Yahoo has announced the appointment of Tressie Lieberman as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), following an extensive executive search process. A talented and respected marketing leader, Lieberman brings over twenty years of traditional and digital marketing experience transforming world-class consumer brands such as Chipotle, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut. She will report directly to Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone. As Yahoo’s CMO, Lieberman will be responsible for overseeing all aspects of the company’s global marketing strategies, brand positioning, user acquisition and customer engagement initiatives. She will play a pivotal role in shaping the brand’s direction and growth strategy as Yahoo positions itself to help people achieve their goals online for decades to come.
Technical, technology and STEM communications and PR consultancy Stone Junction has created two new shareholders. As a result, agency ownership is now shared between consultancy founder Richard Stone and two long-standing members of the team, Laura England and Jessica Phillips. Stone will continue as managing director, while England will become client services director and Phillips director of agency brand. This is the first time Stone Junction has created new shareholders since the agency’s inception in 2006. The move provides greater sustainability, an improved growth outlook and additional potential for further shares to be allocated in future — either to existing directors or to other members of the team. England was recently listed in PR Week’s 30 under 30 and is a former winner of the CIPR’s Outstanding Young Communicator award for the Midlands. Meanwhile, Phillips won the PRCA’s Professional of the Year award for the Midlands in 2021. Both Phillips and England have been at Stone Junction for eight years and in that time the company has grown by 429 per cent, from a turnover of just under £400K in 2016 to a turnover of nearly £2M in 2022.
The Responsible Marketing Agency has announced a number of key appointments as it continues to help clients to realise sustainable growth through responsible and progressive practices. The new hires include Liam Brennan as Managing Director; Alice Brady, Chief Strategy Officer; and Clare Latham, Global Programme Director. Liam Brennan, the Responsible Marketing Agency’s new Managing Director, has a long history working alongside founder Hannah Mirza, with whom he launched Blink Consulting at MediaCom. He is determined to drive positive change for the agency’s clients, and ultimately, positive change for the industry – having already driven media and marketing transformation for a number of global, household name brands such as Mars and The Coca-Cola Company in his career to date. With a background in transformation, he can orientate clients and partners around a common goal and design work-streams which deliver sustainable and progressive change, and ultimately drive stronger business outcomes. Meanwhile, Alice Brady, who joins as Chief Strategy Officer, has spent the majority of her career in large media agencies as a strategist on household name brands including ITV, Marks & Spencer and Unilever – creating actionable communications strategies, leading integration with other disciplines and agencies and instigating ESG thinking. Latterly at Mindshare, Brady was responsible for Grow@Mindshare – where she supported highly ambitious adolescent brands such as Depop, Graze and Elvie to realise their next stage of growth. Clare Latham, appointed as Global Programme Director at the Responsible Marketing Agency, originally trained as a journalist before moving into programme management at digital agencies and consultancies, working alongside major FMCG brands including Diageo, Unilever, Wrigley, L’Oreal and Beiersdorf. Most recently at Flock Associates, Latham led digital and media transformation programmes for clients to drive growth and future-proof their business.
Global digital transformation company GFT is expanding its Amazon Web Services (AWS) business division with the appointment of Brigitte Sollie as SVP, Global Head AWS Sales and Strategy to deliver on these ambitions. Sollie will play a critical role in GFT’s global AWS strategy as it delivers cloud infrastructure to meet growing global demand. Sollie formerly served as Enterprise Executive Strategic Advisor at AWS. In her new role at GFT, she will specifically oversee GFT’s global AWS strategy, manage its multi-year partnership with AWS, and further cultivate executive relationships with AWS clients. Sollie has more than 25 years of experience in the IT industry, having represented various lines of business and overseen vendor sales, as well as in her capacity as a technology entrepreneur. Prior to AWS, she served as IBM’s strategic digital transformation advisor, specialising in cloud, security and analytics. Sollie additionally held dCIO and CISO roles at the Ohio Department of Public Safety, where she successfully led the organisation’s enterprise Agile transformation, mainframe retirement and data center modernisation.
Pattern, the category leader for global ecommerce acceleration, has announced the addition of former Amazon executive Carolyn Sarnoff as chief marketing officer. Sarnoff brings nearly 20 years of experience building and leading global ecommerce businesses and marketing functions to her new role at Pattern. Sarnoff will oversee the company’s worldwide marketing efforts across 24 offices, studios, and fulfilment centres. Prior to joining Pattern, Sarnoff served as a director and general manager at Amazon over several key business units, where she owned a portfolio of multi-billion-dollar P&Ls and oversaw an array of marketing and growth operations — including brand and go-to-market strategy, product development, product marketing, channel development and optimization, customer success, and more. During her time at Amazon, Sarnoff led the company’s worldwide private label business for softlines, served as GM of several Amazon consumer electronic categories, and held several functional leadership roles — leading brand partnerships, customer acquisition, demand generation, customer experience, product development, and more.
Bazaarvoice, Inc., has announced that it has named Chris Nuttall as EVP of Corporate Development. Nuttall has extensive experience in digital growth strategy, technology M&A, strategic partnerships, and investments across retail, e-commerce, and other industries. A global corporate development veteran, Nuttall has led and executed over five billion dollars in acquisition transaction volume over the last few years. In his role, Nuttall will be responsible for accelerating Bazaarvoice’s platform capabilities, global growth, and overall scale through strategic acquisitions and M&A, including evaluating build, buy and partner opportunities. Previous to Bazaarvoice, Nuttall served as SVP of Corporate Development at Simpli.fi where he built and led a new corporate development capability and executed multiple M&A transactions, taking the company into the SaaS business. At Qurate Retail Group, Nuttall served as VP, Corporate Development, leading on transformational M&A and international market development strategy, exploring acquisitions and strategic partnerships in Canada, Latin America, EMEA and Asia Pacific.
Glide Group, a specialist in utilities and connectivity, has announced the appointment of Paula Benoit as its new Chief Financial Officer. With a career spanning over 30 years, having held a number of senior finance and operational leadership roles, Benoit joins Glide with a wealth of experience with network providers, previously holding roles as Financial Director at both KeyCom and Three. In her new role at Glide, Benoit will lead the organisation’s Finance function. She will also lead responsibilities across Glide’s Legal, Regulatory and Compliance, as well as HR departments. As Chief Financial Officer, Benoit joins Sean Lowry, Chief Technology Officer, Glide Group, and Tim Pilcher, Chief Executive Officer, Glide Group, on the company’s Executive team.
Six Degrees has appointed Chris Jackson to the role of Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO). Jackson joins us from online education provider insendi, where his role as Chief Product and Technology Officer focused on their mission to create compelling digital learning experiences for students globally. Chris has previously worked in senior leadership roles with several pedigree brands, including Thomas International, Pearson, and Rackspace.
Balderton Capital has announced the appointment of Leah Sutton as Chief Portfolio Talent Officer. Sutton will be responsible for providing support and advice for the 100+ active companies within Balderton’s portfolio, focusing on recruitment, culture and organisational strategy. Sutton brings over two decades of experience and a passion for helping founders hire world-class teams, develop their leadership teams and scale their organisations. Sutton was previously SVP of Global HR at search company Elastic (ESTC), and has over two decades worth of experience in human resources and people management. In her seven years at Elastic, Sutton led the company through 10x people growth, including an IPO and six acquisitions.
Pro Carrier, the international eCommerce shipping specialist, has appointed Andy Meeson as Director of Returns to focus on streamlining returns processes for online retail customers. Meeson brings with him an extensive background in logistics and supply chain operations. He joins Pro Carrier from ReBound, the global returns management specialist, where he was Operations Director, and previously Head of Supply Chain, responsible for managing 250 suppliers around the globe, and handling over 9 million parcels for some of the world’s largest retailers. As Director of Returns, Meeson will be looking at how Pro Carrier can adapt its returns journey for customers in this fast-moving environment which has only been digitalised in the last few years. He will play a critical role in improving the returns experience for customers, making tracking of parcels more visible from retailer to mile end, and offering high customer service in handling VAT duties and customs processes.
Leeds-headquartered digital transformation specialist Axiologik has made a trio of senior hires as the business pursues further growth. Finance director Ross MacGregor is the first addition to the leadership team. While new to the tech sector, he joins Axiologik with almost a decade of experience in CFO and FD roles within fast-growth businesses across Yorkshire. A Yorkshire Finance Leaders award winner, his background spans supply chain, retail, construction, and manufacturing industries, to name a few, with his most recent role being to support an ambitious start-up in Australia. Newly-appointed head of people Sarah Bright is another critical hire, as Axiologik’s total headcount now tops 110 colleagues nationwide. Bright’s impressive CV spans almost 25 years in a variety of HR roles, including a 13 year stretch at renowned brand, Hallmark. More familiar with the tech sector in recent years, this piqued her interest when this fresh position became available at Axiologik. Commercial director Rob Smith completes the line-up. A Yorkshireman who has lived in London for 30 years, his background spans a range of senior positions. His maths degree took him into technical roles, first into a systems developer role for Kodak, and later to European Engineering Director for Sila Communications — a Reuters’ company. Since then, his career has seen him become increasingly commercial, including MD of the pioneering agile consultancy IndigoBlue, which he led from inception through growth and subsequent sale. He has remained immersed in the strategic technology space, and has now returned to work alongside familiar and highly-respected facees at Axiologik.
GoTo, the company making IT management, support, and business communication easy with flagship products GoTo Resolve, Rescue, and GoTo Connect, has announced the promotion of Meredith Hawkins to Chief People Officer and the appointment of Attila Török to Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). Hawkins succeeds Jo Deal, who served as Chief People Officer at GoTo for over six years. Deal is leaving the company to spend more time with her family. Previously serving as the company’s Vice President and Head of Global People Partners, Hawkins joined GoTo in 2019 after holding senior leadership positions at TripAdvisor, Akamai Technologies, and Staples, among others. Her nearly 20 years in human resources include deep experience in talent management, leadership development, performance management, and succession planning, making her well-equipped for her new role. Bolstering the company’s security leadership team, Attila Török returns to GoTo as the newly appointed CISO, having previously held leadership positions within the company’s security department from 2014 to 2019. Török played a key role in his first tenure (then known as LogMeIn), building the company’s security function before leaving to serve as Zapier’s Head of Security. In his new role at GoTo, Török will be responsible for the security of internal systems and products, safeguarding GoTo’s information assets.
Builtvisible, the London-headquartered 70-strong organic specialist agency, has appointed Maria Vardy as Managing Director. Vardy joins Builtvisible from Jaywing, an agency with offices in Leeds and Sheffield, where she was Managing Director and brings with her a wealth of experience in the marketing industry. Maria Vardy is a seasoned professional with a proven track record of delivering exceptional client and agency results. With over 15 years of experience in digital marketing and a deep understanding of industry trends, Vardy is well-equipped to lead Builtvisible into its next phase of growth and success. At Builtvisible, Vardy will oversee the agency’s operations, working closely with the talented specialist teams across data, SEO and Content to develop and execute strategies that drive exceptional outcomes for clients in high-competition verticals.
The IN Group, a global end-to-end talent solution company, has appointed marketing veteran Rachael Jones as Chief Marketing Officer to lead the brand’s global growth strategy. Jones will be tasked with driving The IN Group’s global marketing plan, closely aligned with the overall business strategy, across the UK, Europe and the US, leading a team of 13 at group level across the Group’s practices Investigo, InX, Definia, and Caraffi. Jones is a leading figure in the industry with over 25 years of experience at major brands including BBC, Microsoft Advertising, National Car Rental and Virgin Travelstore where she delivered widespread brand awareness through global marketing and commercial campaigns.
Wavemaker has announced that it has appointed Premjeet Sodhi as Global Head of Measurement and Analytics. Based in New York, Sodhi will join Wavemaker’s Consultancy team reporting to Anna Hickey, Global Consultancy Lead. Sodhi will transition from his current role as Chief Strategy Officer at Wavemaker India. As Global Head of Measurement and Analytics, Sodhi joins Wavemaker’s global Consultancy which supports clients in adopting future-proofed marketing practices to advance transformative growth, protecting outcomes in the near-term, and creating disproportionate advantage in the long-term. L’Oréal, Audible, Paramount and Cadbury are just a few of the household names that the Consultancy has helped to adopt transformative practices to accelerate growth.
Digital Catapult CEO, Jeremy Silver, announced his intention to step down in March 2024, after what will be eight years in the role. Silver plans to focus time on a non-executive portfolio career, continuing to serve as a Trustee of the British Library and with a number of early stage technology companies. Silver has been in the position since 2016 and has been responsible for trebling the Catapult’s size in that time to just under 300 employees and launching 20 national technical facilities around the country. Under his tenure in the past five years alone, Digital Catapult has assisted 260 startups in raising £577m in investment and growing their businesses by bringing innovative new solutions to traditional industry. The Catapult has supported over 2800 businesses since its inception in 2013.
