Seattle spam-call blockers Hiya add Salesforce President and CMO Sarah Franklin to board

Sarah Franklin. (Hiya photo)

Hiya, the Seattle-based startup whose technology helps block unsolicited spam and fraud calls, has Salesforce President and CMO. added Sarah Franklin its board of directors, the company announced on Thursday.

Franklin has been with San Francisco-based Salesforce for 13 years, where she was also executive vice president and general manager of Platform and AppExchange for the company. She was with Amazon Web Services for a brief period in 2013 and has worked for a number of smaller start-ups with a focus on emerging technologies and marketing strategies.

“Sarah has a unique mix of technical knowledge and business acumen, ranging from large corporations to gruff startups, and her strategic leadership will be invaluable to our continued growth and success, especially with large corporate clients,” Alex Algard , CEO and founder of Hiya, said in a press release. “As we want to create a better voice experience for everyone, Sarah is the perfect person to make sure we continue to think big and bring products to market that change voice calling.”

Hiya added nearly 50 million new monthly active users to its network last year, serving 180 million users worldwide. During that time, the company has grown its global corporate customer base by more than 115%.

The company topped Forbe’s list of the best places to work for startups for 2021 and was a finalist for Workplace of the Year at the GeekWire Awards 2021.

“I am very excited to be joining the board at this point in the development of Hiya. They have a great product, a strong value proposition, tremendous market opportunity and most importantly, a great team, ”Franklin said in a statement. “Hiya addresses a major pain point for businesses and consumers alike, and I look forward to working with the team to continue its rapid growth with large corporate clients.”

Hiya also announced a few more staff moves on Thursday:

• Bill McAleer joins the board of directors. Voyager Capital’s chief executive officer led Voyager’s investment in Zipwhip, which Twilio acquired earlier this year.
• Aaron Martin was added as Chief Financial Officer. Previously, he was CFO of the cloud-based travel technology company Yapta, which was acquired by Coupa Software in 2019.