NGP VAN’s new vice president of marketing and nonprofit sales is John Brougher, the company announced Wednesday. Brougher comes to the Democratic technology provider after a short stint at NationBuilder, the company headed by Jim Gilliam.
There has been no love lost between the two companies of late. Last month, Gilliam penned an email accusing NGP VAN of “bullying” NationBuilder clients and attempting to prevent them from importing data into NationBuilder.
In response, NGP VAN CEO Stu Trevelyan denied the allegation and said NationBuilder was simply looking to “manufacture a fight with NGP VAN, possibly as a means of marketing NationBuilder.”
Despite the recent dust up, a source with knowledge of the timing of the hire tells us that Brougher was offered the gig at NGP VAN before Gilliam sent the aforementioned email.
Prior to his stint with NationBuilder, which lasted just about a month, according to a source at the company, Brougher managed political and corporate sales for Salsa Labs. During the 2010 cycle, Brougher ran the online operation for the Democratic Governors Association.
“We’ve known John for a long time and, like a lot of other people, we respect and like him,” says Stu Trevelyan, NGP VAN’s CEO. “He’s one of the top progressive communications professionals in the movement.”