Riskified, a specialist in eCommerce risk intelligence, has announced that Jeff Otto has joined the company as Chief Marketing Officer, effective immediately. Otto will be responsible for a global integrated marketing strategy that will amplify Riskified’s brand, strengthen its category leadership and accelerate demand for Riskified’s expanding product suite. Otto brings two decades of enterprise technology experience. He was most recently head of marketing at Marqeta, a global fintech category leader in modern card issuing and embedded finance serving many leading eCommerce disruptors. Prior to that, Otto held various senior leadership roles within Salesforce’s Industries Division where he built and led marketing teams and successfully brought to market cloud solutions for financial services, healthcare and manufacturing. He also previously developed and delivered solutions within the technology divisions of Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch.
Mindshare UK has appointed Alexis Faulkner and Richard Kelly to the new roles of Chief Transformation Officer and Chief Solutions Officer. Kelly joined Mindshare UK as Head of AV in 2010 and has most recently been Chief Revenue Officer since February 2021. In the new role of Chief Solutions Officer, he will continue to oversee Mindshare’s investment teams and will now also take the responsibility of delivering solutions that bring together our vast agency capabilities to help solve business problems for our clients. He will do this working in partnership with Alexis Faulkner and Alan Weetch, Chief Strategy, Planning and Innovation Officer. Faulkner’s role will focus on three core areas: ensuring Mindshare’s operating model is fit for future, supporting Mindshare clients in the way they are transforming their businesses, based on customer needs and leading incubation areas for future-facing products areas of growth, customer experience, e-commerce. Demonstrating Mindshare’s commitment to investing in transformation at Board level, she will lead Mindshare’s Insights, Technology and Analytics and Digital Planning teams. Faulkner joined Mindshare in 2018 and has been the agency’s Chief Digital Officer since 2021. Prior to Mindshare, she worked in a variety of senior roles at GroupM and ITV.
Mood Media, the experiential media company that maximises the customer experience and provides value for businesses and brands worldwide, has made two appointments to its UK-based leadership team with Barry McPhillips, as International Head of Creative and Mathew Wilde as Business Development & UK Sales Director. Wilde comes to Mood Media from his former role as Head of Business Development at Pixel Inspiration. He started his career in a fast-track management program at Tesco, and has a wealth of experience having worked across a range of well-known companies including Iceland, Marks & Spencer, and Thomas Cook. Barry McPhillips brings 30 years of expertise in developing innovative and engaging campaigns across a range of industries to the team. He has worked on creatives for clients ranging from Batman to Carlsberg, JP Morgan to Unilever and everything in between.
Magnite, the independent sell-side advertising company, has announced the appointment of Natasha Westlund as the Head of Nordics and the opening of a new office in Stockholm, which will serve as the company’s base across Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. As Head of Nordics, Westlund is the commercial lead across both seller and buyer teams building the company’s business in the region. Westlund is based in the company’s Stockholm office and reports to Magnite’s SVP Head of EMEA Julie Selman. Westlund comes to Magnite with over 20 years of experience in media and advertising in various leadership roles in sales and client services. Westlund joins Magnite from Google, where she was the Industry Head of Large Customer Sales, with a focus on international clients. Prior to that, she was the Head of Sales for the Nordics at Spotify where she developed new revenue streams across programmatic and podcast inventory. For over a decade, Westlund honed her sales and management skills at TV4 Group, one of the leading TV companies in the Nordics.
Global experience design company, Imagination, has appointed Becca Machado as UK Finance Director. Effective immediately, Machado will report to Mark Chappell, Global Chief Financial Officer, and Richard Hannah, UK Managing Director. Machado brings with her 11 years of experience in financial management, including her previous role as Commercial Finance Director at WPP’s brand consultancy, Superunion. During her time at Superunion, she played a key role in driving financial performance, implementing new systems and commercially focused processes, and contributing to the growth of the business. Prior to Superunion, Machado’s roles included Global Commercial Finance at OLIVER Agency and 6 years within Transaction Services/Mergers & Acquisitions at KPMG in London and New Zealand.
Hyperactive, Miroma Group’s experiential agency, has appointed George Gilmore from rEvolution as its first New Business and Marketing Director as it reveals a fresh culture-focused proposition. Gilmore will be charged with creating and delivering the agency’s business development and marketing strategies, growing the client base through a commitment to building meaningful connections with audiences by harnessing the power of brand experience and social content. A three time BD100 club member, Gilmore previously spent nearly four years as Business Director at rEvolution, the global integrated sports marketing agency, during which time he saw the agency double in size, defying the impact of the pandemic. Prior to this he worked within the Engine Group as Head of Business Development and Marketing Director at sports marketing outfit Synergy and brand experience agency Slice.
Pegasystems Inc., the low-code platform provider empowering the world’s leading enterprises to Build for Change®, has announced it has appointed Dr Christian Guttmann as vice president of engineering, decisioning & AI. As an accomplished AI leader in both business and academia, Dr Guttmann will oversee the architecture and delivery of AI technology that powers the Pega Infinity™ product suite. Dr Guttmann has more than 25 years of experience in AI, machine learning, and decisioning technology and commercialization. He joins Pega from Tietoevry, a global software and services company where he founded its AI and data business and served as vice president, global head of AI & data.
Hitachi Vantara, the modern infrastructure, data management and digital solutions subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd. has announced that Monica Kumar has assumed the role of Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at the organization, effective immediately. She reports directly to Chief Executive Officer Gajen Kandiah. Kumar was most recently the Senior Vice President, Global Marketing and Cloud GTM at Nutanix. During her tenure at Nutanix, she led the simplification of a complex product and solutions strategy, and the scaling and transformation for a $1B+ cloud portfolio. Hitachi Vantara has also announced that Sheila Rohra has been named chief business strategy officer (CBSO), effective immediately. Most recently, Rohra served as the senior vice president and general manager, data infrastructure business at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), where she was responsible for a $2 billion global organization focused on providing distinguished primary storage with cloud-native data infrastructure and hyperconverged infrastructure to some of the world’s top Fortune 500 companies.
Braze, the comprehensive customer engagement platform that powers interactions between consumers and the brands they love, has announced the appointment of Fernando Machado, NotCo Global Chief Marketing Officer, to its Board of Directors. Machado will replace Matthew Jacobson, an early investor in Braze who is stepping down from the Braze Board of Directors after more than five years of service. Machado is an award-winning marketing innovator, providing inspiration on the basis of his creative genius, as well as a passion for growing brands and businesses. With nearly 30 years of experience, he has a strong reputation for his distinctive propositions, innovation, design, technology, and overall marketing approach. Fernando Machado is currently the global chief marketing officer of NotCo, the international plant-based food tech unicorn transforming the food industry by delivering elevated plant-based options to consumers.
