Matalan, the fashion and homeware omnichannel value retailer, has announced the appointment of five new leaders as it continues its business transformation. Matalan has appointed a new Director of Online, David Seeby to drive forward its e-commerce offer, harnessing new technology to build a best-in-class omnichannel experience for Matalan’s customers. Seeby joins from Boden where he led the Digital Trading, User Experience and Digital Product teams as Director of Product Management & Experience. Seeby has extensive retail experience having previously held roles in the digital teams of Country Road Group, House of Fraser, M&S and Dixons Retail. John O’Driscoll joins the business as Director of Strategy, where he will be responsible for overseeing the delivery of the leadership team’s strategic plans to build a stronger, more modern Matalan. O’Driscoll joins Matalan from the Co-op, where he spent over 11 years, most recently as Director of Strategic Planning & Solutions, where he led the business’s Strategy, Planning and Governance departments. Matalan’s new Head of Womenswear Buying, Toni Salters-Warner brings over 25 years’ retail experience to the role, joining from Sainsbury’s, where she spent over 10 years culminating in her role as Head of Womenswear Buying for the retailer. Previously, Salters-Warner spent over nine years with George at Asda, where she spent time working across the womenswear, menswear and kidswear departments. Jo Murphy has been appointed Head of Design. Murphy joins from Primark, where she spent over 8 years, most recently as Head of Design. Prior to this, Murphy spent five years at M&S, primarily overseeing design within its homeware and kidswear departments. Murphy also has over 25 years of industry experience, having also held roles with Next, Arcadia and Reebok. Matalan’s final new hire is Charlotte Dewhurst, who joins as its new Director of Marketing. Dewhurst is a marketer with nearly 20 years of industry experience, which includes managing full channel mix in global and regional businesses. Joining from FTSE-100 business RS Group, Dewhurst also has experience leading the marketing and brand functions at ClearScore, Les Mills International, Argos and Morrisons.
Independent agency ROAST has appointed George Stolton to the position of Head of Biddable, following over six years at the company. The promotion reflects ROAST’s dedication to fostering talent from within, as it continues to expand its capabilities. Stolton’s newly created role will spearhead ROAST’s biddable media strategies; leveraging the latest technology and industry trends to deliver unparalleled value to clients.
Fireblocks, an enterprise platform for building blockchain applications and managing digital asset operations, has announced the strategic appointment of Michal Ferguson as the company’s new Chief Marketing Officer. Prior to joining Fireblocks, Ferguson built and scaled the go-to-market functions at Snyk, a cybersecurity platform that integrates directly into development tools, workflows, and automation pipelines valued at $7.4 billion. As CMO, Ferguson will spearhead Fireblocks’ charge to make counterparty-risk-free infrastructure ubiquitous across retail and institutional products and services.
Barb, the industry’s standard for understanding what people watch, today announced it has promoted Caroline Baxter to Chief Operating Officer. Working alongside Justin Sampson, Chief Executive, she will be responsible for ensuring progress on Barb’s strategic priorities to extend Barb’s reporting of total campaign performance, extend measurement of total viewing across all streaming services and future-proof Barb’s data access. Baxter’s priorities for this year include delivering significant developments across new metering technology for Barb’s reporting panel, due to expand across 7,000 UK homes or approximately 16,000 people.
Exclaimer, the email signature solution provider, has announced the appointment of Gordon Willoughby as the new non-executive Chairman and Director. This appointment comes as a strategic move for the continuously expanding company, following a year of significant growth. Willoughby, a seasoned expert in scaling technology companies, brings over 15 years of groundbreaking experience from his time leading major players like eBay, Amazon, and WeTransfer. His expertise will play a crucial role for Exclaimer as it strengthens its market position and advances its ambitious growth path.
Couchbase, Inc., the cloud database platform company, has announced the expansion of its executive leadership team with the appointment of Julie Irish as senior vice president and chief information officer. In this role, Irish will drive Couchbase’s global IT strategy in alignment with the company’s key business objectives. Irish brings nearly 20 years of experience leading business operations, information technology, system implementation, migrations and strategic planning. She was most recently vice president of business applications and IT at New Relic where she scaled the function, led the delivery of complex IT projects and supported the company’s migration to a consumption-based business model. Before that, Irish held leadership positions at Harvard Business Publishing and startup RichRelevance.
Words + Pixels has appointed Andrew Bloch to its Advisory Board to work with the agency following a period of exceptional growth. Bloch joins as one of the most well respected PRs in the UK following co-founding Frank, his work with AAR and known as Sir Alan Sugar’s PR for over 20 years. He features in the PRWeek Power Book and was named as one of the Top Ten most Influential PR people in the world by Buzz Sumo.
International Digital Marketing Partner, Incubeta, is excited to announce the appointment of Jacques van Niekerk as the new Global CEO. This marks a significant milestone in Incubeta’s journey towards amplifying its global impact and enhancing its suite of data-driven services to meet the evolving needs of its international customers. Van Niekerk brings a wealth of experience and industry expertise, backed by a proven track record of success in the marketing sector. Having been part of the founding team at Acceleration, an early adjacent player in the marketing technology consultancy and digital transformation field, he then went on to lead the global data business at both WPP Digital and Wunderman Thompson. Most recently, he held the position of Global CEO at Edisen, a leading video AI and content production company.
