David Manela — Co-Founder

Hi, I'm David, For over 20 years, I’ve operated at the intersection of strategy, data, and execution helping companies grow fast and efficiently. I started in direct mail in the late ‘90s, moved into digital early, and helped scale businesses through every major shift in customer acquisition. From leading growth at Fiverr pre-IPO to scaling companies from zero to market leader, I’ve seen what works - and what doesn’t - across industries, markets, and business models. Today, I’m the co-founder of Violet, a growth operating system we originally built to help our own teams solve complex scaling problems. Now, we deploy it across B2C and B2B companies facing the most common (and costly) problems in growth: CEOs and CMOs speak different languages when it comes to data. 📌 If CEOs don’t trust the marketing data, budgets get slashed. 📌 If CMOs can’t prove ROI, their voice loses weight in the boardroom. 📌 When CEOs and CMOs rely on different numbers, growth decisions turn into guesswork. I’ve seen this problem cripple: 🔹 $100M+ companies 🔹 VC-backed startups 🔹 PE-backed rollups And the success of SaaS has only made this worse. Instead of unifying data, SaaS tools have created silos. Marketing, finance, and sales all have their own dashboards, their own metrics, and their own definitions of success. Instead of using data to drive decisions, teams waste time debating whose numbers are right. They rely on different metrics from different systems that hide inefficiencies, making it impossible to see what’s actually working. Violet gives teams a single source of truth for their marketing, finance, and sales data - so teams stop arguing over reports and start making real growth decisions. No more guesswork. No more wasted budget. Just clear, data-driven decisions. I don’t post hypotheticals. I talk about what I’ve done, what I’ve seen, and what actually drives revenue. If that’s what you’re here for, stick around.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a SaaS and E-commerce growth strategist with extensive experience in digital marketing.

Location: New York, New York, United States

Experience: 28 yrs 1 mo

Skills

Growth Strategy
Business Intelligence
Digital Marketing
P&l Management
Acquisition Strategy
E-commerce
Luxury Marketing

Career Highlights

20+ years of experience in growth strategy.
Scaled multiple companies to market leadership.
Expert in bridging data gaps between CEOs and CMOs.

Work Experience

Violet Growth

Managing Partner & Co-Founder (2 yrs 2 mos)

Exacti.us

Managing Partner & Co-Founder (8 yrs 4 mos)

Fiverr (Fiverr.com)

Chief Revenue Officer (3 yrs 3 mos)

Executive Vice President (7 mos)

ideeli

Chief Revenue Officer (1 yr 5 mos)

SVP, Strategic Marketing (4 yrs 3 mos)

Vivre, Inc

VP Strategy and Business Development (3 yrs)

VP / Acting COO (1 yr 3 mos)

VP Channel Development (2 yrs 5 mos)

Indulge.com

VP, Catalog (1 yr 5 mos)

L’Art de Vivre, LLC

Operation Manager (2 yrs 1 mo)

Education

MBA at NEOMA Business School

MA at Université de Rouen

David Manela

Co-Founder

New York, New York, United States28 yrs 1 mo experience

Most Likely To SwitchHighly Stable

Key Highlights

20+ years of experience in growth strategy.
Scaled multiple companies to market leadership.
Expert in bridging data gaps between CEOs and CMOs.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a SaaS and E-commerce growth strategist with extensive experience in digital marketing.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

Growth StrategyBusiness IntelligenceDigital MarketingP&l ManagementAcquisition StrategyE-commerceLuxury Marketing

Other Skills

SaaSData AnalysisAnalyticsPerformance MarketingMarketplace ManagementMarketing StrategyStart-upsSEMDigital MediaCatalogsSEOEntrepreneurshipOnline AdvertisingBusiness StrategyStrategic Planning

About

Experience

Violet growth

Managing Partner & Co-Founder

Jan 2024 – Present · 2 yrs 2 mos · Brooklyn, New York, United States · Hybrid

Violet is a SaaS platform with managed BI services and advisory that helps CEOs, CMOs and CFOs invest their next growth dollar for the highest return, while enabling operating teams to improve performance using P&L goals - every day.
Violet is for companies spending more than $10m annually on marketing and sales, with digital as a primary growth channel. Violet is a division of Exactius LLC.

SaaSBusiness IntelligenceData AnalysisGrowth Strategy

Exacti.us

Managing Partner & Co-Founder

Nov 2017 – Present · 8 yrs 4 mos · Greater New York City Area

Exactius de-risks the growth function with two solutions: Violet Growth (Custom Analytics Growth Stack + BI/Engineering + Advisory) and Exactius Growth (adding Activation teams when needed)
Exactius works with companies to solve complex digital marketing challenges and achieve ambitious growth goals.
We bring executive leadership and cross-functional execution teams that can not only form the strategy but can execute and deliver the result.
These teams always include a proven performance marketing CMO, along with campaign and CRM managers, conversion and product managers, data scientists, front/back end developers, and creative teams as necessary. Those teams are supported by a proprietary technology that supports the need for advanced analysis and real-time optimization.
Exactius de-risks the growth function with two solutions:
Violet Growth: Custom analytics stack + BI and engineering firepower
Exactius Growth: On-demand activation teams for critical marketing pushes

Digital MarketingAnalyticsGrowth StrategyPerformance Marketing

Fiverr (fiverr.com)

2 roles

Chief Revenue Officer

Promoted

Jul 2014 – Oct 2017 · 3 yrs 3 mos

World's largest freelance services marketplace for entrepreneurs and small businesses with over 10M services posted since inception and close to 1M monthly transactions.
Reported to CEO. Held top-line P&L responsibility. Direct line responsibilities for Acquisition, Retention, BI, Category Management. Opened and grew New York office.
As Fiverr’s CRO, responsible for defining growth strategy and driving core growth components of the marketplace, including acquisition, engagement, spend and category management strategies.

P&L ManagementAcquisition StrategyMarketplace ManagementBusiness Intelligence

Executive Vice President

Dec 2013 – Jul 2014 · 7 mos

Ideeli

2 roles

Chief Revenue Officer

Promoted

Jul 2012 – Dec 2013 · 1 yr 5 mos

Online retailer featuring limited-time sales of women fashion and home décor brands.
Reported to CEO. Held top-line P&L responsibility. Oversaw the marketing, merchandising, planning and e-commerce functions of ideel. Helped grow the company from a startup to an online retailer of $100M+, earning ideel the title of ‘America’s Fastest Growing Private Company’ from Inc. Magazine.
Acquired by Groupon

E-commerceP&L ManagementMarketing Strategy

SVP, Strategic Marketing

Apr 2008 – Jul 2012 · 4 yrs 3 mos

Vivre, inc

3 roles

VP Strategy and Business Development

Apr 2005 – Apr 2008 · 3 yrs

Luxury lifestyle retailer that offers a meticulously edited collection of the world's finest selections for women, men, children, the home and gifts.
Held top-line P&L responsibility for all direct initiatives. Helped grow the company from a catalogue start-up to a $20M+ multi-channel lifestyle retailer that pioneered luxury marketing online.