Global influencer agency, Billion Dollar Boy (BDB), has announced the appointment of Serafin Sivcak as Account Director for the DACH region. Sivcak will support the expansion of BDB’s European presence, covering Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. His appointment follows news that BDB UK becomes BDB Europe to reflect its existing offering across the region and to meet the demand for creator marketing across Europe. Sivcak brings almost ten years of industry experience in account management. Previous experiences include a role as Senior Brand Marketing Manager at Google, where he developed and executed marketing projects for Google Search, Google Maps and Google Wallet, as well as account management roles at R/GA, BBDO Worldwide, Scholz & Friends and Jung von Matt, where he worked for a number of brands across a range of sectors including Whatsapp, YouTube, Adidas, DFB, Tipico, Shopify, Puma and Swisscom.
Criteo, the commerce media company, has announced that it has hired Jill Orr to lead the company’s growing retail media business in the EMEA region. Orr is an experienced leader with a proven track record in retail and technology, having held several executive positions including Chief Operating Officer at Eyeota and EVP International at Triad Retail Media, among others. As Managing Director, Retail Media EMEA, Orr will be responsible for the expansion of Criteo’s retail media business in the region, driving adoption among leading retailers, agencies and brands and continuing to build out retail-focused services and solutions. The role will involve helping clients to unlock first-party based commerce media opportunities so they can acquire and retain consumers even outside their own properties.
Reddit has announced two new senior leaders Stephen Riad, Reddit’s VP of Global Mid-Market and SMB Sales, and Roelof van Zwol, Reddit’s VP of Ads Engineering, who join their executive team in newly established roles. Riad joins from Google where he held senior roles across strategy, sales, operations, and business growth, and was charged with establishing the company’s first MM and SMB acquisition business across the Asia Pacific region. With almost 20 years of experience in machine learning, most recently from Pinterest where he was Head of Monetization Sciences and ML Engineering, Roelof van Zwol is focused on leading the technical strategy, execution, and team behind Reddit’s monetization engine. Prior to Pinterest, van Zwol held senior positions at Netflix and Yahoo!, with roles spanning engineering, product innovation, and research contributing to his well-rounded career in tech.
Bip UK, a subsidiary of international consulting firm Bip Group, has announced the appointment of Josep Alvarez-Perez as Partner and Head of Bip xTech in the UK to continue the company’s rapid growth as a leader in digital transformation consulting. Alvarez-Perez has over 20 years of experience in the sector, most recently as EMEA Head for Enterprise Cloud Solutions in NTT Data. He has delivered complex technology consulting projects for large enterprises across Europe and has held key roles in prominent vertical sectors such as Energy and Financial Services.
Tecknuovo, a challenger technology consultancy, has appointed Andy Price as its Chief Commercial Officer. Price joins Tecknuovo with 20 years of experience in delivering complex technology and digital transformation programmes. He will be responsible for taking its Deliberately Different model to market. Whilst at Salesforce, Price built its transformation consulting capability, led large-scale teams across digital engagement over both sales and delivery and most recently managed the transformation of its professional services GTM portfolio.
Freshworks Inc., a software company empowering the people who power business, has announced the appointment of Jason Loomis as Chief Information Security Officer. With this appointment, the company bolsters its senior technical leadership as it continues to put the power of software back in the people’s hands with applications easy enough for everyone to use. Loomis brings more than 20 years of experience in information technology and cybersecurity leadership to the role, most recently serving as the Chief Information Security Officer at MINDBODY, Inc., overseeing an enterprise-wide information security program and leading a globally-dispersed team. Before that, he served as Chief Information Security Officer at TechStyle Fashion Group, the company behind brands including Fabletics and Savage X Fenty.
Channel Factory, the global brand suitability platform for YouTube, has announced two key hires within its EMEA leadership team to support its commercial strategy and increased investment in the region. Igor Treutiger has been announced as Partnerships and Trading Director, EMEA. Based in Stockholm, he will be heading up a new role focused on building and developing the partnership strategy around YouTube, Meta and TikTok across EMEA. Igor has over 21 years of agency-side experience, most recently the Trading & Partnerships Director for Sweden & the Nordics at GroupM, and previously held Trading Director roles in broadcast, TV and digital media at Mediacom and IPG. Wouter Aalberse has been appointed in a new role – Director of Direct Client, EMEA. Based in Amsterdam, Aalberse will be spearheading Channel Factory’s partnerships with brands throughout EMEA that have the in-house capabilities to utilise Channel Factory’s product and services directly and/or would benefit from a centrally managed partnership. Prior to joining, Aalberse served as Global Client Partner at Meta (Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp), Commercial Director at Unga, and Sales Director at eBay and Microsoft.
Moloco has announced the appointment of Ben Jeger as Vice President of EMEA. With over a decade of mobile app marketing experience, he will focus on delivering the next stage of Moloco’s growth in the EMEA region. With a wealth of experience driving business growth in the region, Jeger most recently served as Managing Director of Central Europe at AppsFlyer, having previously managed operations for the marketing analytics and attribution platform in DACH and the Nordics since 2016. Prior to this, he was the Senior Director, Client Services for EMEA at Fyber (now owned by Digital Turbine), an app growth and monetisation platform. While at Fyber, he led the business exchange for the region and helped drive the company’s development of the mobile business.
The Marketing Practice has bolstered its global creative division with the appointment of two
executive creative directors (ECD). Lee Wardell and Dan Schrad have both been appointed as ECD’s as The Marketing Practice looks to build out its class-leading creative offering. These appointments follow an 18-month period of rapid growth which saw the acquisition of five agencies across the UK, USA and APAC to become the largest B2B tech specialists globally. Wardell, who has spent the last 10 years as creative director of acquired brand and creative specialists Omobono, will serve as the ECD for the EMEA territory. Schrad, who served as creative director and ECD of the more recently acquired Stateside Account-Based Marketing (ABM) specialists 90Octane will take charge of North America and APAC. As joint ECDs for their respective regions, Wardell and Schrad will head up a global division of over 100 creative specialists and are tasked with a remit of creating compelling, effective and best-in-class creative, which breaks the boundaries of B2B. Another key part of their roles will also be to support the future growth of the creative team, by nurturing and bringing through the next generation of creative talent held within their respective teams.
Lumen Research has appointed Scott Linzer as GM North America and Josh Barnett as Head of Sales, EMEA, as growing numbers of businesses around the world turn to its ground-breaking eye-tracking technology to measure the impact of their campaigns. Linzer will spearhead the expansion of Lumen’s business in the United States and Canada, building a team on the ground to help advertisers optimise attention. He will promote the use of Lumen’s tools for planning, buying, reporting and optimising media in order to drive profitable outcomes for both advertisers and agencies. Most recently Senior Vice President, Business Development at Frameplay, Linzer has worked at a vast range of leading media businesses in a career spanning two decades – including MediaMath, iCrossing, Quantcast, AKQA and Universal McCann. He also held the position of Managing Director at Havas Media Group. Meanwhile, Barnett will be concentrating on cementing Lumen’s position as the leading attention technology provider in the EMEA region. He will be working with brands, agencies, publishers and ad tech providers to embed Lumen’s technology within their day-to-day businesses. As attention data becomes ‘business as usual’ for European advertisers, Barnett and his team will be responsible for making attention optimisation as easy and accessible as possible. Barnett joins from Captify, where he was Head of Agency Sales; having also worked as Agency Partnership Manager at Experian, at LoopMe and Metropolis Studios.
Exit Bee has strengthened its team with the appointment of Victoria Pindar as VP of Sales in the UK. Pindar will help to spearhead further growth within the UK, whilst developing key strategic partnerships. With more than 15 years of experience in the advertising industry, Pindar was formerly Group Digital Manager at Hearst Magazines UK, before joining Ex.Co – formerly Playbuzz – where she rose through the ranks to Managing Director.
Raptor PR – a b2b communications agency for games industry, web3 gaming, and media brands, has supercharged its leadership team with the appointment of Merve Liebelt as a Senior Strategic Advisor. Boasting over twenty years of experience in strategic comms for major global brands and agencies, Liebelt will work with Raptor PR CEO and Founder Rana Rahman to lead the agency into its next phase of hyper-growth. Liebelt brings a wealth of experience and a data-driven mindset to strategic communications, having worked with brands including Puma, Tinder, Christian Louboutin, Allianz, and IONITY, in both brand-side international marketing and communications roles, as well as in renowned agencies. Her recent experience includes pan-European work as VP and General Manager Europe at the award-winning international PR agency JIN Group, and as MD of ML Brand Consulting.
Digital marketing group, Incubeta announces the appointment of Sally Laycock as EMEA CEO and Andrew Turner as UK Managing Director, following the news that Carlyle has acquired a majority stake in the company. With more than 25 years of combined experience in digital advertising, Laycock and Turner will continue to support Incubeta’s clients and people by championing the company’s core values of; Dare To Lead, Earn Trust, Exceed Expectations, and Help Others to Succeed. Sally Laycock joined Incubeta in 2008 as Financial Controller which was then acquired by Incubeta in 2013, with Laycock continuing her role as the Finance lead. In the midst of the pandemic, in February 2021, Laycock was appointed UK CEO and in October she was listed as The Times/LDC’s Top 50 most ambitious leaders in the UK 2022. Taking over the helm of Incubeta UK, Andrew Turner joined Incubeta in 2010 and was appointed Chief Revenue Officer in January this year. Having spent 10 years with the digital marketing group leading on partnerships, new business, and more recently regional marketing., Turner has been instrumental in propelling the company forward with new client wins and fostering our commitment to working with industry partners.
Digital agency Organic, has announced the promotion of two senior team members. Having previously held the role of Head of Client Services since November 2019, Tim Burley has been promoted to Client Services Director. Additionally, ex-Head of SEO and long-standing employee Joe Ford is now the company’s Director of SEO. In line with his promotion, Burley will join the Senior Management Team, with an overall responsibility for building excellent client relationships and driving future growth for the agency. Reporting into Organic’s CEO Ben Scoggins, Burley will lead the Client Services team and support wider goals across both client strategy and business development. Building out the agency’s strategic capability and focusing on the client experience as a key driver of profitable growth will also be a key focus. Joe Ford will lead the SEO team – a key part of Organic’s offering – responsible for driving the strategic and executional direction of SEO across the agency and improving client and agency performance. Reporting into the senior leadership team, he will oversee departmental strategy and progress. Ford will continue to grow the SEO department and offer world-class service to clients, alongside progressive development opportunities and training for the team.
Productsup, the product-to-consumer (P2C) software company, has announced the addition of Sharon Scortis as Chief People and Culture Officer (CPCO) to its executive leadership team. Bringing more than 20 years of experience in leading business and people processes for enterprise software companies, Scortis will help strengthen collaboration, engagement, and inclusivity across Productsup’s global team, as well as accelerate the company’s growth. Throughout her career, Scortis has held numerous HR leadership positions at various enterprise and SaaS companies, including most recently Adthena and Blue Prism. She ran her own HR consultancy business for several years, advising technology and professional services organizations on international HR practices.