Foursquare continues to make executive moves as it advances its position as a location data powerhouse. The firm announced this week that it has appointed Oren Teich as its new SVP of product. In that role, Teich will oversee Foursquare’s product portfolio and report directly to CEO Gary Little.
Teich has more than twenty years of experience in the software world. This most recently includes a four-year run at Google where he served as a director of product development, leading products like Cloud Run and App Engine. He joined Google after it acquired Canvas, which he co-founded in 2014.
“Oren has deep experience building developer and enterprise software,” Foursquare CEO Gary Little said in a statement. “By adding Oren’s talents to our growing bench of technical leaders, Foursquare is better equipped than ever to expand our industry-leading location technology.”
Power Play
Teich’s appointment comes as Foursquare continues to pull ahead in location intelligence. As we’ve examined, the name of the game is quality and quantity of data sources and data science. Foursquare has buttressed these assets through a power play that includes acquiring Placed and Factual.
The appointment also comes as the art of location intelligence continues to evolve. Moreover, it continues to broaden in applicability and addressable market. Following a longstanding trend, location intelligence has gone from primary deployment in marketing to a range of other enterprise functions.
Those incude everything from logistics and operations to hedge fund research. The latter involves equity investors using foot traffic patterns to estimate revenues ahead of quarterly earnings for retail giants like Walmart. That replaces the practice of counting cars in parking lots via satellite.
Another emerging use case is augmented reality. As we discussed with Foursquare’s Ankit Patel at Localogy 2021, geo-local AR involves pointing your phone at real-world places and things to bring them to life, including business details (a.k.a. visual search). This use case relies heavily on place data.
Hit the Ground Running
As all of the above location intelligence endpoints continue to materialize, Teich is positioned to translate opportunities into product execution. He’ll take over the role immediately from Josh Cohen, who will stay with Foursquare until the end of the year. That way Teich hits the 2022-ground running.
“Foursquare’s experience as a pioneer in the industry, its broad portfolio, and its acquisitions, mergers, and innovations all add up to a huge opportunity,” he said.
