Next week, David Miller is joining online bulk-products retailer Boxed.com as chief technology officer.
New York-based Boxed said Wednesday that Miller will start in the CTO post on Oct. 11. He takes over that role from William Fong, a Boxed co-founder who left the company in March to join The Estée Lauder Cos. as vice president of global platforms and engineering. Fong had served as CTO since helping to launch Boxed in 2013.
Miller comes to Boxed after more than seven years at small-business lender OnDeck Capital, most recently as senior vice president of technology. In leading the product tech team at OnDeck, Miller played a pivotal role in delivering over $14 billion in capital to small businesses across the United States, Canada and Australia through its proprietary platform, combined complex analytics and microservices ecosystem, Boxed noted.
“We are thrilled to welcome David to the Boxed family and look forward to utilizing his wealth of experience and technological expertise as we plan to become a publicly traded company in the U.S.,” Boxed CEO and co-founder Chieh Huang said in a statement. “We were impressed with the impact he made at OnDeck, transforming the application delivery within its technology platform, which enabled the company to license its software to large financial institutions.”
At Boxed, Miller (left) will oversee the development and technical execution of product strategies across company verticals, with a focus on scaling its software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform for enterprise retailers. He also will help drive tech team innovation as well as advance cybersecurity, technology risk and additional support functions.
“He will play an instrumental role in helping us scale our proprietary, end-to-end e-commerce platform as we capitalize on unprecedented growth in online grocery shopping,” according to Huang.
Miller brings 20-plus years of experience in leading technology teams and developing corporate and product strategies across various industries. Before joining OnDeck in July 2014, he spent over four years as executive director of technology at Moodlerooms, where he led technology operations and the corporate computing teams, providing SaaS e-learning solutions to 4 million students and educators worldwide. Previously, he served as senior manager of operations engineering at Advertising.com and as operations manager of the hosting center at Micros Systems.
“I am incredibly excited to join the Boxed team during such an exciting time, Miller stated. “I look forward to implementing a similar playbook that I used at OnDeck to enhance the Boxed platform and facilitate its ability to generate licensing agreements with other retailers. Chieh and the management team are world-class. I strongly believe the company is well-positioned for success as it scales its proprietary e-commerce technology and continues to be the benefactor of strong macroeconomic tailwinds in both its B2C and B2B businesses.”
In mid-June, New York-based Boxed unveiled plans to become a public company through a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Seven Oaks Acquisition Corp. Boxed Inc., the proposed name of the merged company, is slated to be led by Huang as CEO and Seven Oaks Chairman and CEO Gary Matthews as chairman. Its common stock and warrants will list on the New York Stock Exchange under the respective symbols BOXD and BOXD WS.
As part of its plan to go public, Boxed aims to monetize its end-to-end e-commerce platform via an SaaS offering. In January, the e-tailer entered a multiyear SaaS partnership with Aeon Group, Japan’s largest grocery retailer and one of Asia’s biggest retail conglomerates. German discount grocer Lidl also has piloted Boxed’s technology in a home delivery service test in the U.S.
