The two hires follow Rep Data’s acquisition of Research Defender, announced last month (October).

Based in New York, Gardner (pictured, left) was most recently chief financial officer at business education startup Section.

Prior to that, Gardner held finance leadership roles at survey platform Pollfish and business intelligence platform L2.

Croft (pictured, right), based in Rep Data’s New Orleans headquarters, will focus on the company’s set of software products. 

During his career, Croft has worked in sales ranging from direct marketing to enterprise software. Within marketing research, he previously launched the partner sales function at Lucid, prior to its sale to Cint.

Patrick Stokes, founder and chief executive, Rep Data, said: “These two highly experienced professionals, Karen and Riley, add tremendous value to our core mission of improving the sample ecosystem within the marketing research industry.”