Jennifer Delevante-Moulen is the new chief marketing officer at Knak.
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One of Ottawa’s most prominent software startups has hired a U.S.-based executive who previously headed the marketing department at another local tech powerhouse in a bid to continue gaining market share south of the border.
Jennifer Delevante-Moulen is the new chief marketing officer at Knak, the firm’s co-founder and CEO, Pierce Ujjainwalla, confirmed to Techopia last week.
Delevante-Moulen comes to the fast-growing software company after a three-year stint at fellow Ottawa tech firm Solace, where she spent the past 16 months as CMO. Among her former colleagues at Solace was Mychelle Mollot, who guided Knak’s marketing team for nearly two years before stepping down last month.
Mollot, who is now chief marketing officer of Minneapolis-based cloud backup and recovery software maker CrashPlan, still calls the National Capital Region home and will continue to serve as a key adviser to Knak, Ujjainwalla said, adding the veteran marketing guru “built an incredible foundation” for growth as the company continues to add “massive logos” to its customer list.
Ujjainwalla said Delevante-Moulen, who earned a communications degree from Ithaca College in upstate New York and now lives north of New York City in Stamford, Conn., will draw on the knowledge she gained at Solace as she looks to scale Knak’s 16-person marketing department.
Solace has cracked the $100-million mark in annual recurring revenue, “which is where we’re trying to go,” Ujjainwalla noted.
“She has a ton of experience that’s going to help us,” he added.
Knak specializes in a no-code platform that simplifies the process of creating email marketing campaigns and landing pages. Now at 110 employees, the firm has 10 open positions and is outpacing its 2025 revenue projections as its drag-and-drop solutions attract more and more Fortune 100 clients, Ujjainwalla said.
Still, Knak’s CEO said the firm can’t rest on its laurels if it wants to keep making further inroads in the massive U.S. market, which accounts for 90 per cent of its sales.
In Delevante-Moulen, Ujjainwalla believes he has the ideal marketing expert to help take the company to the next level.
Among the new CMO’s areas of expertise is “field marketing” – what Ujjainwalla describes as “more intimate” in-person events such as dinners or social gatherings with prospects and customers that are designed to complement bigger marketing initiatives like trade shows.
Knak is aiming to stage more of these types of smaller, more targeted get-togethers with would-be clients, Ujjainwalla explained. He said he also wants Knak to launch a user conference in the near future, “and I think (Delevante-Moulen) is the perfect person to help us with that.”
“Everything is going digital, but there’s nothing like meeting someone in person,” Ujjainwalla added. “I think that’s where you build the relationships, and that’s what can differentiate you from your competitors.”
Delevante-Moulen is the latest high-profile executive hire for Knak in its quest to join the elite group of local companies with $100 million or more in ARR that includes Solace, software firm Assent and just a handful of others.
Late last year, the company – whose board of advisers also includes former Solace CEO Les Rechan – brought veteran U.S.-based sales executive Greg LeNeveu on board as chief revenue officer. LeNeveu, who heads Knak’s sales team, will have a “super important partnership” with Delevante-Moulen as the two work in lockstep to grow Knak’s customer base, Ujjainwalla said.
The firm’s new CMO has “worked with a lot of sales leaders and she knows how to partner with them really well,” he said, adding he thinks the pair will “push each other in healthy ways” to help Knak reach its revenue goals.
“I think they’re going to be a good match,” Ujjainwalla said.
The latest marquee addition to the firm’s C-suite also comes amid ongoing trade tensions between Canada and Knak’s most important market.
Ujjainwalla said U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff campaign hasn’t slowed Knak’s momentum yet. But the proud Canadian entrepreneur said the last thing he wants to see is a further escalation of the trade war.
“I hope that both governments can figure out a way to get us back to where we were as good trading partners,” he said. “We wouldn’t be where we’re at without our American customer base. If we just sold to Canadians, we (wouldn’t) have a company.”
