Passwordless identity management provider Beyond Identity, has announced the appointment of its Regional Director for The Nordics, Juha Hakava. Hakava’s role will be to build out the business in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark. His previous experience includes similar roles over the past 15 years with VMware/Carbon Black, Blue Coat and others.
Red Evolution, a Scottish digital marketing agency, has recruited Alex Bussey to manage their newly launched CRO service. Bussey is a digital marketing expert with over 10 years of experience. He’s built content and paid strategies for household names like Regis, Supercuts and Yorkshire Tea, optimised B2B and B2C websites in a variety of industries and spent the last 3 years geeking out over opportunities to improve the performance of websites designed to generate leads or sales.
HappyOrNot has announced the appointment of four new hires to join its executive management team: Tim Waterton as VP of Sales & Customer Success, Tomi Suoniemi as VP of Engineering & Product, Gina Nelson as VP of US Operations & Global HR Lead, and Elina Pahta-Erma as CFO. Based in the UK, Tim Waterton has over 20 years of sales experience leading and building revenue teams at global technology and software companies. Prior to joining HappyOrNot, Waterton was Regional VP of Sales at M-Files, one of Finland’s most successful SaaS companies, where he was responsible for coordinating sales, marketing and business development strategies for the UK market. Tomi Suoniemi, who joins as VP of Engineering & Product has more than 20 years of experience in the technology sector. Suoniemi’s previous assignment was with RUAG Space, where he was CEO of RUAG Space Finland Oy, and GM of the Electronics product unit.
In addition, Elina Pahta-Erma, who first joined HappyOrNot back in 2018 as Group Financial Controller, has been officially appointed as CFO, progressing a decade-long career background in accounting and financial advising. Along with her accounting credentials, Pahta-Erma also brings with her over 6 years of financial and operational experience working with SaaS companies, further ratifying her appointment. Finally, with over two decades of experience as an HR professional, Gina Nelson, who is based in HappyOrNot’s Florida office, has been appointed as VP of US Operations & Global HR Lead. Upon joining the company back in 2018, Nelson was responsible for establishing HappyOrNot’s US HR department, and since then has successfully paved the way for HappyOrNot’s rapid business growth in America.
Forcepoint has announced new executive appointments to strengthen its global commitment to customers. The company has named Myles Bray as Senior Vice President of EMEA Sales and Peter Brant as Senior Vice President of North America Sales. Bray is a hands-on technology sales leader with a track record of driving strategy and execution across product, marketing and global sales in public, private and venture-backed companies. He has spent more than 10 years in the security industry, most recently as Chief Revenue Officer at Arqit, a cybersecurity start-up delivering next generation cloud-based quantum encryption. Brant brings to Forcepoint more than 20 years of global enterprise sales leadership and experience at companies such as F5 Networks, Fortinet and SonicWALL. He is a growth oriented, people-centric leader with a history of navigating change in disruptive, high-velocity markets.
Hubilo, the virtual and hybrid events platform, has announced six senior appointments to help continue its rapid global growth after increasing its headcount by 270 employees in just 12 months. The key senior hires announced today include Cathy Song Novelli, Senior Vice President (SVP) Marketing and Communications. She has more than 23 years of experience across all areas of marketing, with unique expertise in developing brand and product revenues via growth models. Greg Volm also joins as Hubilo’s new SVP of Sales; Volm has over 20 years of experience gleaned across sales, customer experience, and operations roles.
Anita Menon, Hubilo’s new SVP, Culture, and Talent, has more than 20 years of experience across all aspects of human resources. Abhishek Jain, the company’s VP in Finance, has more than 15 years of expertise across the board in finance, including building go-to-market strategies for businesses, risk management, fundraising, and investor management. Sudip Mitra, SVP in Engineering, brings 13 years of expertise in building highly scalable, distributed, resilient, and cloud-native products, and finally, Shailesh Hegde, recently appointed to lead the global product division Hubilo, was previously Director of Product Management at BlueJeans by Verizon.
Ogilvy PR has appointed Matt Buchanan as its new Global Head of Consumer PR. A 25-year brand communications veteran, Buchanan has run Ogilvy’s PR business in the UK since early 2019. He has more than two decades of experience leading agencies specialising in consumer brand communication, spanning the UK, Europe, Asia and Australia. Prior to Ogilvy, Buchanan was the Managing Director of Havas’ award-winning agency One Green Bean, launching the agency into the London market in 2015 having run the Australian operation for four years prior.
Hitachi Vantara, a subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. and digital infrastructure and solutions provider, has appointed Dr. Patric Märki as Senior Vice President Enterprise Sales EMEA. Märki joined Hitachi Vantara back in 2018 and has since led the Central EMEA sales region – which includes DACH, CEE, Israel, Cyprus, and Malta – where he delivered the company’s sustainable revenue growth against significant market challenges. Before joining Hitachi Vantara, he was Vice President DACH at SAS Institute AG. Prior to this, Märki held leadership positions at IBM and CA Technologies.
Digital acceleration agency, ClickThrough Marketing. has hired Ilona Anderson as Head of Talent Engagement, as part of the agency’s ongoing commitment to growing ambition and skill among its people. Anderson joins ClickThrough after working in similar roles in a range of industry sectors, including retail, finance, construction & telecoms. Anderson’s most recent roles at Lookers and DFS have focuses on both employee and customer engagement, with a key focus on leadership development to drive cultural change – an area she will continue to focus in at ClickThrough.
M&C Saatchi has boosted its creative leadership with the promotion of Tom Kennedy to a newly created Creative Director position. Kennedy is stepping up to Creative Director from his current role as Senior Art Director. He joined M&C Saatchi Group in December 2018, originally working at customer agency LIDA, which merged with M&C Saatchi in January 2020. He has previously held roles at agencies including RAPP, Saatchi Masius and J. Walter Thompson.
Havas Market, Havas Media Group’s ecommerce practice, has announced the appointment of Jessica Chapplow to the newly created role of Head of Ecommerce. Chapplow joins from KR MediaCom, where she was Head of Digital Transformation, responsible for growing and extending the unit’s digital specialisms as well as establishing robust and compelling product propositions. In her new role, Chapplow will lead, manage, grow and evolve all aspects of Havas Market’s UK offering, fostering opportunities with new and existing clients and developing commerce media strategies to effectively deliver against client objectives and targets.
Cloud technology specialist Vapour has welcomed five new faces into the team. Bolstering the sales team is business development manager Dan Needham, who joins the business from Manchester-based Cloud Technology Solutions (CTS). With a strong enterprise background – particularly in the SaaS environment – his area of expertise is the more unusual technical sell, with a key focus on people-led digital transformation projects. He’s joined by fellow business development manager Mark Taylor – a technology agnostic salesperson who comes from a more varied sales background, as Vapour pursues its mission to boost the efficiencies, scalability and security of UK organisations. Sales support coordinator Becky Pritchard completes the new line up of faces added to the commercial team. Having previously worked for Next Generation Security, and Safe & Secure IT Solutions, she has a strong account management skill-set.
David Parsons has also joined as solutions engineer. A talented cloud specialist with 13 years’ experience working for Managed Service Providers (MSPs), Parsons bridges the gap between Vapour’s sales and engineering teams, and has fast become the ‘go to’ voice for ultra-technical projects – particularly for clients completely rethinking their cloud-first networks of the future. The fifth addition to the business is cloud UC engineer Ronnie Paton – a former military serviceman who developed a career in the telecoms space upon resettlement into civilian life. He supports the presales team with their growing workload, as well as helping to look after Vapour’s cloud communications solution.
SYMETRICA LIMITED has announced a change to its Group Chief Executive Officer. Heddwyn Davies is succeeded by Eric Zanin who will become the Group Chief Executive Officer immediately and will principally be located at their US facility in Westford, Massachusetts. Zanin has held global executive positions in business development and general management with Analogic Corporation and Leidos Corporation’s Security Detection and Automation operation. He has extensive experience in leading security technology innovation – most notably the introduction of computed tomography (CT) at aviation security checkpoints.
Imagination, Global Experience Design Company, has announced two promotions in its EMEA senior leadership team to support its expansion and growth in the Middle East. Adel Noueihed has been promoted to Regional Managing Director from his position as General Manager and Elisabeth Anne becomes General Manager, having previously held the position of Client Services Director. Joining Imagination in 2012, Noueihed became the company’s first-ever General Manager in Qatar before relocating to Dubai to work closely with Anne building the UAE business. He has led the Middle Eastern business for the past nine years and during this time has expanded the business in UAE and across the region into KSA and Qatar. Anne joined Imagination in 2011 as Senior Project Manager, before becoming Client Services Director in 2019. In her new position as General Manager, Anne will take over from Noueihed, overseeing the day-to-day running of Imagination’s current Middle East hub in Dubai.
Quantcast has announced the addition of Valerie Junger as the company’s Chief People Officer. Junger takes a comprehensive, results-oriented approach to managing people and places, ensuring that all HR activities serve broader business goals. She brings a track record that demonstrates consistent success in a range of high-growth, technology organizations. Junger previously served as Chief Human Resources Officer at Hillspire LLC, the family office for Eric and Wendy Schmidt. Before that, she worked as Vice President of HR at several global technology firms, including Aerohive Networks, Model N and SSL.
