Imagination, a global specialist in experience design, has announced the appointment of Laura Marotta as the new UK People & Culture Partner. This marks a significant senior appointment to the Global People & Culture team and reinforces Imagination’s commitment to providing a dynamic and inclusive workplace culture, driving innovation and growth where employees continue to thrive. In line with Imagination’s People & Culture strategy, Marotta assumes the overarching responsibility for all things People, including heading up the Talent Acquisition function in the UK. Reporting to Philomena Gray, Chief People Officer and collaborating with Richard Hannah, UK Managing Director, Marotta will work closely with the senior leadership team to ensure a workplace environment where employees feel happy, valued and empowered every day. Marotta brings extensive experience, having previously served as the Head of People & Culture at Location Collective. Her career has been defined by her role as a strategic partner, with a particular emphasis on talent attraction, development, and management. Marotta will play a pivotal role in representing the interests of Imagination’s UK team and working on UK attraction, retention, development, and growth.
Global B2B technology marketing specialist, Fox Agency, has grown its digital marketing team with two senior hires to spearhead the development of its performance and organic teams. Micarla Joseph joins as Head of Performance Marketing and Josh Boot as Head of Organic Performance. Both hires bring a wealth of industry experience to these new roles. Prior to joining Fox Agency, Micarla Joseph worked for over 10 years within M&C Saatchi’s performance division working with the likes of Amazon and Facebook as a Senior Director, while Josh Boot spent four years at Havas Lynx leading its SEO offering for clients spanning healthcare and pharmaceuticals.
Digital agency Perfect Storm has appointed George Vann as Sales and Marketing Director. Vann joins from Ingenuity, where he was managing partner, responsible for establishing the company’s first ever hub in the North. His 12-years of experience spans time leading Business Development and Marketing for McCann Australia, CX agency Lavender, Finn and Ingenuity’s Northern clients. New business wins he has worked on include Hendrick’s Gin, QANTAS, Absolut, Innocent, Burton’s Biscuits, John West and DFS. Joining the Perfect Storm team as Sales and Marketing Director, Vann will be responsible for raising the profile of Perfect Storm’s unique way of working, developing the brand, building systems around the sales and marketing processes and ultimately owning growth ambitions. In addition to Vann joining the team, the agency started the new year with an office move, venturing across the road in Leeds from Calls Landing to Wharf Street, doubling its square footage to help house its growing team. Perfect Storm now employs 17 people full time, and regularly works with over 100 specialist freelancers. The company is on target to hit over £3million turnover in its current financial year, which is up 30% year-on-year.
Adelicious has appointed Andrew Goldsmith to the role of Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. Previously serving as Managing Director since October 2021, Goldsmith’s promotion comes at a time of exceptional growth for the company, allowing them to accelerate their long-term growth plans. Goldsmith’s tenure at Adelicious began with a mandate to expand the commercial and operations departments, alongside network growth and attracting senior talent to the business. His efforts have also been pivotal in fostering relationships with media planning and buying teams in the UK, US and globally. Goldsmith’s previous experience includes roles at Global Radio, Primesight and as Business Partner at The Guardian, where he was instrumental in returning the newspaper to profit for the first time since 1998. The promotion of Goldsmith to CEO is part of the company’s wider growth strategy, allowing co-founders David McGuire and Pascal Hughes to move to the newly created roles of co-Chief Growth Officers, with the trio focusing on the on-going evolution and long-term vision of the business.
Zappi, the agile market research platform for on-demand consumer insights, has announced key changes to its global leadership team, appointing Nataly Kelly as Chief Marketing Officer and promoting Babita Earle to International Managing Director from her previous role as EVP of Global Enterprise Partnerships. Kelly joins Zappi as its chief marketing officer, bringing over 20 years of experience in building brands and driving growth for technology companies, which she’ll use to help scale the Zappi brand. A celebrated expert in international marketing, Kelly was a driving force behind HubSpot’s international expansion, overseeing remote teams in South America, Europe, and Asia and driving growth across several markets. She is a longtime contributor to Harvard Business Review and the author of three books on how to gain a competitive advantage through international marketing. Based in Boston, Kelly also brings extensive market research experience, having served as Chief Research Officer for CSA Research. Earle, who is based in London, was promoted to International Managing Director from her previous role as EVP of Global Enterprise Partnerships. Joining Zappi in 2016 from GFK, she brings more than two decades of experience in technology and digital consumer insights to further expand Zappi’s business development globally. In her previous role with Zappi, Earle was responsible for developing key customer relationships and expanding platform adoption within the enterprise. She has also pioneered and led Zappi’s Insights Alliance, which brings together the world’s most progressive insights leaders from brands like PepsiCo, Reckitt, Pernod Ricard, and Colgate-Palmolive to transform and advance the insights industry.
EXTE, the global adtech platform that provides end-to-end creative, media and targeting solutions for the open web, continues to strengthen its international expansion with the appointment of industry veteran Matthew Doherty, who joins EXTE to spearhead the growth of the business in the U.S. and Canada. With over 16 years of industry experience, Matthew Doherty has become one of ad tech’s leading professionals with a proven track record of success. For the last six years, he has held the position of Senior Vice President at Teads. Prior to this, Doherty held commercial leadership positions at Adobe and TubeMogul where he was responsible for developing and scaling multimillion dollar businesses. Doherty has also successfully founded and launched several companies including Alchemy Media Partners in 2008, and the Non Profit Silicon Alley Foundation in 2015.
London-based Nest Commerce, the full-funnel performance, brand and creative agency, has made a new hire, appointing Emma Cooper as Group Account Director. Reporting to Lucy Downing, Client Services Director at Nest, Cooper’s role will involve managing client relationships with Nest’s expanding portfolio of clients and identifying and growing new business opportunities. Cooper’s previous role was with Hot Pot China, a digital marketing agency helping brands scale in APAC. She has more than a decade’s experience working with some of the biggest global brands to craft new market entry strategies, and scale these brands by managing multi-channel online & offline campaigns.
The Independent is pleased to announce the promotion of Oliver Wheatley to Commercial Director in the UK. Wheatley has excelled as The Independent’s first ever Trading Director, a role which he took in 2021. This followed 13 years working across The Independent and Evening Standard. His new position contains two broad remits – leading both trading and sales – and he is now responsible for driving revenue across the entire UK commercial business, reporting into Andrew Morley, Chief Revenue Officer. Meanwhile, in the US, Kylie Hamilton-Hill becomes VP, East Coast in recognition of the significant value she has added to the business since joining three years ago. Kylie will report into Blair Tapper, Senior VP, US. The US is one of The Independent’s strategic focuses in 2024, as the news title doubles down on its efforts in the world’s largest and most competitive media market. Already one of the top 10 news brands in the US, resources are being built out across editorial, sales, content partnerships, marketing and operations to supercharge its astonishing growth trajectory. One of Hamilton-Hill’s responsibilities will be developing the New York commercial team and opportunities during this critical period.
GWI, the global consumer research platform, has announced that it has appointed Nick Dearden as Chief Technology Officer, based in its UK headquarters in London. Dearden has over 25 years of experience in technology, with his grassroots as a developer. At GWI he will lead the engineering, IT, and security teams and will be responsible for the company’s technology and data management strategy. His role is key to driving forward the company’s agenda to build technology that gives people clarity over their audience in the moment they need it. Dearden’s role will focus on the ongoing innovation, scaling, and automation of processes that underpin access to data representative of nearly 3 billion people across 50+ markets. With simplification and ease of access to GWI data a key strategic driver, Dearden will be responsible for identifying appropriate technology, such as AI, to define the technology strategy to achieve this. This will enable the company to automate and unlock powerful new features for customers by offering flexible solutions and tools that fit neatly into users’ daily workflows.
