SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 18, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Firstup, the pioneer of intelligent communication and engagement platforms for the workforce, today announced the appointment of two proven leaders: Vinod Malhotra as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Jen Franklin as Senior Vice President, Customer Value.
These leaders bring superb track records in engineering excellence, agentic and generative AI, and customer success within the HR technology and employee experience landscapes, and with leading SaaS companies more broadly. Their expertise will support Firstup’s continued focus on innovation and customer value, ensuring that the company’s investments in technology help organizations unlock the full potential of their workforce communications – turning strategic and business imperatives into action and impact.
Moving Innovation Forward
Vinod Malhotra will be in charge of Firstup’s Engineering, AI/ML, CloudOps, and Support teams as CTO. His job is to make sure that the company’s platform is always available and can grow, that AI capabilities are improved, and that new products are brought to market while keeping quality and customer trust.
Bill Schuh, CEO of Firstup, said, “Vinod joins at an important time for Firstup.” “As we work toward our goal of building a company of consequence and delivering lasting value to our customers, his experience and focus on products will help us stay ahead of the competition in this market.”
Malhotra has been a global leader in product and engineering for more than 25 years. He has led revolutionary development and innovation at BlackLine, where revenues grew significantly, at Perceptyx, where AI innovations won awards, and at Tally Solutions, where revenues grew by more than 150 percent year over year.
Increasing Customer Value and Use
Jen Franklin is the Senior Vice President of Customer Value at Firstup. She will manage the company’s worldwide Customer Value team to get more people to use the Firstup platform and make real commercial results.
“Jen knows a lot about how to create value for customers. She is an expert in employee engagement and experience and is very passionate about the business problems we solve for our customers,” added Schuh. “Her leadership will help us make sure that we build and carry out a unified go-to-market strategy that brings real value to our global user base and helps our customers succeed.”
Franklin comes to Firstup from Medallia, where she led strategic projects in important areas like Customer Experience, Product, and Sales, as well as the company’s Employee Experience product lines. Her profound knowledge of the sector is shown by her successful time as a sales leader at top companies like League, Achievers, and Taleo.
Building Blocks for the Future
Just a few weeks ago, Firstup added a few more people to its global executive team. The company keeps putting money into talent and new ideas to make sure that its platform keeps up with client needs and helps them achieve their most important business goals, such more employee engagement, efficiency, productivity, safety, and top-line income.
Schuh stated, “This is a key step in moving our mission forward and setting Firstup up for long-term success.” “Vinod and Jen are in charge of helping our customers, speeding up our innovation roadmap, and changing the way employees talk to and engage with each other.”
About Firstup
Firstup is the best platform for smart communication and engagement that leads to real business results. Firstup is like a “mission control” for workforce communications. It’s made for firms with very crucial frontline workers and makes sure that the appropriate message gets to the right person at the right time. The platform lets you create hyper-personalized, data-driven journeys across all channels (email, mobile, intranet, digital signage, and more), which helps everyone in the business be on the same page, understand things better, and be more involved.
Firstup connects to essential HR, IT, and business systems to cut down on digital noise, bring up useful information, improve the employee experience, and help customers get the most out of their employees and keep them. Firstup changes internal communication into measurable results that big businesses around the world trust.
