Meet Jose Florido, Chief Market Development Officer at Freepik

Can you tell us about Freepik?

 
Freepik is a leading audio-visual asset platform based in Málaga, Spain. Our ecosystem of products include Freepik, Flaticon, Slidesgo, Videvo, Iconfinder and Wepik – design tools that empower more than 100 million monthly users worldwide. At our core, Freepik’s goal is to bring design accessibility to everyone by providing the tools for anyone to express the power of their vision. Excitingly, Freepik is going through a period of remarkable growth, with the company recently announcing the opening of its first US office located in San Francisco – which is where I come in.
 
 

 
 

What attracted you to Freepik?

I have always been close to Freepik and have a longstanding friendship with Joaquin Cuenca Abela, our CEO and Co-founder. Prior to joining Freepik, I worked in product design management roles at Google, Facebook, and Spotify which played a crucial role in my decision to join the company. While Freepik is by no means a small start-up anymore, I see it as a market disrupter that places its customers first. Designing products that champion creativity motivates me both professionally and personally.

I am a creative at heart who also loves computer science and technology, and Freepik sits at the cutting edge of uniting these two industries. The company gives me the best of both worlds in the sense that I am experimenting with the most innovative technologies to enhance the creative process of people across the world.

What does your role entail?

 
I am the Chief Market Development Officer, which essentially covers our geographic expansion efforts with a key focus on the US market. The role entails adapting Freepik’s product offering to US market needs, such as the content available on our platforms, user experience (UX), checkout, pricing, and value propositions. I am also responsible for creating brand awareness about Freepik in the US and positioning our product in the best way. A key part of this involves meeting with design communities at events, conferences and forming other relationships by leveraging my industry contacts to connect with Freepik.

I am very excited about all the work we are doing at Freepik and the opportunity to lead commercial growth in one of the largest markets in the world. There is a huge appetite for high-quality and accessible audio-visual content across all sectors, so I see significant potential in our product. Freepik is also leading the way in harnessing AI to deliver a better design experience for customers, and I am excited to showcase these new innovations to the US market.
 

What can we expect to see from Freepik in the future?

 
Alongside my market development role, I am also the head of Slidesgo as it has seen tremendous customer growth in the US market. It is an exciting product, that delivers high quality Google Slides and PowerPoint templates for presentations. The platform has strong appeal to the education sector, so we are looking to accelerate the quality of the platform to help teachers create more engaging presentations and thereby improve learning.

We are always looking for ways to improve our product to meet the evolving demands of our customers. The last year has been transformational for Freepik with the launch of our text-to-image AI image generator, ‘Undead Ideas’ campaign and huge financial momentum. We are therefore keen to continue this trend and believe a key part of our success to-date has been our intimate connection with the needs of creatives to empower their talent.