Parloa, which provides AI-powered automation for customer service, announced two additions to its U.S.-based team. The appointments included Frank Benson (director of strategic accounts) and Dorothy Copeland (SVP of partner ecosystem). The hires underscore Parloa’s growth trajectory and commitment to U.S. expansion as a key market for the company.
Both bring decades of experience in high-growth technology companies, and will be based out of Parloa’s New York City office.
Benson has held executive positions with Nuance Communications, where he spent 22 years, and Microsoft, which acquired the company in 2023. Benson would then stay on as senior director of sales, with a focus on contact center AI. He also led a series of strategic initiatives to increase market share and revenue.
“With Parloa, I have the unique opportunity to bring an innovative AI solution to the U.S. market that can reinvent the customer experience for enterprises, solving many of the pain points they’ve been struggling with for years,” said Benson. “Parloa is leading the charge in the generative AI era with its AI Agent Management Platform, built on Microsoft Azure AI, a valued technology partner. I believe in Parloa’s ‘voice-first’ approach and look forward to making an immediate impact.”
Copeland, meanwhile, sports deep experience in the tech industry as an entrepreneurial-minded, versatile business executive and board director with a background in sales, operations, strategy and alliances. She has worked for Stripe, AWS and IBM, having built the AWS and Stripe partner ecosystems from the ground up by deploying programs that scaled to support tens of thousands of partners, building worldwide partner sales and technical teams.
“In today’s enterprise technology world, no one company succeeds alone. I’m looking forward to building out Parloa’s long-term partnership ecosystem to drive international growth,” said Copeland. ”With Parloa offering the most advanced conversational AI for customer experience, there is a significant business opportunity for partners of all sizes to build AI-powered solutions and services on top of the Parloa platform. In my new role as SVP of global partner ecosystem, I’ll spearhead the expansion of existing partnerships and establish new partner programs worldwide.”
The hires also follows Parloa’s recent addition of Alexander Matthey as CTO.
“Parloa is building a team of the most successful leaders. We’re recruiting people from some of the biggest technology firms across the globe based on the power of our technology and our culture to help us scale operations as we enter our next significant phase of growth,” said Malte Kosub, co-founder and CEO, Parloa. “We’re honored to have two highly-accomplished sales professionals leading key components of our U.S. growth strategy. Bringing in Frank, with his prior experience at Nuance and Microsoft, will strengthen our partnership with Microsoft in the AI Agent sector. Dorothy’s experience will be crucial as we gain more traction with our technology and channel sales partners.”
