Hearsay Social named its first chief financial officer on Tuesday, tapping William Salisbury.
Salisbury spent 15 years at Morgan Stanley (MS) working on financing deals for technology companies. He then moved into CFO roles at Crescendo Bioscience and at Avast Software, where he helped the company nearly triple sales.
"Bill's wealth of experience in North America and overseas as a startup CFO, investment banker and corporate attorney makes him an ideal finance leader for Hearsay Social as we pursue international growth and product expansion in the coming months and years," said Hearsay Social CEO and founder Clara Shih, in a statement.
Salisbury says his investment-banking work for Morgan Stanley in Silicon Valley gave him lots of exposure to how wealth management teams work with clients and run their practices.
"I understand the challenges they face," he said in an interview with ThinkAdvisor. "And the evolution of that business has made it very clear to me what Hearsay Social is trying to do and what importance that has for the sales and communications side of the business within the financial services industry.
"At Morgan Stanley, I worked with lots of tech firms," he explained. "Many have gone through the growth that Hearsay is having now."
Hearsay's product and growth story interested Salisbury, because the company "is helping bring the financial services industry into the world of social media, digital [communications] and mobile apps, he said. "I have a pretty good perspective on how and why that's highly relevant to the industry."
