BBC Studios, the commercial subsidiary of the BBC, has announced the appointment of Julie Mayville as Director of Social Advertising Sales, effective immediately. Based out of New York, Mayville will be responsible for creating and implementing the commercial strategy and go-to-market launch for the company’s social advertising sales function for North America and Latin America. In this new role for the company, Mayville will be focused on attracting new advertisers and brands who want to align with BBC Studios Social’s more than 90 premium BBC Studios’ social channels, which combined to reach over 4.7 billion views globally in 2022.
the7stars, the UK’s largest independent media agency, has made a series of key hires in a move that sees the agency doubling its strategy team. Mehul Ashra joins the7stars strategy team this August, from Carat where he has been Head of Strategy, for the last three years. Ashra is tasked with helping the7stars’ clients to forge smart, creative, and effective media executions with brands, media partners and creators. Also joining next month is Victoria Delaney, Publicis’ digital planning lead. Delaney has a strong background in digital, tech and commerce having spent the last 2 years at Publicis as a digital planning specialist and prior to this, a 9-year stint at Zenith where she worked up to the role of Global Commerce Director. Ashra and Delaney join Adam Smith from Wavemaker, Lashantay Richards from Zenith, and Rosalie Shakir from Mindshare who all joined this quarter. All starters enjoy the autonomy offered by the7stars’ flat organisational structure, which fosters open dialogue and accessibility, over and above titles, structured roles, and hierarchical reporting lines. Internally, Jonathan Harrison also moves across to join the strategy team leading a consultative tech and data arm to bolster its existing strategic roster. This sees the7stars’ strategy team grow from seven to twelve and reflects ever-growing client demand.
PR agency, HeadOn, has further strengthened its digital PR and marketing division with two new hires. The latest recruits, Marie Allebone and Harry Lush, brings the team to 14 and comes just months after the Cheltenham-based creative agency in Eagle Tower appointed two senior leaders. Allebone joins as Senior Account Executive bringing more than six years of experience in PR and digital marketing. Her deep understanding of traditional media combined with social media and SEO will further enhance the agency’s existing service offerings to improve client’s search engine visibility and brand reputation. Lush too has a strong digital background, having been a specialist online content writer for Superdry before moving to HeadOn as a Junior PR Account Executive. A graduate from the University of the West of England, Lush holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Creative and Professional Writing, and assists the team across a range of services from social media, blogs, thought leadership, to award entries and press content.
Go Inspire Group, a Xerox company, has announced the retirement of group CEO Patrick Headley. Headley is stepping down after 30 years at the company. The change will see Dimitri Kyprianou, currently MD of Go Inspire CX, move into an overarching Managing Director role and join the Xerox EMEA Senior Leadership Team with immediate effect. Headley will continue with the business in a consultative role for the next 12 months before formally retiring. Headley first joined Go Inspire in 1993, 6 months after it was founded, before progressing through the business in a variety of roles. He went on to lead a MBO in 2016, over £20million of investment in tech and people in the last 5 years, and most recently the purchase of the Group by Xerox, one of the biggest digital document companies in the world. During his tenure Go Inspire Group has grown into a £90m turnover business with a 400+ strong workforce across two offices in Leicester, Kettering and most recently a digital and cx hub in London. Kyprianou joined Go Inspire in 2021, focussing on reformulating the group proposition, propelling Go Inspire forward as an industry-leading marketing performance partner powered by data and omni-channel execution. He played an instrumental role as lead in the acquisition of Go Inspire by Xerox, as well as transforming the CX division of the group into an award-winning data-led agency, enhancing both Go Inspire and Xerox’s offering.
Freepik Company, a global tech company that specializes in providing high-quality audio-visual content, has announced the appointment of Jose Florido as Chief Market Development Officer, United States, effective immediately, and the opening of its first U.S. office located in San Francisco. Florido brings significant growth and design expertise to Freepik Company and will lead the market strategy for U.S. expansion to broaden its presence in this key region. In his new role, Florido will focus on the growth of the flagship product, Freepik, the largest platform of photos, videos, vector images, illustrations and PSD files. He will also be responsible for Slidesgo, an extensive catalog of free Google Slides themes and PowerPoint templates to boost presentations – of which 66.4% of the platform’s premium subscribers are users from the U.S.
Staffbase, a provider of employee communications platforms, has announced the appointment of global communications and brand executive Jerilan Greene to its board of directors. This brings the total number of board members to seven. Greene is principal and founder of New Capacity Partners LLC, a leadership strategy and communications firm, and brings 25 years of Fortune 500, PR agency and consulting experience leading change and communications across corporate strategy, purpose, brand reputation and human capital. Previously Greene was Yum! Brands’ Chief Communications and Public Affairs Officer and Yum! Foundation Chairman and CEO, leading the integrated ESG, global external and employee engagement communications, crisis, sustainability and government affairs functions. Prior to Yum!, she held leadership roles at Edelman, Burson-Marsteller and Deloitte, spanning public, private and growth companies in the consumer, pharmaceuticals, biotech, technology, telecommunications, energy and financial sectors.
Joining from the renowned QS magazine, Chloe Lane has been welcomed to the BlueSky Education team. Lane brings with her a wealth of experience garnered from over three years spent at the forefront of higher and business education journalism. Lane’s expertise and profound industry insights make her an invaluable asset to BlueSky Education. Lane will be joining BlueSky Education’s team of public relations experts and using her ability to craft compelling narratives, dissect complex issues, and deliver captivating stories to promote the research and programmes of world-leading universities and business schools.
