Smart Communications is entering a new phase of product and platform innovation with the appointment of Heidi Johnson as its new Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO). The move marks a significant leadership transition as longtime technology leader Simon Tindal prepares to retire after nearly two decades with the company.
Based in London, Smart Communications is best known for helping highly regulated organizations modernize how they engage customers across critical moments — from onboarding to compliance-driven communications. Johnson will now lead the company’s global product, technology, and innovation strategy, with a particular focus on cloud, data, and AI-driven capabilities.
Johnson brings more than 20 years of experience building and scaling enterprise SaaS platforms in complex, regulated environments. Her career spans senior leadership roles at Bloomberg, IHS Markit, Komodo Health, and Carta, where she worked across product strategy, customer experience, data platforms, and cloud-native technologies. She has also contributed to the broader product leadership community as a Chief Product Officer in Residence at Products That Count and as a mentor with MIT Sandbox, supporting early-stage technology founders.
Her appointment comes as Simon Tindal, Smart Communications’ long-serving Chief Technology Officer, steps back from day-to-day operations. Tindal played a foundational role in shaping the company’s platform and engineering culture, helping guide Smart Communications through multiple technology cycles while maintaining a strong focus on security, compliance, and resilience. While retiring from his executive role, Tindal will remain involved as a full-time advisor during the transition period to ensure continuity and momentum.
Smart Communications CEO Leigh Segall said Johnson’s background aligns closely with the company’s next stage of growth, particularly as customers increasingly look to modernize regulated workflows using AI and intelligent automation. With Tindal’s long-term contributions providing a strong technical foundation, Johnson steps into the role at a moment when product scale, platform extensibility, and AI-led innovation are becoming central to enterprise differentiation.
In her new role, Johnson will oversee the evolution of Smart Communications’ Conversation Cloud™ platform, which supports compliant, digital-first customer interactions across industries such as insurance, healthcare, and financial services. The platform already integrates with major enterprise systems including Salesforce, AWS, Guidewire, Duck Creek, OneSpan, and Pega, and powers tens of billions of customer communications annually.
Johnson said Smart Communications is uniquely positioned to deliver innovation that balances agility with regulatory rigor — a challenge many enterprises continue to struggle with. Her focus will be on accelerating the company’s AI roadmap while maintaining the trust, security, and compliance standards required by regulated organizations.
The leadership transition underscores Smart Communications’ broader strategy: investing in experienced product and technology leadership to support enterprise-scale customers as digital engagement, compliance requirements, and AI adoption converge.