Chris Happ Joins MarketTime as CEO

June 3, 2021  by Laurie Northington in Business Strategy, Industry   

Happ is responsible for all aspects of sales, marketing, and executive leadership for MarketTime and its industry-leading software solutions uniting manufacturers, sales teams and retailers in the gift, home, toy, apparel and accessories, housewares, and outdoor living industries.

Happ joins MarketTime with a successful track record of building innovative technology companies from the ground up. He is a proven entrepreneur having built two highly successful startups, raising venture funding, and formulating an exit to a public global B2B marketplace. Along the way, he cultivated deep experience developing SaaS platforms and building large-scale B2B networks that will be invaluable to his role guiding MarketTime.

“Chris is not just a digital innovator and visionary entrepreneur, he is a team leader able to grow companies quickly and to create tremendous value for customers,” said Michael Levy, CEO of Dallas-based Crow Holdings, which is an equity partner with MarketTime. “His mind-set and experience are well-calibrated with MarketTime’s foundation and its momentum. Adding to the leadership of this company is a natural extension of our investments in marketplaces worldwide and this role will help bridge the physical and online marketplaces.”

Happ has previously served as co-founder and investor in Goby, a disrupter in the ESG and FinTech industries, where he built the first cloud-based SaaS platform as a service model in its space, raised multiple rounds of financing, and built a customer base to include Fortune 500 companies. As co-founder of blueSolutions, which was acquired by Hubwoo in 2008, he acted as CEO and CRO, growing the business while eventually exiting to the leading public global petrochemical marketplace. At Ariba (ARBA), he worked closely with Apple SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi in building the world's largest B2B network, Ariba Network, with 195 million items and a $50 billion annual spend. While in leadership at Empirian he built a SaaS offering connecting pharmacies with patients to lower prescription drug costs. And while serving at PwC he built the world's largest B2B vertical, Covisint, with 85,000 companies and 500,000 users.

“MarketTime’s solution, timing, and momentum are excellent, and I’m thrilled to join the company,” said Happ. “There are three elements that set MarketTime apart: its solution, global marketplace, and team. I have evaluated MarketTime’s solution including architecture, capabilities, and scalability. As well, I have reviewed and evaluated competitive options and visited with several existing customers of MarketTime. It’s clearly the most robust and respected digital platform serving the wholesale industry. The marketplace is equally compelling: the existing international network of physical marketplaces owned and managed by Crow Holdings will quickly enable a virtual connection and exchange of goods across continents, which is extraordinary. Finally, in addition to the experienced team in Dallas we are fortunate to have 35 senior software analysts, fully-dedicated to growing the platform inside our MarketTime operating center in India, who provide real-time support and changes at the speed of need.”

The MarketTime platform has been adopted by both Dallas Market Center and the Brussels Trade Mart as proprietary international platforms for linking buyers and sellers together in virtual marketplaces. Brussels Trade Mart and Dallas Market Center share common ownership via Dallas-based Crow Holdings and have collaborated over the years exchanging ideas, operating philosophies and best practices. Additional global marketplaces and omnichannel partners for MarketTime will be announced at a later date.

Happ will work closely with MarketTime founder and president Hemal Patel, who added: “I’m pleased to welcome Chris to the team. His experience is exactly what we need. I’ve built a loyal customer community of more than 80,000 users across many industries by creating solutions that are intuitive, powerful, flexible and scalable. Chris will elevate our strategy to scale up and reach wide in order to deliver the best technology built by the industry for the industry.”