Headley (pictured) will lead product strategy for marketing platform Rio SEO, which was acquired by Forsta earlier this year.

Specifically, Headley will help facilitate the integration of Rio SEO’s tools, such as Local Listings and Local Reviews, with Forsta’s Human Experience (HX) platform.

Before joining Forsta, Headley spent 12 years at Google, where he was most recently leader of the company’s consumer and partner operations team for products such as Google Maps and Google Earth.

After Google, Headley served for five years as director of product for the local SEO and practice marketing division at PatientPop, and in 2020 founded Leadferno, a software-as-a-service company.

Brian Bhuta, chief product officer at Forsta, said: “Joel’s expertise will be invaluable in scaling and expanding our local experience and marketing solutions and intuitively integrating them with Forsta’s HX platform.”