Aaron Shapiro is a marketing and technology executive who has over twenty years of experience building, scaling and leading high-growth companies. He is currently founder and CEO of Dayforward, a venture-backed insurance software and services company, was founder and CEO of Huge, a global marketing agency that was sold to IPG, and founder and CEO of Silverpop, a marketing automation software-as-service acquired by IBM.

His current company, Dayforward, is a proprietary software platform and suite of services that automates the sale and management of life and annuity insurance products. The company is financially backed by Northwestern Mutual, MunichRE, Hudson Structured, and other leaders in the insurance space.

Prior to Dayforward, Aaron spent 13 years as founder and CEO of Huge, a technology-driven marketing agency. During his tenure, he grew the firm from a small startup to a global organization spanning 1,500 employees and 12 offices worldwide, eventually selling the company to IPG. Huge achieved organic growth of 30% a year over a decade, making it the fastest-growing agency in the United States.

As part of Huge’s growth, Aaron built a cross-disciplinary organization that included a 400-person full-stack technology development unit; one of the largest and most-awarded creative and user experience groups in the world; specialized disciplines across management consulting, brand strategy and integrated communications; and a second agency, Elephant, which grew to 200 employees. Under Aaron’s leadership, Huge worked with approximately half of the Fortune 100 and was responsible for many groundbreaking marketing and technology initiatives including: the creation and launch of Zelle, a P2P payments service for the seven largest U.S. banks; the creation and launch of Marcus by Goldman Sachs, a new consumer bank; the redesign of Apple.com; omnichannel commerce solutions for Nike, Four Seasons Hotels, Gucci, Lowe’s Home Improvement, Google and McDonald’s; media platforms such as HBO, Hulu and TED; new technology products for LG, Intel and Samsung; and the marketing of emerging brands such as Casper, Lyft and Rocket Mortgage, which included Superbowl commercials. As a result, Huge has been named MediaPost Agency of the Year, Digiday Most Innovative Agency and a member of the AdAge A-List, among other awards.

Before Huge, Aaron was founder and CEO of Silverpop, a leading marketing automation SaaS that was acquired by IBM and became the IBM Watson Campaign Automation Suite. To launch the company, Aaron raised $35M in venture funding. He developed the company’s core technology, authored its key patents, and built a 100-person engineering division. He was an early pioneer of the software-as-service cloud-based business model, building a marketing and enterprise sales organization and approach that reached much of Fortune 500.

In addition to his work at Dayforward, Aaron is Chairman of Product Holdings, where he incubates and invests in new solutions for marketers. This includes co-founding Product Studio, an AI consultancy; Riverdrop, an AI-driven casual games platform used by The Associated Press, Gannett, PBS and other media companies; and Honey, an employee intranet software-as-service that was acquired by BambooHR. He is the author of Users, Not Customers (Portfolio/Penguin) and a contributor to publications including McKinsey Quarterly, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Adweek, The Economist, and Forbes. Aaron has been named to Crain’s New York Business’ "40 Under 40", MediaPost’s Creative All Stars, and one of the 100 People Who Make Advertising Great by the 4As, among other awards.

He received an MBA from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business and a BA in Economics from Harvard University. Aaron lives in New York with his wife and three children.

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