Dubit, the creator of metaverse experiences, games, and events for brands, announces the appointment of former Roblox VP, Global Head of Music, Jon Vlassopulos, to its advisory board. Vlassopulos joins following almost three years of leading music initiatives at Roblox, which reaches over 200 million users a month with games and experiences, and where he remains an advisor. The groundbreaking virtual concerts and experiences that he produced for major artists like Lil Nas X, Twenty One Pilots, KSI, 24KGoldn and Zara Larsson, reached and engaged over 100M people around the world. Vlassopulus will work with Dubit in a senior advisory capacity on future metaverse strategies, supporting its partnerships with brands, publishers, artists, and metaverse platforms.
Values-led campaigns and creative agency Blue State has strengthened its senior teams in London and the US with a number of promotions and hires across all offices. Lizi Zipser, formerly director of global strategy and insights, has become executive director of the London office. Hannah Johnson, formerly London managing director, has become executive director for global marketing and partnerships, reporting into the US management team. Rob Trono moves from creative director to group creative director, while Melanie Trabi becomes group account director, from senior account director. Nicky Wright rejoins Blue State after several years at Digitas and TH_NK, as group account director. Nathalie Ormond becomes deputy director, media and Mouna Kalla-Sacranie will be senior content and campaigns strategist. Sam Niven joins Blue State as media strategist following a three-year stint at PHD where she worked on Macmillan Cancer Support and a range of automotive brands. Finally, Saskia van Berkel, who joins as senior media strategist after leading individual donor acquisition at the International Rescue Committee.
Paddle, the complete payments infrastructure for SaaS companies, has announced it has appointed Rob Fletcher as its new Chief Customer Officer, and hired Emilie Bierschenk as VP of Global Demand Generation and Rob Konowalchuk as VP of Risk and Compliance. Incoming CCO Rob Fletcher brings over twenty years of experience growing software businesses. Like COO Jimmy Fitzgerald, he joins Paddle from ServiceNow, where he was responsible for defining the company’s Customer Success strategy globally, as well as leading ServiceNow’s services division across Europe. In line with its international expansion, Paddle has also appointed Emilie Bierschenk as VP of Global Demand Generation, based in Denver, Colorado. A seasoned digital marketing executive, Bierschenk joins Paddle from Quantum Metric, where she was Senior Director of Revenue Marketing. Finally, Rob Konowalchuk joins Paddle as VP of Risk and Compliance, bringing twenty years of experience across three continents. Born in Canada and based in London, Konowalchuk previously headed up enterprise risk management at high-growth fintech Revolut, and is a former director at PwC.
ActiveCampaign continues its momentum by welcoming two new members to its leadership team. Tech veteran Sameer Kazi has joined ActiveCampaign as President. Previously, he was CEO of customer engagement platform Cheetah Digital. Prior, he served in senior leadership roles at Simply Measured and ExactTarget where he led both companies through transformative growth periods. In addition, Kelly O’Connell has been elevated to the executive leadership team as Senior Vice President, Product Strategy. O’Connell has been with ActiveCampaign since 2015, and has held key leadership roles across product, sales and customer success functions in the organization.
WeTransfer, a global provider of creative productivity tools, has announced the appointment of Angelique Temple to the role of Chief Marketing Officer. Temple brings to WeTransfer over a decade of experience developing and delivering marketing strategies and campaigns for high-growth global tech and media brands. An Australian native, she has made her home in New York over the past seven years as a leader in the data-driven marketing space. Most recently, she spent four years at WeWork as its VP of Growth and Revenue Marketing. During her time at WeWork, Temple was responsible for leading the marketing for WeWork’s monthly subscription product, WeWork All Access and pay-as-you-go membership, WeWork On Demand.
Benchling, the R&D Cloud powering the biotechnology industry, has announced new executive leaders, Shawna Wolverton as chief product officer and Stuart Kerst as head of revenue operations. Wolverton, formerly of Zendesk and Salesforce, played a critical role in developing both companies’ platform product strategies with a focus on end-user community engagement. Kerst brings 25 years’ experience managing global field teams, most recently from Workday, but also SAP, HP, and SurveyMonkey.
