Interviews, insight & analysis on digital media & marketing

NDA’s Talent Tracker column provides a regular update on which companies are recruiting who and from where.

Talent Tracker: Who’s going where

Validity has announced today it has two new positions on its leadership team; a Senior Vice President (SVP) of Marketing and a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). As SVP of Marketing, Kate Adams brings almost 20 years of experience building and creating marketing and demand generation programs from scratch. With expertise in marketing to sales and marketing professionals, Adams’ appointment will bring a valuable perspective in continuing Validity’s growth. Before Validity, Adams was Vice President of Marketing at revenue acceleration company Drift, where she discovered her passion for marketing to sales professionals and marketers. In addition to Adams, Validity’s Executive Vice President of Sales, Don Williams, who has been with Validity since its inception in 2018, was recently promoted to Chief Revenue Officer.

Grip, the market engagement platform for hybrid, virtual and live events, has announced three new appointments for the roles of CFO, Head of Marketing and Head of People. Geraint Owen joins Grip in the newly created role of CFO, following six years at Questback, where he was Finance Director for US and UK. In his previous role, Owen focused on scaling the business in both the UK and US and will be using his knowledge of the American market to support Grip as the business looks to further establish its presence overseas. Graham Forsyth, former Marketing Director at Khoros for EMEA and ANZ, is joining Grip as Head of Marketing. Forsyth’s in-depth knowledge of AI engagement software will help Grip establish its position as the leading market engagement platform and build international awareness of the business. As the Grip team continues to grow, Abby Matthews will join as Head of People. Matthews’ previous roles at DREST, Contino and GitLab, have supported significant team growth across the DevOps and Technology markets both in the UK and internationally.

Yellow Fish, the independent full-service events and marketing agency, has announced that Managing Director, Laura Pace, has taken ownership of the business. New owner, Laura Pace, joined Yellow Fish in March last year from London-based experiential agency, Hot Pickle, where she held the role of Business Director. In the eight years with the agency, Laura worked across a broad portfolio of household brands including Magnum; Hovis, Hello Fresh and Campari.

Exasol, the analytics database, has announced that Peter Jackson has joined the leadership team as Chief Data and Analytics Officer (CDAO). Jackson brings with him a wealth of experience in defining and implementing data strategies aligned to business needs. He has also held several leadership positions supporting companies through digital transformation. In his role as CDAO, Jackson will help Exasol’s customers make the most of its high-performance in-memory analytics database to accelerate their innovation journey. Jackson will also work closely with the product and R&D team to help shape Exasol’s roadmap. Prior to joining Exasol, Jackson was Director of Group Data Sciences at Legal and General, where he was responsible for the group’s data strategy and for driving innovation and digital transformation globally. During this time, Jackson also served as the Chief Data Officer for the L&G Investment Management business, an Exasol customer.

New Asset Exchange (NAX) has appointed Joe Euteneuer as a member of its Board of Directors and Chair of the company’s Finance and Audit Committees. Euteneuer, whose most recent role was as CFO at Mattel Inc, brings over thirty years of industry experience to NAX’s Board. Prior to his time at Mattel Inc, Euteneuer held CFO roles at companies including Sprint, Qwest, Sirius XM Radio and Comcast. His cross-sector expertise will add value to NAX’s promising progress to date.

eShopWorld (ESW) has appointed Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne as President and CEO, Americas, effective March 17, 2021. Bousquet-Chavanne brings more than 30 years of operating experience in the global FMCG and retail industries to ESW, including leading strategy, global brand development, customer experience and digital transformation for companies such as Emaar Malls, Marks & Spencer and The Estée Lauder Companies. In his new role, Bousquet-Chavanne will have overall responsibility for ESW’s Americas business and growth strategy as well as worldwide marketing. In addition, he will lead ESW’s new consulting division, The Reach Advisory™. Bousquet-Chavanne previously served as a member of ESW’s Retail Advisory Council, providing strategic guidance and amplifying the company’s cross-border ecommerce proposition globally.

The Ozone Project, the digital advertising platform, has appointed Emma Cranston into the newly-formed role of Head of Client Services, reporting directly to the company’s Chief Revenue Officer, Craig Tuck. In this new role, Cranston will take responsibility for Ozone’s Client Services approach and lead the team who manage ongoing relationships and live campaigns with both media agency and advertiser customers. Cranston will join Ozone on March 23rd. Prior to this appointment, Cranston was Head of Display Activation at Manning Gottlieb OMD, one of many senior roles she held – including Head of Publishing and Investment Director – in a near-fifteen year career at the agency. Prior to joining Manning Gottlieb OMD, Cranston worked for Carat.

Cinos, a specialist provider of integrated audio-visual and communication solutions has announced the appointments of Tony King, Director of Healthcare and Marc Bertasius, Microsoft Practice Lead to support its delivery of collaboration solutions across the NHS and healthcare organisations. As Director of Healthcare, Tony King will be responsible for overseeing Cinos’ collaboration and IT offering. With over 15 years of experience in health and social care consultancy, King will work closely with new and existing customers, providing them with the strategic support required to drive better outcomes. Before joining Cinos, King worked across many digital projects including the national strategy for the migration away from N3 to the Health and Social Care Network (HSCN). Marc Bertasius joins as Microsoft Practice Lead, bringing with him a wealth of communications experience and expertise delivering Microsoft Cloud Technologies. Bertasius will be responsible for driving growth, building partnerships and overseeing project delivery. Prior to joining Cinos, Bertasius worked at Modality Systems where he provided expert consultancy on the delivery of cloud solutions such as Microsoft Teams.

Darktrace, an autonomous cyber security AI company has welcomed the Rt Hon. David Willetts to its Board of Directors as a Non-Executive Director. Lord Willetts served as a Member of Parliament from 1992-2015. He was Minister for Universities and Science within the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills from 2010-2014, and previously held roles within HM Treasury and the No. 10 Policy Unit. His current roles include President of the Resolution Foundation and Chair of the Foundation for Science and Technology, together with serving on several company boards.

Randy Littleson has joined Conga as Chief Marketing Officer. Littleson brings extensive experience leading marketing for global enterprise software companies through rapid growth and acquisition. His appointment is one of several executive new hires recently announced, including the addition of Grant Peterson as chief product officer. Prior to joining Conga, Littleson spent his 30 year career working with high growth software companies. He has a wide range of experience working in both private (including a prior Thoma Bravo backed company), and public companies. Over the past 11 years, he has served as the senior vice president of marketing at Flexera and chief marketing officer and senior vice president of global expansion at NICE inContact (part of publicly traded NICE, a $1.7B software provider), where he helped lead the companies to doubling in size.

Enterprise AI platform Dataiku has announced that Shaun McGirr has been hired as AI Evangelist, to be based outside of the company’s London headquarters. McGirr has over 15 years of experience working with data as a practitioner across multiple industries, including doctorate-level training in applied statistics, consulting, and automotive. He will focus on helping customers maximise value on their paths to Enterprise AI, while coaching and advising teams internally. Prior to joining Dataiku, McGirr served as Head of Data Science & Business Intelligence at Cox Automotive UK, where he led a team helping customers access, understand, and engage with data to improve decision-making. He is also co-host of the Half Stack Data Science podcast.

Phos has appointed Kristiyan Shahinyan as its Chief Technology Officer. Shahinyan brings more than 15 years’ experience in software development and will play a key role in the next phase of phos’ growth. Most recently he was Team Lead at SolarEdge technologies, a global leader in smart energy technology, where he led some of the company’s biggest software product programmes. Prior to this, Shahinyan spent over ten years working as a Developer and Project Manager at ComSoft, a computer software company specialising in hardware systems, information services and systems integration. His focus was on governance and the banking industry.

Fintech and trusted payment services provider Paynetics AD has announced the appointment of Ian Clowes as chairman of Paynetics UK. Clowes brings over 30 years of executive and board experience in the financial services, payments and fintech industry. Most recently he was founder and CEO of Payment Cloud Technologies (PCT), a B2B digital banking and payments platform started in 2008.

Bath-based Truespeed has appointed Alex Huscroft as Head of Customer. Huscroft will focus on ratcheting up Truespeed’s customer service as it expands its full-fibre broadband service into Bath, Wells and other digitally underserved areas of the South West. Huscroft is a highly experienced, multi-award-winning customer service leader with a 20-year track record of delivering exceptional customer service. He joins Truespeed from MyOptique Group, the firm behind Sunglasses Shop and Glasses Direct, where he spent two years as Head of Customer Service. Before that Huscroft spent over two years as Head of Customer Care at sustainable energy startup Bristol Energy where he was tasked with planning, setting up and running the customer service function from scratch. Within a year, Bristol Energy won a top ten spot in the prestigious Which? Awards for its customer service. In a similar vein, while Customer Care Manager at renewable energy firm Good Energy, Huscroft, supported by his team, achieved the remarkable feat of winning outright the Which? award for customer service in his first year in post.

Global payment technology expert BlueSnap has appointed former Managing Partner and Chairman of Arthur Cox, Eugene McCague as its Chairman of EU Operations. His appointment coincides with the opening a new BlueSnap office in Dublin, which will serve as the company’s new EU headquarters, as the fintech expands its global operations. McCague brings more than 35 years’ experience as a corporate lawyer specialising in restructuring, M&A and corporate governance. He previously served as Managing Partner of Arthur Cox, one of Ireland’s leading corporate law firms, from 1999 to 2003, and as Chairman and Senior Partner from 2006 to 2013. McCague officially retired from Arthur Cox in 2017.

Sitecore has announced that Nasos Topakas has joined Sitecore as Chief Engineering Officer and Dave O’Flanagan will take on the role of Chief Product Officer, adding to the company’s growing leadership team. Topakas brings more than 25 years of experience leading software engineering, product, user experience and operations teams. Prior to Sitecore, Nasos was the CTO at Prosper Marketplace, a Fintech lending platform. He also previously served as CTO for art.com and StubHub and held positions with Kodak and Charles Schwab.  O’Flanagan will transition from his role as CEO of Boxever Ltd., following the close of Sitecore’s acquisition of the SaaS-based Customer Data Platform (CDP) company, which was announced earlier this month. A successful product leader and entrepreneur who has spent the last 20 years building enterprise products in multiple industries, including financial services, telecommunications and travel, O’Flanagan will also report to Tzikakis.

Customer Engagement and Experience solution provider Content Guru has appointed a new Country Manager in Germany, as its worldwide expansion programme continues to roll out. Thomas Vogel’s wealth of experience leading German-based technology sales teams will help power Content Guru’s growth in the DACH region. Vogel is tasked with developing Content Guru’s customer base across the German-speaking markets whilst supporting all functions of the business as it continues to scale.

Multi-service brand building agency Studio LWD, has appointed a talented university graduate as its first junior designer. Rebecca Drabble, 22, a graduate of Liverpool John Moores University, joins the Poulton-based studio after demonstrating a strong sense of creativity and valuable marketing skills during work experience in late 2020. Despite the role being her first step on the designer career ladder, she has a wealth of experience in marketing having opened two Etsy shops as spare time ventures during the pandemic. Drabble will use her skills and creative eye to support the existing team with rebrands and brand refresh work, as well as the development of new websites, packaging, brochures, marketing collateral and visual assets for companies in a range of industries.

Druva Inc. has appointed Robert Brower as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Partners and Alliances. Brower will be transitioning to this role after joining Druva in the summer of 2020 as the Vice President of Strategic Operations and Chief of Staff, where he was responsible for leading companywide strategic projects and product operations. Prior to joining Druva, Brower worked for Tealium, a leading customer data platform solution, building its technical alliances program and was responsible for doubling prior year bookings through partners within two quarters. He previously spent more than 13 years at Commvault, where he led various organizations, including customer experience, professional services, and the customer education organization.

Charlotte Sale has joined Page & Page and Partners as its new Senior Account Director. Sale will be joining the Client Services team to lead and manage the continued delivery of excellence across both new and existing clients including Align Technology, Novartis, L&R and Boston Scientific. Sale brings a vast experience from the healthcare industry to Page & Page, having worked for both major pharmaceutical and dental manufacturers for over 14 years, including launching two world-leading products to the UK and Ireland. Sale’s experience also includes Clinical Affairs, a role in which she deepened her knowledge of clinical research and created content for globally-recognised educational programmes.

Experiential advertising agency Momentum Worldwide has announced the promotion of Kev Exley to UK Executive Creative Director and the appointment of Trak Ellis-Hill, who joins from You & Mr Jones’ MOFILM, as the agency’s first UK Creative Managing Partner. Exley, who joined Momentum in 2017 as Creative Director, will lead the UK creative team, partnering with clients like American Express, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and SAP. His most recent work includes a collaboration with world-renowned photographer, Rankin and British rapper Stefflon Don to promote Samsung’s new phone launch. Ellis-Hill will work into Exley to drive content solutions across the experiential agency. Having most recently been ECD at You & Mr Jones owned MOFILM, Ellis-Hill cut her teeth at award-winning agencies including Karmarama and M&C Saatchi and is an expert in telling stories that resonate with international audience.

News, Talent Tracker

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