Sigma, a leading business intelligence platform, has appointed Fred Studer as its new CMO. An experienced CMO of other SaaS organisations, he will focus on helping the company expand its platform and customer base. He will focus on expanding the pipeline and bringing the Sigma story to life, with an emphasis on customer storytelling.
This appears to be Sigma’s first appointment to a Chief Marketing Officer role. Erik Bower was SVP Marketing until at least April 2024 but does not seem to have been replaced, though Marcello Gallo took over the role of Chief Revenue Officer in the same month.
Sigma has a fairly unique story to tell. It is a business intelligence platform centred around a familiar Excel-like interface enhanced with generative intelligence. Customers use Ask Sigma to explore the platform’s robust features. Launched at the end of 2024, Ask Sigma is a natural language interface for an AI with the expertise of a data analyst, providing answers to questions using the most appropriate method.
Mike Palmer, CEO of Sigma, commented, “Sigma made self-service analytics a reality for all enterprise users. With Data Apps, we enabled self-service workflows to empower users to increase their productivity. Now, our AI services not only extend choice and governance to enterprises as they evolve their AI adoption, but also put natural language, sophisticated ML, and data discovery into everyone’s hands.
“Sigma is the first and only platform to make data, AI, and workflow automation an enterprise-wide capability. Studer brings the clarity, integrity, and strategic discipline needed to communicate Sigma’s differentiated approach at scale.”
Who is Fred Studer?
Studer is an experienced Marketing leader who focuses on humanising the marketing process and leveraging customer stories to explain the benefits of the software he supports. He has more than thirty years of experience in the industry and has worked for some of the biggest names across a variety of sectors.
He joins the company after leaving Powerschool, where he had been CMO for the last two years. Studer led marketing functions as CMO at TIBCO, FinancialForce (now Certinia), Gigamon, and NetSuite (now Oracle NetSuite).
He spent seven years at Microsoft, rising to lead a multifunctional team as Microsoft’s General Manager, Dynamics. Before that, he spent nearly six years at Oracle as Group Vice President of Applications Marketing. He has a BS degree in Finance and Accounting from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Studer said, “Joining Sigma at this stage is a rare opportunity. The pace of innovation, particularly in AI and embedded analytics, is unmatched. What truly differentiates Sigma is its commitment to transparency and trust. Leaders don’t have to take AI outputs at face value; they can see how decisions are made. That’s a foundational shift in how businesses operate, and I’m excited to help drive the next phase of growth.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
In Studer, Sigma has an experienced marketer who can power up the marketing function. He led marketing at NetSuite during an exciting period of growth. And has since replicated some of his feats at other organisations.
He will need to hit the ground running, as Sigma is expected to showcase new features across AI, apps, and analytics on May 20th. It will be interesting to hear what Sigma has been working on since launching Ask Sigma at the beginning of the year.
