Digital marketing technology company Orbee has appointed co-founder Atul Patel as its new chief executive officer.

Patel, who recently served as the company’s chief operating officer, replaces Daniel Kim, who was the CEO since he co-founded the company with Patel.

The company said Patel and Kim have worked together for the past five years to build Orbee into an automotive industry marketing services provider.

Kim will continue as a member of the company’s board of directors.

Patel’s 20 years of marketing and advertising technology experience includes building businesses in lead management and scoring, advertising across display, video, and social channels, and behavioral data and intelligence.

Late last year, Verisk acquired Jornaya, a data company Patel co-founded. Patel co-invented the company’s core intellectual property. Verisk acquired the company to add to its set of marketing services for the insurance and financial services markets.

“Patel is passionate about the same digital transformation in the automotive industry and is driven to bring the most cutting-edge marketing capabilities to the ecosystem,” Orbee wrote in a news release.

Orbee last September announced the appointment of Peter Fong as chief revenue officer, and the company said Patel and Fong have worked closely over the past six months to introduce Orbee’s offerings to the broader automotive ecosystem, including large dealership groups, media agencies, and strategic integration partners.

“Atul has proven to be a digital marketing thought-leader in the automotive industry that I have called home for over 26 years,” Fong said. “He is able to decode complex scenarios in our ever-changing digital landscape while working closely with our entire team to execute for the success of our customers and partners.”

“I am thrilled to be leading the amazing Orbee team in the nascent automotive industry where the tiered structure and disparate integrations provide significant opportunity for digital marketing innovation,” Patel said.

Patel also said, “This is a critical time for improving consumer experience because of the fundamental changes underway in automotive such as with digital retailing, dealers having to compete with direct-to-consumer services, and manufacturers launching improved new car buying tools for consumers, and beyond automotive with new privacy-first business models with Google’s Federated Learning of Cohorts (FloC) and Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT).”

Orbee said its aggressive product roadmap includes its Tier X service for large dealership groups and its capabilities for large and niche agencies using its platform APIs and SDKs to better serve their customers.

Orbee sourced eMarketer as reporting in January that automotive companies will recover to nearly $13.29 billion in advertising spending. Orbee said it is well-positioned to help the industry balance the investment with intelligent marketing capabilities.

Patel and the Orbee team have already completed a significant amount of the transition. As of April 2021, the predecessor California corporation, Sparki Labs Inc. D/B/A Orbee Auto, has merged with the surviving Delaware corporation, Orbee, Inc.

Also, complemented by its new logo, the company has been rebranded from Orbee Auto to Orbee. The company said that signifies how its automotive products and services are relevant to the broader digital marketing landscape.