SignalFlare AI names restaurant tech veteran Robert Peterson as CRO

SignalFlare AI has appointed Robert Peterson as chief revenue officer to lead sales, marketing, and partnerships as it pushes its AI-powered decision intelligence platform deeper into restaurants. The move brings in a veteran with more than two decades of restaurant tech experience as the company tries to scale a product built to explain not just what happened, but what operators should do next.

Why it matters: - SignalFlare AI is trying to speed adoption of its restaurant decision intelligence platform as operators look for clearer answers from transaction and operational data. - The CRO hire adds an executive with deep restaurant technology relationships and experience across data standards, interoperability, and large-scale rollout. - The appointment signals that SignalFlare AI is moving beyond product development and into a broader go-to-market phase.

What happened: - SignalFlare AI named Robert Peterson chief revenue officer on Oct. 6, 2026. - Peterson will oversee sales, marketing, and partnerships. - CEO Mike Lukianoff said Peterson's background at NCR, PAR, Qu, and Oracle will support the company's go-to-market effort. - Peterson previously served as Area Vice President at Oracle Restaurants.

The details: - Peterson has spent more than 20 years helping restaurant brands and technology partners use transaction data to create business value. - His work at Oracle Restaurants focused on bringing digital transaction platforms to restaurant brands across North America. - Peterson's background includes interoperability, open APIs, data standards, scalable adoption, and organizational change. - He serves on the Restaurant Technology Network Vendor Advisory Council. - The Restaurant Technology Network named Peterson an Industry Champion in 2024 for his work on restaurant data standards. - SignalFlare AI was founded in 2023 to bring decision intelligence to restaurants. - The company won Snowflake's Startup Challenge in 2024 out of more than 1,100 global entries. - SignalFlare AI said it has evolved from a price-optimization platform into an agentic decision intelligence company for restaurants. - In March 2026, SignalFlare launched Navigator at the Multi-Unit Restaurant Technology Conference AI Summit. - Navigator combines mobile device data, credit card panel data, competitive item pricing, hyperlocal economics, and a client's own data. - SignalFlare says Navigator is designed to reveal causes that point-of-sale data alone cannot explain. - The platform uses a semantic layer and ontology. - SignalFlare says it orchestrates 157 large language and frontier AI models to produce consistent, deterministic answers. - Peterson said operators have long wanted to know what to do with transaction insights, not just what happened. - Peterson described SignalFlare as creating a new category for restaurants: decision intelligence. - SignalFlare AI's stated mission is to combine statistics, data science, artificial intelligence, and industry expertise to turn complex data into smarter business decisions. - SignalFlare AI says its goal is to accelerate time to value for clients. - The company lists more information at learn more. - SignalFlare AI also shared a LinkedIn page at company LinkedIn.

Between the lines: - The hire suggests SignalFlare AI wants stronger commercial leadership as it moves from proving the product to expanding adoption in a fragmented restaurant tech market. - Peterson's emphasis on standards and integration points to a sales motion built around making the platform easier to connect to existing systems. - The company's framing of agentic decision intelligence shows it is positioning Navigator as more than analytics software.

What's next: - Peterson will be responsible for helping SignalFlare AI expand sales relationships and partnerships in the restaurant sector. - The company appears to be betting that a veteran operator-focused executive can turn its AI platform into broader market traction. - SignalFlare AI is likely to keep emphasizing Navigator as its core product as it pushes for adoption across restaurant brands.