NEW YORK — For the second consecutive year, Vishal Padhye, Chief Technology Officer at Critical Mention—the leading all-in-one Earned Media Suite—has been named to PRWeek’s list of the 25 most influential people in communications technology for 2022. This also marks the third consecutive year a Critical Mention executive has made the list, with CEO and President Don Yount having made the list in 2020.
Padhye was promoted to CTO in 2020 in recognition of his contributions to the Critical Mention platform since joining the team in 2013. From the time he arrived at the company, his leadership has resulted in the modernization of over 160 globally-distributed datacenters, using configuration management, distributed networking, datacenter infrastructure management and hardware lifecycle management.
In recent years, Padhye helped oversee the creation of Critical Mention’s Media Contact Database, the launch of Podcast Monitoring, Instagram and YouTube tracking, a Google Analytics integration, additional content sets across all media types and more.
“It is both humbling and flattering to receive this recognition two years in a row,” Padhye said. “As I said last year, this award reflects the work our entire team does every day. From Engineering, to DevOps, to Product, everybody involved in building the Critical Mention Earned Media Suite has done incredible work to get the platform to where it is today.”
The additions to the Critical Mention platform have made a significant impact on the company’s bottom line. In 2021, the company set new historical bests for both new bookings and total revenue. What separates Critical Mention from many of its competitors in the space is that the recent expansion of features and content in the platform have been done entirely by in-house engineering rather than through third-party integrations or acquisitions, creating a more seamless experience for clients.
“I have set ambitious goals for Vishal and the entire technology team at Critical Mention and they continue to deliver,” Yount explained. “It is extremely gratifying to see Vishal recognized for the amazing work he has done. Furthermore, this recognition is further proof that our entire team is 100% committed to meeting the high standards we have set for delivering our best to our clients and to continue offering the best solution possible to the marketplace.”
Critical Mention has no plans to slow down in 2022, with major releases scheduled on the product roadmap. Padhye is looking forward to the challenge.
“As I mentioned last year, this is such an exciting time to be at Critical Mention,” he said. “I am so proud of what we have done and so excited to continue building on our success.”