Fast-growing Appia, a developer of marketplaces for developers to sell their “apps,” is beefing up its executive ranks with Tim Oakley coming on board as chief financial officer.

Oakley, who served as CFO at email marketing firm iContact, is Appia’s first CFO.

Although Appia does have an existing team of financial executives, founder and Chief Executive Officer Jud Bowman says the “time was right” to hire a CFO because the company is growing so quickly.

While Bowman won’t talk in specific terms about the finances of the venture capital-backed firm, he did say revenues tripled in 2012 and are on track for even more growth in 2013.

Oakley has more than 20 years of experience in finance and has deep roots in the Triangle. He worked at OpenSite Technologies as CFO before it was acquired by Siebel Systems for $542 million in 2000. He also was CFO at CipherTrust, a company that was acquired by Secure Computing for $274 million.

iContact was sold in 2012 to Vocus for $169 million, and Oakley stayed with the firm for several months until the transition was completed. Vocus maintains a presence in the Triangle.