Raju Malhotra has been hired as Lithium Technologies’ new chief technology officer where he will lead product development and technology innovation for Lithium’s global R&D investments. Effective immediately, Raju will assume responsibility for leading development for the Lithium engagement platform with a key focus on unifying Lithium’s product capabilities, scaling its infrastructure, and continuing to develop and grow the talent in the R&D team. He will report directly to CEO Rob Tarkoff.
“We are thrilled to have Raju join our leadership team and look forward to the impact his deep expertise will have for our products and, most importantly, for our customers,” said Rob Tarkoff, Lithium president and CEO. “Lithium is at an inflection point as more and more brands turn to us to help them build world-class digital customer experiences, and I’m confident Raju will play an instrumental role in this journey.”
“Lithium is transforming rapidly, and this is an exciting time in the company’s growth trajectory. We have the opportunity to build the first-ever comprehensive digital engagement platform that will harness community and social media management in one core platform. I look forward to leading these efforts and to working closely with the great team of engineers, product managers and designers that have made Lithium what it is today,” said Malhotra.
Malhotra joins Lithium from Conversant, where he led the development of an industry-leading personalization platform for digital advertising. Prior to that, he worked at Microsoft and was part of the founding team at Bing where he launched Bing Cashback, a unique program to increase Microsoft’s position in the search market. He also led strategy for Visual Studio.NET, Microsoft’s marquee product for software developers and now a centerpiece of its cloud strategy. Before Microsoft, Malhotra worked at McKinsey in their Silicon Valley office and advised startups on product and technology growth strategies. He began his career as a software engineer at Tata Unisys.
Malhotra joins Lithium at a time of rapid growth and change for the company following the recent acquisition of Jive Software’s external community business. And Lithium has taken home a string of accolades in recent months, being named a leader in the Forrester Wave for Social Media Management Solutions, and receiving the Top Places to Work award from the Austin American-Statesman.