Brightloom Announces New Executive Hires

Brightloom, an all-in-one customer experience and engagement platform for restaurant brands, announced two new hires to their executive team. Ben Straley joins as President and Chief Product Officer, and Brian Zimmer joins as Chief Technology Officer.

Straley joins Brightloom from Amazon, where he led the worldwide deals business and outbound marketing channels. Prior to Amazon, he led Global Digital Products at Starbucks and was responsible for customer-facing product strategy, design, and engineering of the Starbucks digital flywheel platform including mobile ordering, payment and loyalty.

Zimmer has spent the past 10 years at The Climate Corporation as the Vice President of Engineering, where he led software and hardware engineering and the development of Climate FieldView, a leading agricultural tech data platform.

This announcement comes on the heels of Brightloom’s rebrand, deal with Starbucks and $30M funding announcement led by Tao Capital Partners and Valor Equity Partners along with Starbucks licensees, including Alshaya Group and Alsea.

Under the leadership of these two new hires, Brightloom prepares to roll out its cloud-based software-as-a-service platform to Starbucks licensees around the world and to the broader restaurant industry. With key components of Starbucks technology integrated into the platform, Brightloom brings the digital flywheel approach to the restaurant industry and enables brands to connect with their customers through a seamless combination of mobile engagement, loyalty, omni-channel digital ordering and data science-as-a-service.