Fishers-based tech firm Formstack hires new CEO

Aled Miles has been named the new top executive at Fishers-based software company Formstack following the departure of longstanding CEO Chris Byers.

Byers left the company on Thursday and Miles started as CEO on Friday, Formstack announced this week.

Formstack’s digital platform allows customers to create paperless documents and collect online signatures. When Byers first joined the company in early 2010, the company had seven employees. It now has close to 200 employees and more than 20,000 customers.

Byers said it was his decision to leave the company, and that he notified the board of his decision earlier this year.

“I kind of started this conversation with them in the spring and said, ‘Hey, you know, I think after 14 years, sometimes when bad things happen, or when typical business happens, I’m not bouncing back as fast as I used to. And I think we should find somebody who can.”

Prior to joining Formstack last week, Miles spent four years as CEO of San Francisco-based Sauce Labs, a privately held company that helps software developers test and update their products.

“After an extensive search process, we are excited about the appointment of Aled Miles to the CEO role at Formstack,” said Tom Reardon, managing director at investment firm PSG, a Formstack investor. “We believe he has the depth of experience to lead Formstack through its next growth phase and help the company achieve its vision of being the clear market leader in the data collection and workflow automation market.”

Miles previously was CEO of Los Angeles-based Telesign (2016-2018) and a senior vice president at Symantec, where he spent 20 years.

“Formstack has positive financial momentum and an incredibly talented team,” Miles said in a written statement. “I’m excited to help unlock the next chapter of growth for this great organization.”

Formstack, which launched in 2006, has had some dramatic ups and downs in recent years. In late 2021, the company raised a $425 million investment round led by PSG, a growth equity firm with offices in Boston, Kansas City, Missouri, and London, and by Boston-based growth equity firm Silversmith Capital Partners. That investment stands as the largest single capital raise by an Indiana-based technology company in the state’s history.

At the time of that investment, Formstack had 260 employees, about 60 of whom lived in the Indianapolis area.

Then, in May of this year, Formstack laid off a significant percentage of its workforce. According to LinkedIn posts from multiple people who said they were among those laid off, 40% of employees lost their jobs.

Byers, 46, said he had decided to leave the company before the May layoffs happened.

“Although that layoff did happen to coincide, it was definitely not what caused me to make the change,” he said.

Byers, who lives in Oklahoma, said he plans to take a few months off, and hasn’t yet decided what he’ll do after that.

“I don’t have any big plans yet, other than to wake up and have no plans,” he said.