enables businesses to “reach out to the right customers at the right time using Altocloud tools on the website.”
Maricka explained how Altocloud is the “first of its kind when it comes to the depth of information available on the website”, which also has engagement tools to reach out to the customers. She believes this is what makes Altocloud unique compared to the other businesses like them.
When asked how her role is different to the other members of the Altocloud team, Maricka said that “the majority of the team are engineers or data scientists but I am the only one who does marketing. In our Irish office I am one of the main promoters of the business rather than development of the product.”
Maricka explained that working in the Portershed offices has really helped her. “It helps working in that environment because I’m meeting others involved in marketing and because digital marketing changes so quickly, it’s good to have others to discuss the latest methods in marketing.”
The Portershed is the first step towards building an Innovation District in Galway City. It is a collaborative office space that is home to 16 start-ups companies in this innovation ecosystem which nourishes idea generation, knowledge sharing and accelerated commercialisation.
