Interviews, insight & analysis on digital media & marketing

Talent Tracker: ROAST, Incubeta, Workato and many more

Media and Performance agency, ROAST has appointed Will Jennings as ‘Head of Paid Media’ after Jennings leaves Jellyfish as ‘Paid Media Director’. Jennings joins ROAST to push forward the agency’s opportunity of growth in the programmatic space. Jennings’ role will oversee PPC, Social and Display as well as working closely with senior management on areas including training, development and hiring. Jennings joined Jellyfish in 2017 based in London and in 2020 progressed within the company to ‘Paid Media Director’. Jennings supported the expansion of the business in Dubai and oversaw the team growth to 25 people, whilst working with client brands such as ‘Nestle Dolce Gusto’, ‘Duracell’ and ‘Orange’.

Digital marketing group, Incubeta, has announced a series of promotions and new hires to bolster the senior team with a dedicated Growth Layer. Andrew Turner has been promoted to Chief Revenue Officer, James Sleaford to Chief Growth Officer and Claire Burgess to Director of Delivery. Joining the company Charlie Davison has been appointed as Growth Consultancy Director. With more than 40 years of combined experience in digital marketing, these strategic promotions harness an industry expertise which will provide clients with unparalleled service and insight. James Sleaford has been promoted to UK Chief Growth Officer. Sleaford was previously UK Managing Director of Incubeta’s AdTech, Analytics and Consultancy business Incubeta DQ&A, where he led the UK launch in 2017. He has also undertaken various roles across Performance Marketing, AdTech, Analytics, Sales, Operations and Recruitment. Bolstering Sleaford’s growth team, is the recruitment of Charlie Davison, formerly BrainLabs and Reprise Media, as Growth Consultancy Director. 

Similarly, Andrew Turner has been promoted from his previous role as Group Commercial Director. Having spent 10 years with the digital marketing group leading on new business, Turner has been instrumental in propelling the company forward with new client wins. As Chief Revenue Officer, Turner will oversee company revenue alongside the UK marketing strategy to attract new clients to the group. A recent achievement saw Andrew leading a successful pitch for the Marks and Spencers Digital Media Account which, in 2021, expanded to cover all programmatic display and paid social channels. Claire Burgess has also been promoted to Director of Delivery after eight years at the digital marketing group. 

Workato has announced the appointment of Massimo Pezzini to Head of Research, Future of the Enterprise. Pezzini joins the company after spending the previous 25 years serving as a distinguished vice president analyst with leading research analyst firm, Gartner, where he specialised in automation and integration technologies and strategies. Pezzini, as a strategic advisor to the Workato team, will play a key role in envisioning how integration and automation technologies must evolve to support Workato’s enterprise customers, as the requirements of these technologies continue to shift in the rapidly transforming global business environment.

Outbrain Inc, a recommendation platform for the open web, has announced the appointment of Paul Knegten, to the newly created position of Chief Marketing Officer, expanding the organization’s global marketing efforts, following the company’s recent IPO. Knegten will lead Outbrain’s global marketing initiatives and will be instrumental in promoting Outbrain’s global brand. He will oversee the global and regional planning, development and execution of Outbrain’s strategic and product marketing programs and campaigns. With a deep background in advertising technology, Knegten has made a name for himself across brand leaders such as Comcast, Yahoo!, MediaMath and more. Prior to joining Outbrain, Knegten was CMO of Beeswax, which was acquired in 2021 by Comcast’s FreeWheel. Following the acquisition of Beeswax, Knegten joined FreeWheel, the CTV platform, as a senior marketing executive.

Starcom has promoted Sophie Barr and Danny Weitzkorn to Managing Partners, welcoming them onto the Starcom UK Leadership team led by CEO Nadine Young. Barr was previously Business Director on the Samsung account for three years, leading planning, mobile and ecosystem campaigns as well as supporting Power of One strategic and operational integration. One Publicis Team Samsung is a hybrid team that fuses Media, CRM, DTC and Commerce expertise. In her new role, Barr will lead a team of 80 and report into Jane Holding (Managing Director for OPTS). Weitzkorn has worked on Samsung alongside Barr, with current clients including P&O Ferries, DP World, Karcher and NS&I. Reporting into Starcom Managing Director, Richard Friar, Weitzkorn will lead a team of 15 where his responsibilities include driving growth, increasing greater success with ID based media solutions and shaping the planning function within the agency. 

SKOOT, the platform for positive Climate Change that helps businesses, individuals and communities achieve their Net Zero targets, has announced the appointment of David Sproul as Board Advisor and Investor. The former Global Deputy CEO of Deloitte and current Chair of Starling Bank will help advise the start-up in their run-up to Series A following raising £4m in seed funding.

The Professional Publishers Association (PPA) has announced the appointment of Nina Wright, Harmsworth Media CEO as its new Chair.  Wright was appointed by the Board of Directors, following the two-year tenure of Tom Bureau, Executive Chairman of Immediate Media and will take up the position in February 2022. An industry leader with 20 years of experience in the publishing industry, Wright was previously Chief Commercial Officer (EMEA) at global events company UBM as well as the CEO of New Scientist before recently taking on the role of Chief Executive Officer of Harmsworth Media (a DMG subsidiary). Wright’s experience spans multiplatform consumer and B2B media and events, and she is renowned for strategic creation, turning businesses around, and driving transformational growth in both events and subscription publishing. Her role as Chair at the PPA will be to provide counsel and ensure the board is effectively implementing its new transformational strategy.

Infobip, a global cloud communications platform and leader in omnichannel engagement, has strengthened its management with the introduction of a new strategic position to take it into the next phase of exponential growth and global expansion. Ivan Ostojić has joined Infobip as Chief Business Officer after 10 years at global consulting company, McKinsey & Company, whereas a Partner he co-founded and co-led McKinsey´s Global Technology Council and McKinsey´s Innovation & New Business building (Leap) practices.

DREST, the business behind the world’s first interactive luxury styling game, has announced Lisa Bridgett as its new CEO, as a part of planned management team evolution, at an exciting point in the company’s upward growth trajectory. Founder and Creator Lucy Yeomans, previously at Harper’s Bazaar and Net-A-Porter, will become Co-Chairman and
Chief Brand and Product Officer. Yeomans will continue to spearhead DREST’s strategic product, partnerships, brand and creative development in her role as Chief Brand &
Product Officer, enabling the gaming platform’s metaverse development. Yeomans will be joined as Co-Chairman by investor and entrepreneur Graham Edwards. Lisa Bridgett – previously COO – is appointed as CEO and will also join the company’s board. Bridgett will drive DREST’s development across gaming, media, data and e-commerce as the company
builds on its 250% year-on-year user growth, and prepares for rapid acceleration in 2022. Bridgett, who hails from Accenture, Universal Music, Ralph Lauren and Net-A-Porter brings considerable technology, digital and e-commerce acumen.

Moloco has announced today it has hired Ryan Goldman as Vice President of Marketing. With nearly two decades of experience in marketing roles for B2B technology companies, Mr. Goldman will help drive the next stage of Moloco’s growth as it continues to democratize machine learning solutions for businesses of all sizes. At Moloco, Mr. Goldman will be responsible for developing and implementing strategies that strengthen the company’s competitive position in the marketplace and for increasing revenue. He will work closely with the executive team to lead the company’s growth strategy, while overseeing and expanding all aspects of the marketing team, including corporate marketing, demand generation, communications and other functions. Most recently, he was the vice president of product marketing at SoundCloud, a next-generation music entertainment company. He previously served as vice president of product marketing at Pendo, a company that provides a cloud platform that makes software better, where he overhauled the company’s product marketing function in order to help it raise Series F funding at a $2.6 billion valuation. Prior to that, he was the vice president of marketing for the application monitoring company Sentry, where he helped drive 3.5x annual recurring revenue growth.