Appia, which claims to be the world’s largest open app marketplace, has launched a global expansion initiative, with the hiring of three sales executives in key international markets. Juan Carlos Belair will oversee sales in Latin America (LATAM), with Sid Mahajan heading up the sales team in Asia Pacific (APAC), and Neil Geary charged with heading the sales effort in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). All three executives will report to Ken Hayes, Appia’s SVP of business development.
The three new hires arrive on the heels of Appia’s recent $15m (£9.3m) funding, announced in August of last year, with a major re-brand to Appia this month. They will support Appia’s new focus as a white-label app store platform for mobile operators, handset manufacturers and mobile portals.
“Emerging international markets represent a massive growth opportunity for our company,” says Appia CEO, Jud Bowman. “Today, we welcome three mobile industry veterans who will help us extend our white-label platform and content catalogue to some of the top global carriers and handset manufacturers around the world.” 
Belair joins Appia after having spent the last eight years working with Latin American operators and mobile service providers to deliver SMS & WAP chat services. Geary has spent the last seven years heading the Sales function at mobile games firm Selatra, while Mahajan has over 14 years of business development experience in the mobile market. selling to mobile operators and handset makers.
Appia currently powers app stores for more than 40 partners, driving hundreds of thousands of downloads per day. It provides its partners with a catalogue of 140,000 paid and free apps across all major mobile platforms.
