Why Foursquare can change the world

My headline is a bit forward, so let me start by taking a quick step back: I am proud to announce that I am now Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at Foursquare.

I officially joined the team just last week and we are already off to the races. I am excited to be a part of the leading technology platform that powers new innovations around location for thousands of tech giants including Apple, Samsung, Twitter, Tinder and Uber; that drives location-based advertising, insights and measurements for more than half of Ad Age’s leading advertisers; and that famously used foot traffic data to predict company earnings.

I’m here because of my hybrid background in SaaS software and marketing, which crosses both parts of Foursquare’s mix as a technology platform for developers as well as a media and measurement platform for advertisers. I have led meaningful growth as chief revenue officer at several companies including BazaarVoice, Sizmek and Parade Media Group.

(There are many analogies between my work at Bazaarvoice — where we enabled better shopping experiences via SaaS software and a UGC database for e-commerce brands, paired with a media business — with that of Foursquare, where Pilgrim allows developers and publishers to create personalized experiences for consumers, alongside Foursquare’s analytics, insights, targeting and measurement solutions.)

All that to say, my past CRO tenures, plus time at Yahoo, Time Inc, and Interbrand, ignited a passion for working with creators, publishers, brands and agencies in an intensely consultative and strategic way.

And yet the real reason that I’m here is because I believe that Foursquare can change the world.

Hear me out. Today over 90% of consumer spending — and over 90% of the most memorable experiences in life — take place in the real world, not the digital world. And Foursquare connects the digital with the physical worlds, with precision and accuracy that help brands build smarter, more relevant messaging and experiences. We do it using the analytics of human movement.

So what is my first priority as CRO? Client centricity. Foursquare needs to deepen our connection with our partners: explaining to business leaders why it’s critical to leverage more than a single Foursquare solution — be it ad campaigns with Pinpoint, measurement with Attribution, or location-based CRM and messaging with our Pilgrim SDK and Places API — by taking all of these parts together and connecting the dots. Foursquare is more and more about bundling technology licensing, mapping capabilities, and marketing optimization in a suite of solutions. It’s the reason I joined, to help lead the team into packaging these broad “solution sets” for leading organizations and brands.

As a leader and synthesizer, my first step is to listen. In the coming weeks, I’ll be diving deep with the strong team at Foursquare that has driven 50%+ revenue growth over each of the past three years, as well as our clients, to understand how we can better align our processes and products, working hand-in-hand to serve their most pressing needs and helping them to propel their businesses forward.

One of the company’s core values is to “Invent the Future,” and it’s amazing to be here teaming up with everyone to do just that. We believe our work will not be done until every company, every experience is smartly personalized, contextually relevant and based on a deeper understanding of what users value in their lives.

Foursquare’s business is in a pivotal place as we build, grow and create customer cohesion. The opportunity is ripe, and the time is now.