Quark Celebrates 40 Years in Business, Announces New CEO and Mission

Quark's new CEO, Martin Owen, is repositioning the company for serious growth by delivering content design, automation and intelligence as part of closed-loop content lifecycle management.

Quark is celebrating 40 years in business and has a new CEO at the helm. Since 1981, the company has been a pioneer in graphic design, digital publishing and content automation. Today, Quark's goal is to help customers with closed-loop content lifecycle management, including content design, automation and intelligence.

Martin Owen, who joined Quark in May as the new CEO, has reorganized and repositioned the organization for rapid growth. He has prioritized building a new leadership team, streamlining Quark's product portfolio - which includes flagship graphic design and digital publishing software QuarkXPress - and reengineering and refocusing product management and support to ensure customer success. New investments also have been made in marketing for rebranding, redesigning the website, and demand generation.

With almost 35 years of experience in the technology sector, most recently as CEO of enterprise architecture company Corso and then as senior vice president of product strategy for data governance company erwin, Inc., Martin is drawing heavily on his expertise in product management, go-to-market strategy, and customer relations - not to mention his competitive nature as a former rugby player.

Martin has helped organizations catapult their revenue by expanding from a single solution to integrated, multi-product platforms. And his reputation for product development, from ideation to rollout, will serve Quark well in helping customers realize the benefits of both brilliant design and automating the processes involved in managing, collaborating, publishing, delivering and analyzing their content assets.

The case for content lifecycle management

According to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), 81% of organizations view content as a core business strategy, up from 72% in 2020. But content isn't easy or cost-effective to produce, doesn't always yield the intended results, and can be difficult to locate within large enterprises that use numerous, unaggregated systems.

In addition, organizations like banking and investment firms, pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers are required to produce copious amounts of complex documents, from research reports and technical data sheets to standard operating procedures and product manuals. Without a content management strategy, assets may never be used properly if at all. In fact, research from Forrester indicated that 77% of B2B marketing organizations report significant challenges with content activation with internal and external audiences.

Quark's software solutions help confront the content challenges described above. QuarkXPress is used for page layout, graphics and illustrations, photo editing and digital publishing. Quark Publishing Platform is used for structured authoring, component management and omnichannel publishing, and Quark Docurated is for content curation, delivery and analysis. Together, these solutions make it possible to manage content assets throughout their lifecycle, from creation through publishing and delivery with insights about use and engagement that can be factored into revisions or retirements.

To deliver on the various use cases for our software products, Quark is working on new roadmaps and product integrations that will enhance our SaaS, AI and ML capabilities. We also are planning to expand sales in the United States and Europe and product management and customer support in Europe, plus we're expanding our strategic alliances and partner programs to strengthen offerings to such heavily regulated industries as financial services, healthcare and legal.

Brilliant content that works your way

As a marketing professional for almost 30 years, I'm confident in claiming that content drives modern business. Therefore, it has to reach customers, partners and employees in the right format, at the right time, and in the right place according to an organization's unique industry and brand requirements.

Quark provides the solutions organizations need to inform, educate or entertain their audiences to produce the desired results - whether that's furnishing regulators with compliance documentation, equipping employees with standard operating procedures, or entertaining subscribers with a digital magazine.

Our goal is to make Quark the essential component for brilliant content - brilliant in terms of design aesthetic, brilliant in terms of strategic business use, and brilliant in terms of intelligence to improve performance.

We want our software at your fingertips so when your "a-ha" moments occur, you can produce content that results in your desired outcomes. We also want to help you share your content with the world through omnichannel publishing and delivery at scale. And finally, we want to help you know that your content works by resonating with your key audiences.

We're grateful for the customers who've been loyal to us during these last four decades and look forward to working with new users who need "brilliant content that works" their way. And that just happens to be our new tagline.

Bunny Tharpe is vice president of marketing at Quark.

Copied to clipboard

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.