Podium, a leading customer messaging platform for local businesses, announced the appointment of John Foreman as chief product officer and Tim Milliron as executive vice president of engineering. These executive appointments come on the heels of other recent key hires as Podium continues to scale and modernize the way that business happens on a local level for more than 90,000 businesses.

“John and Tim have some of the sharpest minds for driving product success in the industry, and we feel very fortunate to bring their outstanding experience to our team,” said Eric Rea, co-founder and CEO at Podium. “In recent months, we’ve introduced several talented people with specialized knowledge in critical areas of growth for us in the coming year. At this crucial point in time for many local businesses, we’re looking forward to the impact that these new hires will help drive.”

Foreman joins Podium from his most recent post as the chief product officer at Mailchimp, where he started in 2011 as the chief data scientist, working his way up until he was guiding all product strategy and operations. His background includes authoring a book on demystifying data processes along with analytics work for large businesses (Coke, Royal Caribbean, Intercontinental Hotels) and the government (DoD, IRS, DHS).

“Having seen Podium grow from a reviews product to a robust interaction management platform, I’m looking forward to helping drive the next phase in its product evolution,” said Foreman. “Eric and the team have put together an amazing company, and I can’t wait to be a part of what’s next.”

Tim Milliron joins Podium from his most recent role as vice president of engineering at TripActions, where he led development at three international sites and helped drive product strategy and direction. With a background that includes key positions at some of Silicon Valley’s most innovative companies, Milliron was executive vice president of product development at Lytro and continued leading multi-site engineering teams at Google following its 2018 acquisition of Lytro. Before that, he held engineering and product leadership positions at Twilio and worked for over a decade at Pixar as a technical director and director of engineering. He graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University with a bachelor’s degree in computer science.

“Podium’s products have always been game-changers for our customers, enabling them to realize their business vision in new ways,” said Milliron. “I’m incredibly bullish on Podium’s vision to empower businesses to reach and interact with their customers like never before.”

These new additions follow Podium introducing Gyre Renwick as its new chief revenue officer in June 2020. Renwick joined following long stints at Lyft as vice president of Lyft Business, and Google, as head of industry for healthcare. 

Podium also introduced several other executives recently, including:

• Hally Pinaud, head of product marketing; Former head of product marketing at Gainsight
• Omar Nagji, senior vice president of strategic sales; Former vice president of enterprise at Alto Pharmacy
• Tasha Bishop, executive vice president of customer success; Former vice president of customer success at Smartsheet

For more information about how Podium can help local businesses maximize online reviews, visit www.podium.com.