CallFire Appoints Former NetZero Co-Founder CEO

CallFire, the Santa Monica-based cloud-based voice and text platform that enables businesses to reach dozens-to-millions of customers directly and in real-time, announced Friday that former NetZero CEO and co-founder Ron Burr has been named CallFire CEO. Burr joined CallFire as its chief revenue officer in 2012, and has been instrumental in expanding the company’s footprint into new markets and helping to drive 100 perceent year-on-year growth and strong profitability from 2012-2013.

“As an internet industry pioneer who founded and led multiple leading internet companies to highly successful market positions, Ron was the right person to help introduce CallFire to the business community and grow our footprint in multiple markets,” said Komnieve Singh, president and co-founder, CallFire. “We are thrilled that Ron is now stepping up to the chief executive position — helping to further scale the business as we move to the next phase of growth.”

Burr co-founded NetZero and saw it through early growth to its dominant position as one of the world’s largest publicly traded Internet service providers. He holds nine Internet technology patents in interactive marketing, telecom services and digital media. His long career in the technology industry includes both operational and investment roles, serving in leadership positions at WebVisible, LRN, Westlake Venture Partners, Layer2 Networks, and Vault Corporation. Burr regularly serves as an advisor and board member to technology companies, and currently works with both TuneGO and PetNet.

“I am grateful for the opportunity to continue to succeed on the path charted by founders Dinesh Ravishankar, Komnieve Singh, TJ Thinikaran, Vijesh Mehta, and Punit Shah,” said Burr. “Through their leadership and innovation, CallFire is well on its way to reaching our goal of helping any organization, of any size, communicate directly with customers, students, and other citizens, at any time. I look forward to lending my expertise to help drive continued growth.”

Recently classified as a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC), CallFire can now enable direct voice or text communications, or can transmit messages through other established telecom carriers. The company recently reached 200,000 customers (including AllState, Public Storage, Pepsi and others), 200 million campaigns, and has enabled over 1.5 billion calls since the company was founded.

CallFire’s cloud calling and texting technologies are available through developer APIs and a self-service platform.