At Firstup, we believe that meaningful transitions happen at moments of opportunity—when a company is positioned for success. Today marks such a moment as we welcome Bill Schuh as our new CEO, effective June 17, 2025. This transition represents an exciting new chapter in Firstup’s journey to transform how organizations connect with and activate their entire workforces.
Reflecting on Nicole Alvino’s leadership
Since taking the helm as CEO more than three years ago, Nicole Alvino has transformed Firstup into a market-leader in workforce communication. Under her visionary leadership, Firstup has grown to serve millions of employees across global organizations, achieved $100M in ARR, and evolved from an internal communications platform into a broader workforce orchestration solution.
Nicole led the successful launch of breakthrough product innovations, including CommunicationsAI and Journey Orchestration, establishing Firstup as the platform CEOs rely on to drive business performance. Her unwavering commitment to our mission—improving the employee experience at every moment that matters—has created a solution that truly makes work better for every worker.
“I set a much bigger goal for us—to build upon our platform internal comms—to solve our vision of making work better for every worker,” Nicole reflected. “Our recent release of Journeys and unlocking the market for Workforce Orchestration makes this solution a must-have for CEOs. For me, it marks a significant milestone in realizing my vision for the company.”
– Nicole Alvino, Founder & Chairwoman
Nicole’s transition to Chairwoman of the Board allows her to focus on what she does best—supporting the company’s vision and nurturing the key customer relationships central to our success
Introducing Bill Schuh: a proven enterprise software leader
Bill brings what Firstup needs for our next phase of growth. With a proven track record of scaling enterprise software companies, Bill understands the complexities of serving global organizations and delivering value to customers at scale.
Most recently, Bill served as Chief Revenue Officer at Anaplan, where he led the company’s growth from $450 million to over $1 billion in ARR. Prior to Anaplan, he spent four years at Medallia as EVP of Global Industry Sales. He previously served as Chief Sales Officer at Sunrun, and helped lead both Medallia and Sunrun to successful public offerings.
Bill shares our conviction that when organizations connect with and engage their entire workforce, especially frontline employees who are often overlooked, it transforms business performance and people’s lives.
In his message to our customers, Bill emphasized his commitment to building on our strong foundation:
“I am passionate about the problem Firstup addresses—driving hyper-personalized communication, engagement, and activation across the extended workforces of large organizations.
Having worked with enterprise customers throughout my career, I’ve seen firsthand how challenging it is to drive real change at scale and how difficult it is to reach and engage employees, especially the frontline staff who are essential to organizational performance.
Firstup’s workforce orchestration platform addresses this in a way that no other solution can.”
-Bill Schuh, Chief Executive Officer
Continuity and growth: what this means for our customers
For our customers, we do not expect this transition to affect the way you work with us. It will be “business as usual” as we focus on delivering value to you.
Your account teams, support structures, and implementation timelines remain unchanged. All existing contracts and renewal processes continue as usual, with the same commitment to your success that has defined our partnerships to date.
Bill’s experience building customer success programs that deliver measurable outcomes will strengthen our ability to help you turn strategy into action across your workforce and to deliver results for your organization. Bill plans to spend significant time with customers, to understand your evolving needs, and to ensure that we continue delivering the business outcomes that matter most to you.
A shared vision for the future
Organizations worldwide recognize that workforce activation—the ability to effectively engage employees and drive action at scale—is critical to executing strategic initiatives and maintaining competitive advantage.
Under Bill’s leadership, Firstup is positioned to accelerate the adoption of our AI-powered workforce orchestration capabilities. Our platform already reaches millions of employees across global brands including Boeing, Boston Children’s, Colgate-Palmolive, Swissport, and Tesco, and we’re committed to helping even more organizations unlock the full potential of their workforce.
Looking forward
As Nicole shared with our team, “Firstup has been my 4th child, and like with my 3 boys, I believe my role as a parent is to ensure they thrive on their own when it’s time. Now it is Firstup’s time to fly without me as CEO. I’ve given you what you need to soar and thrive.”
With a strong foundation, innovative products like Journey Orchestration, and now Bill leading the company as CEO, Firstup is ready to capture the full potential of workforce orchestration in the market.
We’re excited about what lies ahead and grateful for the partnerships that have brought us to this moment. Consistent business performance requires that organizations can effectively connect with and engage their people, and we’re honored to be your partner in making that vision a reality.
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