Harte Hanks 'Streamlines' Exec Team as Lal Departs

US-based marketing solutions firm Harte Hanks is to lose its EVP, COO and CTO when the multi-tasking Shirish Lal leaves 'to pursue another opportunity', and says it will streamline its top team with three other leaders sharing his duties.

Harte Hanks, which has more than 5,000 employees located in North America, Asia-Pacific and Europe, helps companies analyse and optimize their customer journeys, providing end-to-end marketing services including consulting, analytics, and implementation via digital media, print / direct mail and contact centers.

Lal (pictured) joined the company two years ago from cloud and IT services firm CenturyLink, where he served as CMO. Before this, he was Senior VP Consumer at Level 3 Communications, CMO at Ionex Telecom, and President of Broadband Services at Broadwing.

CEO Karen Puckett said of the announcement: 'I'd like to thank Shirish for all his efforts at Harte Hanks. During his tenure, he has been involved with implementing technology and marketing partnerships, product development, improving customer satisfaction, and cost cutting. Thanks to the operational and product foundation he helped lay, we now have executable plans that will support our success in 2018 and beyond. The time is right to streamline our executive team, and we will divide Shirish's responsibilities among our CMO, Frank Grillo, our CFO, Jon Biro, and me'.

Lal himself comments: 'Since 2016, we have seen a significant improvement in customer satisfaction, launched industry leading database and data products, and established partnerships that have repositioned Harte Hanks. I believe Harte Hanks has the foundation to be a leader in assisting companies with digital transformation of their marketing capabilities. The timing was right for me to pursue another opportunity that has long been a passion'.

Web site: www.hartehanks.com .