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

eBay Ads promotes Murphy
eBay Ads has promoted Harmony Murphy to General Manager, Advertising UK as part of the Europe-wide re-organisation of the advertising business. Murphy, who joined the business in January 2020 as Head of Advertising UK, will now be responsible for leading the wider and expanding eBay Ads UK division, encompassing ad operations, brand partnerships, seller success and marketing.

Before joining eBay in January 2020, Murphy was Global Head of Digital & Programmatic at The Telegraph. She has also worked at Groupon, IGP Media and Time Inc.

“Advertising is a growing opportunity for eBay and the re-organisation of our European eBay Ads teams is a pivotal moment for us, as we reinforce a strong structural foundation that will allow us to better grow this highly strategic part of the business,” said Phuong Nguyen, General Manager EU of eBay Ads. “Harmony Murphy has demonstrated herself to be a great leader and forward thinker and will continue to be an incredible asset to the business in her new role, as she leads a growing UK advertising team.”  

eBay Ads has also appointed Eleanore Morlas as General Manager, Central & Southern Europe (CSEU). Morlas, formerly Director Advertising Commerce Solutions, Europe, is taking over the management of the business in Germany, France, Italy and Spain with immediate effect. Murphy and Morlas will work closely together to create a cohesive commercial offering for both brands and sellers, and will both report directly to Nguyen.

Dual role for Davison at Elvis
Creative agency Elvis has promoted its Managing Partner, Caroline Davison, to the newly-created dual role of Managing Director and Sustainability Lead. The agency has created the new position in recognition of Davison’s outstanding work in client service and leadership, as well as her ongoing efforts to push sustainability at an agency and industry level.

She is currently spearheading ELVIS’ commitment to attaining B Corp status, and she has also collaborated with Purpose Disruptors on a number of initiatives, including the recent launch of the new Ecoffectiveness measure in partnership with Ben Essen, Chief Strategy Officer at Iris. Ecoffectiveness, which debuted at the IPA’s Effworks Global conference in October, measures the greenhouse gas emissions driven by advertising.

In her new role, Davison will further reinforce ELVIS’ promise to make a better world, acting as an industry-facing figurehead for the sustainability agenda, as well as working more closely with Tanya Brookfield, CEO of ELVIS, to define the agency vision for the coming years.

Davison is a long-standing member of the ELVIS team, having joined the agency in 2009. She previously held roles at Proximity London and Partners Andrews Aldridge. She said: “Im honoured to have the opportunity to help shape the agencys next chapter at such an interesting time for the industry. There are so many conversations to be had around the roles that brands need to play in creating a society that we all want to be part of, and there’s a real opportunity to consider whether the business models weve all subscribed to up until now will be the ones to carry us forward. Our B Corp commitment is the start of an exciting journey for the whole team at ELVIS and I couldnt be prouder of how its already being embraced by our people.”

Cavai hands product team brief to Rantala
Conversational advertising firm Cavai is expanding its European team with a key hire to lead its product team globally, following an investment of €1.5m (£1.3m) from Norwegian state-owned investment company Investinor earlier in the year. Juha Rantala joins as SVP Product and will be responsible for launching a product team across Europe.  

The product team will work closely with technology, marketing and commercial teams and will be charged with taking the vision and business objectives and implementing this vision from day to day. As part of this effort, Rantala and his team will research trends and ensure that Cavai’s offering complements the rapidly evolving industry landscape. 

Rantala is a seasoned digital marketing industry entrepreneur with almost 25 years’ experience. He has been a CEO /CTO at a variety of companies, and holds an MSc in Applied Computer Science. He has also held a senior product management role at Finland’s largest media company, Sanoma.

“I like nothing more than playing an active role in the drive to turbocharge industries as they evolve, and Cavai’s offering is genuinely a world-first advertising platform in its creativity and its ability to communicate on a one-to-one basis, at scale,” Rantala said. “I can’t wait to get started.”

Bentham moves up at Waste
Independent digital creative agency Waste has promoted Benny Bentham to the newly-created role of Creative Director, working predominantly on its Supercell business.

Previously Associate Creative Director at the agency, Bentham will take on overall responsibility for creative output on the Supercell account, having produced many successful campaigns for the brand over the last five years. He will lead activity supporting established Supercell games including Clash of Clans, Boom Beach and Brawl Stars, with a focus on growing and retaining communities by creating highly engaging content. He will lead a team of five creatives and will continue to report to Alistair Campbell, Executive Creative Director at Waste.

Bentham said: “Ive worked closely with Supercell for almost five years, and its never felt more exciting than right now. Weve delivered some outstanding, award-winning work with our awesome team here at Waste, and as Creative Director I want to keep that going, while pushing our creative offering into some new and exciting avenues. Perhaps now more than ever, community feels essential, so working with Supercells huge global communities of engaged players makes me really excited for what we can achieve in 2021.”

Self Point renames itself Stor.ai, makes five senior hires
Stor.ai (formerly Self Point), the end-to-end digital commerce solution for grocery retailers, has unveiled its new name, along with the appointment of five senior executives to the team. The company said it is expanding its team as demand surges for its solution supporting grocers through their online and offline digital grocery transformation. The company currently works with over 300 customers across N. America, South America, Europe, and Israel. The new brand is effective immediately.  

Stor.ai provides retailers with a digital ecosystem of solutions that enable them to execute and scale their digital transformation. Its flagship offerings include a quick-time-to-market cataloguing solution enabling grocers to integrate their entire inventory catalogue with their POS systems, as well as the Picker-App which customizes and maps manual grocery fulfillment. The company has seen 250 per cent year-on-year growth in 2020.   

The new hires include Morris Azulay, who joins as CFO with over 20 years of experience leading start-ups through seed stages, funding rounds, M&A transactions and exits. Irit Fridlis Weinstein joins as VP Strategy and Innovation, having previously led the digital transformation efforts of Israel’s leading retailer, Shufersal. Rob Rinke joins as Channel Sales Director, with over 20 years of experience as a Strategic Sales Leader. He previously held senior sales positions at ParTech, Inc, Tanjarine and Focus POS. Matt Walker joins as Director of Global Sales. He was previously responsible for the commercial strategy and roll-out of a micro-fulfillment center solution for Dematic, the largest automation company in N. America. And Jim Barry joins as Director of Marketing, having amassed more than 20 years of marketing experience, including building and selling his own agency.

Green joins Twin as Partner
Twin, which describes itself as a boutique consultancy for premium brands, has appointed Alistair Green as a Partner. Green started his career as a Celebrity Stylist and Art Director, joining BBH in 1999 as Planning Group Head, working on the agency’s flagship Levi’s account. With over 20 years of experience, Green has developed marketing strategies and award-winning campaigns for some of the world’s most famous brands, including Chanel, Burberry, Hugo Boss and Jaguar Land Rover.

Green has also held senior management roles for large agencies such as Mindshare, Grey; a number of independent digital agencies and in-house at founder-owned River Island and CMO of couture house Ralph & Russo. With a track record of building partnerships and creating impactful campaigns in the areas of sustainability and diversity, Green has planned and created award-winning global, European and UK integrated campaigns.

He said: “The pandemic has been a terrible time for many reasons, but for me it’s also had a positive impact. For the first time in 20 years, I’ve thought about what I want from my career and consequently, my priorities have shifted. I find myself focusing more on working with people I personally like and professionally respect; with clients that make a positive impact on the world, in an environment where I can bring all my skills, strategic and creative together and not be filtered into one or the other.”

EyeWay launches immersive AR spin-off, taps Balram to run it
EyeWay Vision Ltd., an Israeli company developing a wearable augmented reality (AR) platform, has launched a subsidiary company EyeWay Vision Inc (EVI). in Silicon Valley, and tapped Google exec and AR/VR expert Dr. Nikhil Balram as CEO.
EVI will focus on bringing to market products based on advanced immersive AR technology developed by Eyeway over the past six years. The market for virtual and augmented reality is forecast to reach more than $67bn globally by 2024, by AR/VR analyst firm Digi-Capital.

“EyeWay has spent the last six years developing deep AR technology, and Dr. Balram has the strong product vision and business experience to bring to market products based on our strong technology,” said Rani Cohen, co-founder and CEO of EyeWay Vision Ltd. “EyeWay’s truly immersive AR experience is based on its unique approach of eye tracking, direct retinal projection, and foveated projection, which yields super-bright images even outdoors, with an ultra-wide perceived field of view. Dr. Balram’s expertise in bringing complex high-quality display products to market will be invaluable to realizing a much-anticipated immersive AR experience.”

Dr. Balram will head a team focusing on enabling new forms of immersive entertainment, digital learning, eCommerce and other enterprise applications. Hejoins EyeWay Vision from Google, where he was in charge of developing displays for all consumer products. An experienced technology executive, his previous positions include CEO at Ricoh Innovations, VP & GM at Marvell, and CTO of National Semiconductor’s Display Group.

With over 25 years of experience, he has won numerous awards including the Otto Schade Prize from the Society for Information Display (SID); an Industrial Distinguished Leader Award from APSIPA (Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association); and a Gold Stevie Award for Executive of the Year in the Electronics category.

He said: “I am very passionate about AR, and have long believed it is the next big mobile platform. I became convinced that EyeWay Vision’s AR technology approach is the right one, and am excited to realize my vision of future products built with their deep technology.”

Donnelly takes up CEO role at Waylay
IoT software firm Waylay has appointed Leonard Donnelly as its CEO. Donnelly is an Irish tech entrepreneur with an extensive network of relationships globally. The company has entered its high growth phase and accordingly has organized into three new acceleration business units, one of which will be led by Waylay’s outgoing CEO and Co-founder Piet Vandaele, alongside Veselin Pizurica and Wouter Van Eetvelde. Other new appointments at Waylay in recent weeks include Elly Schietse, heading Marketing, and Margot Vanden Poel, in charge of Finance.

Going forward, the company aims to deploy low- and zero-code software solutions to transform the complex IoT data science world into a more humanly intuitive and visually-oriented experience for application and digital twin development. Waylay brings its citizen developer approach to the IoT and facilitates the creation of new applications and revenue streams based on otherwise unexploited data. All Waylay solutions are available in an “any cloud” (cloud-agnostic) environment, ensuring that enterprise customers are in total control of their assets, operations, and intelligence, in a secure way.

Maxwell takes diversity role at Jungle
Social-first publisher Jungle Creations has appointed Dionne Maxwell as its first Head of Diversity, Inclusion and Talent. Making the move from Hearst UK where she is Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Lead, and joining Jungle Creations in January 2021, Maxwell brings over 14 years’ experience across publishing and the public sector, and will spearhead Jungle Creations’ diversity and inclusion initiatives.

In addition to leading on implementing a company-wide strategy to support Jungle in achieving its targets, she is tasked with ensuring all parts of the business are streamlined with these initiatives, from employee mental health and recruitment practices to the content that lives on Jungle’s media brands.

Maxwell previously held positions at public sector organisations including the Greater London Authority and London councils Haringey and Hackney, prior to joining Hearst UK in 2017. At Hearst, she has been instrumental in developing and implementing the publishing giant’s first Diversity and Belonging strategy and supported the growth of employee networks to create an inclusive environment, as well as introducing cultural events into the company calendar that aimed to educate, empower and celebrate the different demographics within the business.

As founder of the cross-industry network, The BEAM Group, which aims to amplify the voices of Black, Asian and minority ethnic professionals, Maxwell is passionate about increasing representation for underrepresented groups.

She said: “I’m thrilled to be joining Jungle Creations, and I look forward to leading the development of its diversity and inclusion strategy and its initiatives over the coming years. With a growing audience across its brands, and an expanding team, it’s an exciting time to be coming on board and a pivotal moment for the business. I can’t wait to get started.”

Turner and Epps to Page & Page
Page & Page and Partners, the global creative communications agency specialising in health, wellness, and lifestyle, has hired Kirstie Turner as a Writer and Editor, and Georgie Epps as a Mid-weight Creative. They will be working across all of Page & Page and Partners’ clients including Novartis, Abbott Diagnostics, Fresenius Kabi, L&R, Align Technology and IQVIA.

With a degree in Graphic Communications and four years’ experience, Epps joins Page & Page with a background working in agency and in-house design. Working across digital and print, she has great experience of delivering branding and marketing campaigns across a multitude of platforms.

After graduating with a Creative Writing and Publishing degree, Turner went on to work for a medical publishing company, where she spent two years in the editorial and marketing departments. She wrote for a range of publications there, including the companys pharmaceutical industry magazine and medical journals.