Movers & Shakers: Accenture, Metia Group, MarketInvoice, Dentsu Aegis and NewsWhip

The mobile marketing industry is ever-changing, and that applies to the people as much as the technology. Movers & Shakers is a regular feature following the hottest hires in the industry, so you can keep track of whos joined which company, and what theyre doing there.

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(Clockwise from top left) Amir Malik, Andrew Martin, Shaun Alexander, Brett Lofgren, Kevin Walsh and Shaun OBrien

Amir Malik Leaves Trinity Mirror for Accenture
Trinity Mirror’s programmatic chief Amir Malik is set to leave the publisher to join Accenture Interactive, where he will lead the company’s trading desk offering as it prepares to expand its end-to-end advertising offering.

Malik is one of the UK’s leading figures in programmatic, having helped position Trinity Mirror’s programmatic sales team as a pioneer in the UK media trading scene. He began his career working for Google in brand safety and real-time advertising, and has also worked as part of Microsoft’s Bing team, and at the Daily Mail, helping to develop its programmatic strategy from scratch.

According to The Drum, Malik’s departure was announced internally at Trinity Mirror last week, but it remains unclear when he will be making the move to Accenture. Once he does take on his new role, he will be helping Accenture clients devise and implement strategies for their first-party data, as Accenture readies to launch in-house client trading desks.

“I’m delighted to become an employee at Accenture Interactive,” said Malik. “I must say my experience has been fantastic at Trinity Mirror, and it has been a pleasure to work with such a great group of people. An opportunity has come up to join the largest digital agency network around the world and it was hard to turn down. I will continue my work at Trinity Mirror with the fantastic team until I enter Accenture Interactive to work across their incredible portfolio of clients.”

Metia Group Announces New CEO
Global B2B marketing agency Metia Group has named Andrew Martin as its new CEO, with company founder Steve Ellis moving to become chairman of the group. Metia Group works with many of the world’s leading technology and B2B brands, with marketing programmes in 88 countries and over 39 languages during the last two years alone.

Martin will be responsible for continuing Metia’s growth by leading and supporting local business units in the US, UK, Canada and Singapore to deliver a range of differentiated marketing services, as well as increasing the range of strategic services on offer. Martin joined Metia as director of interactive development in its London office, and was later promoted to lead the Group’s US business. Most recently, he served as president of Metia in the US, and chief operating officer of Metia Group.

“Andrew is a proven and versatile business leader who has been instrumental in the growth and development of our company in recent years,” said Ellis. “We enjoy fantastic long term client relationships – on average over 10 years with our major clients – and in his new role, Andrew will ensure that the Group continues to deliver outstanding marketing services, which are highly relevant to the needs of our clients worldwide.”

“It is a please to embrace this new role,” said Martin. “I look forward to leading the Group in the coming years, extending our service offering to clients and increasing the range of strategic services we offer. In addition, it will be great to work closely with all our local teams of marketing professionals in the USA, UK, Canada and Singapore.”

Santander’s Risk Chief Makes Jump to MarketInvoice
Shaun Alexander, former head of risk for Santander, has moved to a similar role at MarketInvoice, the world’s largest peer-to-peer online invoice finance marketplace. A highly regarded senior manager with over 30 years’ experience in retail and corporate banking, Alexander will work directly with co-founder and chief operating officer Ilya Kondrashov to formulate risk management strategy and improve credit scoring systems.

Alexander began his career at Barclays in 1984 where, over a 22-year tenure, he worked across various credit risk roles, and was responsible for the development and implementation of lending strategy and policy for corporate and SME portfolios ranging from £2.5bn to £90bn. He became head of credit for SMEs in 2004, before moving to Oliver Wyman in 2007 as head of credit. In 2008, he joined Banco Santander, becoming head of risk for asset-based lending.

“For too long, as I have witnessed first-hand, the status quo in risk management has gone unchallenged,” said Alexander. “Much more can be done with the available technology to drive and enhance the quality and speed of risk decisions for UK businesses. MarketInvoice is not only challenging but driving the change in fintech to deliver a best-in-class risk function in business finance. I will look to adopt the latest technology in evolving our risk models and credit management to achieve MarketInvoice’s ambitions.”

Dentsu Aegis’ Asia-Pacific Office Sees a Shake-up
Sean O’Brien, current chief executive officer of Carat Asia Pacific, is taking on the CEO role for Dentsu Aegis companies MKTG and Posterscope in APAC, while Kevin Walsh will be promoted from managing director to fill the spot as CEO of Carat Asia Pacific.

The move comes following a number of senior appointments within Dentsu Aegis’ US operations, and as the group continues to push into the APAC region with acquisitions in Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Carat Asia Pacific has grown the market 2.5 times over the past six years, tripling the size of the business and winning over $1bn of new work in 2016 alone.

“Under Sean’s leadership Carat has delivered exceptional growth and has developed a high quality product in markets across the region,” said Nick Waters, CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network, Asia Pacific. “Sean will now focus on the development of two agencies with outstanding growth opportunities in Asia Pacific – MKTG and Posterscope. Kevin’s promotion represents the smooth execution of the Carat leadership succession plan.”

NewsWhip Continues Expansion, Hiring First North American President
Leading content analytics firm NewsWhip today announced that veteran digital media executive Brett Lofgren has joined the company’s leadership team as the president of the North American operation. Based out of NewsWhip’s New York office, Lofgren will also take on global chief revenue officer duties, responsible for directing overall growth and revenue strategy for the company.

“When I was introduced to the folks at NewsWhip in 2016, I uncovered a technology that can reveal the stories, people and formats that will win attention and predict story performance,” said Lofgren. “This provides publishers with the insight and ROI predictability required for any modern-day storyteller. In a world of infinite competition for human attention, I viewed this as a new and necessary requirement for audience growth.”

Lofgren joins NewsWhipe from content marketing platform Contently, where he also served as chief revenue officer. Boasting 20 years of experience in digital media, he previously held C-level roles at publisher monetisation platform 33Across, Epic Advertising and Yahoo, among others.