Interviews, insight & analysis on digital media & marketing

Talent Tracker: Space & Time, Born Social, Reddit and more

Independent agency Space & Time has taken the next step in its business strategy by promoting Managing Partner Chris Jones to Managing Director. Sandy Gil, the previous Managing Director becomes Chief Operating Officer while the agency’s founder Peter Jones continues as Chairman. The changes take place with immediate effect. As Managing Director, Jones will be responsible for driving the business forward both strategically and commercially. He will also lead the roll-out of the agency’s new positioning as well as championing its corporate profile. He will be supported by a newly formed executive team that has worked alongside Jones for several years. Jones had previously built and run Space & Time’s media business in London before being appointed as managing partner in 2018.

Award-winning social media agency, Born Social, has appointed creative strategist, Joe Jordan. Jordan joins Born Social from Amsterdam based media company, Dept Agency, where he held the role of senior creative, leading creative work for global brands including Netflix, JBL, Accell Group and Uber/Uber Eats. In 2020, he received two Lovie Awards for his work on the ‘Raise The Bar’ social-first campaign for American audio manufacturer, JBL’s new soundbar range. While at Dept Agency, Joe helped launch a new line of eco-friendly streetwear Dept Apparel.

Almost one year on from launching in the UK, Reddit is continuing to scale its Advertising Business in the UK and EMEA, today announcing several key Sales leadership hires to accelerate growth across the region. David Trencher, who was previously based in the US where he was responsible for driving success among Reddit’s largest advertisers, and held senior positions at Spotify and Facebook before that, has been promoted to Head of Large Customer Sales (LCS) for UK and EMEA. He will join newly appointed Maria Purcell as Head of Growth Partnerships (Mid-Market and Small-Medium Business Sales). Purcell was formerly Head of Commercial Partnerships for EMEA at Facebook and at Uber before that.

Admix, the In-Play advertising platform that bridges the gap between gaming and advertising, announces the appointment of senior advertising industry leader Marty Berman as VP of Sales for North America and LATAM. He joins Admix with over two decades of media and advertising industry experience, having held senior leadership roles at global organizations such as InMobi, Integrate Marketing, NBC Internet, Triad and Monster, with key accounts including American Family Insurance, United Airlines, GMC and Progressive Insurance.

firstlight has bolstered its digital offering with the appointment of digital specialist Neil Young as Associate Director, whilst growing its wider team with three additional hires. With tenures at agencies including Teneo, Ketchum and M&C Saatchi PR, Young brings wide-ranging corporate and consumer experience spanning influencer marketing, digital strategy, creative and paid. He has acted for a number of significant global and UK brands, with former clients including Microsoft, Transport for London, Aldi and HSBC. Young joins the agency alongside Account Director Imogen Robinson, a corporate and business specialist from Good Relations. Robinson has vast experience running campaigns and high-volume press offices for clients across multiple sectors including retail, transport, engineering, and professional services. Also joining the team are Account Manager Emily Baker from Hume Brophy, and Account Executive Isabella Iacovone

Wavemaker has appointed Oli Saunders to the role of Global Head of Addressability and DCO. As part of Wavemaker’s Consulting Hub and based in London, Saunders will be tasked with ensuring the ongoing and continual growth of addressable content opportunities across the agency and for clients, building out the agency’s capabilities in market and globally, and embedding addressable content opportunities into the planning process. Saunders joins Wavemaker after acting as a strategic advisor to the GroupM Addressable Content Unit, prior to which he was Chief Product Officer at Omnicom’s programmatic creative specialist shop Adylic. He is also the COO and co-founder of the award-winning lifestyle blog platform FitnessOnToast.com. 

Real-time Engagement company Monterosa has marked its mission to expand its foothold in fan engagement with the hiring of Alex Regan. Regan is an experienced Senior Sales executive who has spent the last 8 years helping media and sports organisations launch digital transformation and audience engagement initiatives. Regan has worked with Eleven Sports, Play Sports, BeIN Sports, West Ham United FC, Southampton FC, Schweizerischer Fussballverband, Deutscher Fußball-Bund and brings a wealth of knowledge and passion to Monterosa.

Mackwell Health, a division of the Mackwell Group of Companies is pleased to announce the appointment of Andrew Burns as Business Development Manager – Advanced Respiratory Protection. Andrew Burns has a background in global Infection Control, and has a wealth of experience within the Healthcare and Life Sciences fields delivering sales throughout Europe and the rest of the world. 

As part of these key Sales leadership hires, Reddit’s Global Agency Development team, led by Leanne Doan, is also expanding its UK and EMEA presence. London-based Susanne Schmid joins this month from Facebook where she was Regional Agency Lead. Schmid will serve as global agency lead for WPP, Reddit’s first global holding company lead to be based outside of the U.S. Additionally, former VP, Global Head of Partnerships at Verizon Media, John Baylon joins the team later this month as Regional Agency Lead, EMEA, and will be responsible for servicing all holding companies across EMEA in a newly-developed role. Both Schmid and Baylon will report to Doan. 

Videon has announced the appointment of Tricia Iboshi, previously Chief Operating Officer at Videon, as Chief Executive Officer and the addition of several senior marketing, operations, and sales leadership hires to its rapidly growing team. Iboshi brings over 20 years of experience in developing and managing cross-functional teams to drive exponential growth. She has a proven track record in achieving key strategic business objectives for companies including Blackarrow, Make.TV, and LTN Global. Tricia will be driving Videon in its next phase of growth. Ken Ruck joins as VP of Commercial Operations & Sales. Ruck has led several successful start-ups including Linus ASX: LNU, Flash Networks, Oberon Media, and Hemisphere Interactive. He has also spearheaded emerging divisions of major media companies such as  Viacom, Turner, Virgin, and Kodak. Before joining Videon, Ruck served as the Principle of Product for Amazon Live, launching the company’s shoppable and AI-enabled live video platform and building it to $500 million in annual revenues.

Chance Mason joins as VP of Strategic Accounts. Mason has a successful track record in building and delivering game-changing sales and marketing strategies for industry players like Piksel, Qumu, and Haivision. Mason will drive key strategic accounts and partnerships for Videon. Richard Carreon joins as Senior Director, Marketing. Carreon brings his deep experience in driving adoption for new category creations, creating performance marketing campaigns, and corporate marketing for ad tech, martech, and video platforms. Tucker Snedeker joins as Senior Sales Executive. Snedeker is a seasoned revenue development and channel sales professional with a track record in starting and growing new businesses at both emerging growth companies and established enterprises, including Brightcove, TV Guide, Adobe, and AirCastLive. He brings his experience in OTT video delivery and architecture, streaming video services, and cloud video platforms.

Cloudinary has just appointed Jason Johns, as VP of Sales for EMEA and APAC. Johns will lead Cloudinary’s Enterprise &. Mid Market New Business Sales Team as it scales its business in these regions and launch new products into these markets. Johns has worked in sales for more than 20 years, building and developing high-growth SaaS based businesses – most recently in the media and broadcast space at companies like Comcast, Ooyala, and Applicaster. He will be based in London.

Performance marketing agency, Journey Further, has appointed James Addlestone as its new Chief Strategy Officer. Addlestone will join the executive team and lead strategy for the Leeds, London and Manchester agency, working closely with CEO, Robin Skidmore, and Managing Director, Matt Kwiecinski, to deliver on the business’s global growth plans. Addlestone began his career in strategy consulting and data science at Deloitte, before moving to a number of agency groups including Interpublic and Omnicom. He departs his role as Head of Decision Science at RAPP to join Journey Further.

Global socially-led creative agency We Are Social has hired Seth Jones as Senior Creative Director and Viren Mistry as Associate Editorial Director, as well as promoting Jenni Smit to Design Director in the UK. Jones, who has worked in film, social, OOH, gaming and more, will be responsible for creative output across a number of We Are Social’s key clients, such as Audi and Gatorade. Previously Creative Director at M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment, he has been working on a freelance basis for We Are Social for three months, and now joins the team permanently. His past experience also includes AnalogFolk, Tribal Worldwide and Elvis Communication across clients such as Nike, Sainsbury’s and PepsiCo. Mistry joins the agency’s editorial department and will be responsible for the output across a number of brands including Diageo and Audi. Prior to joining We Are Social, he worked for start-up Orbit Energy, where he spent three years as the head of brand & channels, creating digital end-to-end customer journeys for B2B clients. Multi-disciplinary Creative Designer Smit has been with We Are Social for seven years and was promoted to the role of design director while on maternity leave. She returns to lead a design team of 20 people, producing digital and print design, photography, film, animation and more across all We Are Social’s clients, including Lidl and Vodafone. Both Jones and Smit report to We Are Social’s Executive Creative Director, Gareth Leeding and Mistry will report to We Are Social’s interim Head of Editorial, Sarah Hecks.  

M&C Saatchi has further bolstered its customer capability with the appointment of Rich Edwards as Head of Planning for its O2 business. Prior to a short break from agency life, Edwards was most recently Executive Strategy Director at creative agency Iris, where he built and ran the integrated strategy team in London, and led the development of the agency’s approach to customer and brand experience. As part of the role, he oversaw customer, loyalty, digital and innovation strategy for KFC, and also led planning for clients including Formula E, Suzuki and Haven Holidays. Edwards previously spent nearly eight-and-a-half years at M&C Saatchi Group customer agency LIDA, which merged with M&C Saatchi in January 2020, holding various account handling and planning roles between 2004 and 2012. He was part of the LIDA pitch team which originally won the O2 business.

Hudson Commerce has appointed a new digital project manager to oversee its increasing workflow across its Glasgow, Manchester and Copenhagen offices. Gavin Gilbert joined Glasgow HQ’d Hudson Commerce this month in a move which directly reflects the agency’s plans to invest in and expand the team over the next 12 months to support continued rapid growth in client servicing demands. Gilbert joins from Scottish sportswear retailer, Trespass, where he oversaw several major projects including the migration of the company’s online operations from eCommerce platform Magento 1.0 to Magento 2.0. This latest appointment, which is a newly created role for the agency, follows a string of other recent recruits including the hiring of Marketing Executive Lori Neil, Software Developer Campbell Murray and Front-End Developer Ross Wilson who have been brought in as Hudson continues to bolster its industry presence.

Walnut UNLIMITED, part of UNLIMITED, has promoted Chris Bland, the former Board Director at Walnut UNLIMITED, to Managing Director (MD). With over 18 years’ experience in research and business strategy, Bland will oversee the day-to-day running of the agency. Bland takes over from Jane Rudling, who has been MD of Walnut UNLIMITED for four years. Bland will continue to report to her, and Rudling will continue in her role as head of UNLIMITED’s Insights & Analytics division comprising of Walnut UNLIMITED and analytics and data science business Realise UNLIMITED. Rudling will have a special focus on UNLIMITED’s Human Understanding Lab – a platform that provides human-centric analytics and insight across the brand experience journey, unlocking real business advantage for brands. Bland joined Walnut UNLIMITED in 2017, where he has been heading up several clients and driving the integration of behavioural science and neuroscience techniques into Walnut UNLIMITED’s approaches. Prior to Walnut, he held senior roles at agencies including Basis Research and Future Thinking.

InPost, the out-of-home and eCommerce delivery company, has announced the deployment of its 2,000th Automated Parcel Machine – or locker unit – in the UK, as it further revolutionises the UK eCommerce shopping experience. As it looks to ramp up its presence in the UK, the business has also announced a trio of new hires to the UK executive team. Jonathan Sheard has joined InPost as Business Development Director, Mathew Munro as Product and Marketing Director and Richard Cooper as Logistics Director. Jonathan Sheard joins from Klarna, where he was part of Klarna’s initial UK launch team as Director of Enterprise Sales for the UK, responsible for accelerating consumer acquisition and loyalty through their platform, primarily across the UK’s largest retail brands. Mathew Munro joins after working as Chief Product Officer at New York based tech firm Conversocial, where he was tasked with overseeing their core product strategy and design, as well as customer support. Richard Cooper has held recent senior logistics positions at Capita, Vodafone and Amazon.

N-able, Inc.,the purpose-built technology partner for managed services providers (MSPs), has named Kathleen Pai as its new Chief People Officer. Pai joins from SolarWinds, bringing vast experience across all elements of human resources strategy and people development, and will help nurture, support, and grow the global N-able team. Prior to joining SolarWinds in January 2020, Kathleen served as vice president of people at Ultimate Software. She won the 2018 Human Resources Excellence Award from South Florida Business & Wealth Magazine, recognizing her as a distinguished HR professional who built and nurtured talent and elevated companies to the top of their industries.

Access has made a director level appointment to ‘take its culture to another level’ and support its exponential growth. The Manchester based digital agency has recruited Lisa Jones as Talent Acquisition and Development Director. Jones brings an impressive track record of growing agency teams to the newly created role within Access, joining from 21GRAMS and previously McCann Manchester and HAVAS LYNX where she held similar positions. This latest senior level appointment comes alongside four other new digital hires within the agency this month. Craig Perks has joined the team as a Senior Developer, to lead a squad within Access’ burgeoning delivery teams. Perks joins from CTi Digital where he was Head of Drupal Development. He has more than 15 years of industry experience. The agency has also taken on Alexander Gada, as a Junior Developer, as well as another two Degree Apprentices from MMU. Eleanor Johnson and Isabella Vaughan have both signed up with Access for this coming academic year to take part in the popular scheme. Offering the opportunity to marry academic learning and the wider student experience with paid on the job training, apprenticeship developer degrees offer a win-win for businesses, apprentices and universities alike. Access has previously taken two other students as part of the scheme.