The mobile and digital marketing industry is ever-changing, and that applies to the people as much as the technology. Movers & Shakers is our monthly round-up of the hottest hires in the industry…

Bradbury takes up creative role at M&C Saatchi
M&C Saatchi London has appointed Guy Bradbury to the newly-created role of Creative Partner. The appointment follows a period of significant revenue growth and new business success for the agency.

Bradbury was most recently Creative Partner at Atomic London, the creative agency he co-founded in 2012. Over the course of nine years, he led work including the What are you made of campaign for Peperami, which picked up multiple gongs including seven IPM Awards, and helped the brand win Brand of the Year; and Royal Opera House ‘Feel something new’, which won a Graphite pencil at the D&AD Awards.

In his new role at M&C Saatchi, Bradbury will report to Chief Creative Officer, Ben Golik, supporting him in running the agency’s creative department and working across a number of strategically important accounts, including the Home Office and the Department for International Trade.

Bradbury has more than 20 years’ experience in building highly effective creative teams and nurturing talent. He has held senior creative roles at some of the world’s most successful agencies, helping both DDB London and Saatchi & Saatchi win ‘Most awarded agency in the world’ for both creativity and effectiveness. He has been responsible for winning over 200 awards for creativity across TV, print, digital, experiential, content and mobile.

He said: “Having set up an indie agency, I know a thing or two about creativity and agility. But what excites me more than anything about M&C Saatchi is that they have all of that, plus a real strength in depth of capability to truly join it up for brands. It’s like being a kid in a sweet shop.”

Wallace to head up apps at MediaCom UK
MediaCom UK has appointed Dave Wallace to the role of Head of Consumer Apps, to help clients better understand how apps fit within their digital strategy and create campaigns that help drive traffic to customer apps across all platforms.

Wallace has over 25 years’ experience in technology and media, having founded digital marketing agency Mirum, where his focus was developing digital strategies for clients including HSBC, Nokia, Unilever and Nestle. He was also the founder of HeathWallace in 2001, which worked to develop the most effective online customer experiences for brands.

In his new role at MediaCom, he will be responsible for working with clients to bring focus and broaden their knowledge and understanding of a critical digital channel – mobile – and particularly consumer apps on smartphones. He will be a central resource across all clients, but initially with a focus on the Sky, Tesco and Chase accounts.

Wallace will work alongside the Technology, Ecommerce, Social and Google Practice divisions to further cement MediCom’s digital expertise, reporting directly to Chief Digital Officer Richard Davies.

He said: “Mobile dominates the digital landscape, so it’s important that we continue to show an understanding of how apps fit within our client’s digital strategy. They play an increasingly important role in customer acquisition, servicing, relationship management and commerce and, increasingly, media is being used to drive traffic to apps through paid, social, search, print or TV – so getting this right is key. I look forward to bringing my expertise to our clients and continuing our push to make our digital expertise best practice across the industry.”

Leo to lead content at Canela Media
Canela Media has named Jerry Leo as its Chief Content Officer. In this newly-created role, Leo will be responsible for driving a strategic and systematic approach to content strategy from advanced planning, programming, production, and distribution across all Canela Media platforms including Canela TV and Canela Music. Canela said his appointment demonstrates the company’s increased investment and focus on content and programming.

Launched in 2020, Canela.TV, one of the first AVOD streaming services for US Hispanics/Latinos, is now approaching 10m downloads. Canela.TV also has a wide distribution of FAST channels through partners such as Samsung, XUMO and LG. Canela Music launched in 2021 with a variety of music genres and original content. Canela Media reaches over 50m users across its OTT products and 180 Spanish content sites.

Leo has a track record of success in linear and multi-platform programming strategy and acquisitions. Prior to joining Canela Media, he was the Executive Vice President of BRAVO Program Strategy and Production, BRAVO at Bravo Media, and Executive Vice President, OXYGEN Program Strategy. Earlier in his career, he worked as Vice President of Vh1 Program Planning, and had stints at NBC, E!, and MTV.

He said: “With industry-leading resources, I strongly believe Canela Media is poised to continue to break new ground and define the content space for U.S. Hispanic consumer brand marketing. I am excited by Canela Media’s mission to serve the underrepresented U.S. Hispanic consumer, while bridging the gap to multicultural audiences for marketers, and am honored to join its amazing team that is driving explosive growth.”

Iti Kaul appointed Head of OMD India’s Digital Practice
OMD India has appointed Iti Kaul to spearhead the Digital Practice for the agency. She joins from PHD Media, where she currently leads Digital Planning as its General Manager. She brings over 13 years’ experience to the role.
“The story of OMD Indias growth and success is one that is driven by our people and their unwavering commitment to delivering better decisions for our clients, unapologetically and innovatively,” said OMD India CEO, Anisha Iyer. “Iti’s role will add significant leverage to our digital practice as we create the next wave of transformative experiences for our clients. We are thrilled to have her on board and are confident that her expertise and future-ready perspectives will elevate our work to drive greater impact and successes for client growth.”

Matthews takes up revenue role at GumGum
Contextual-first ad tech firm GumGum has appointed Dave Matthews to the role of Chief Revenue Officer. In this position, Matthews will play a critical role in driving the North American sales strategy and momentum, bringing in new business, scaling the team to grow existing business, and managing senior-level relationships across the industry. Additionally, Matthews will spearhead the launch of GumGum’s CTV/video offerings, and identify new verticals relevant to GumGum customers.

Matthews joins GumGum after serving as Chief Revenue Officer for inPowered.ai, where he helped drive the company’s overall go-to-market strategy and execution. Prior to his stint there, he was the CRO at Grapeshot, 4INFO and held senior-level roles at NBCUniversal, Univision.

“Dave is an outstanding addition to our leadership team,” said GumGum Chief Growth Officer, Ben Plomion. “He is a proven business leader who has demonstrated his ability in building strategic relationships and will help GumGum grow with velocity and scale. As people begin to embrace new environments like CTV, gaming, and even the metaverse, Dave will play a critical role in ensuring that GumGums offering aligns with what our clients need in order to deliver engaging and effective ad campaigns. Dave is an outcome-driven sales leader, whose work ethic and values align with those of GumGum’s and we are excited to him on board.”

PubMatic expands EMEA leadership team
Supply Side Platform PubMatic has expanded its EMEA leadership team. Hitesh Bhatt has been promoted to the role of Senior Director, CTV/OTT, leading the rapidly-growing CTV arm of the company’s business. PubMatic’s OTT/CTV global revenue grew by more than six times in the fourth quarter of 2021 over the fourth quarter of 2020 and is now monetising OTT/CTV inventory from more than 167 publishers globally.

Jacqueline Boakye takes up the role of Vice President, Customer Success, EMEA, and is now responsible for the strategic leadership of the EMEA customer success team that supports PubMatic’s publisher clients. With consumers’ time increasingly fragmented across screens and channels, omnichannel solutions are becoming more important to publishers as they seek to maximise revenue. A key focus for Boakye will be helping to drive adoption of PubMatic’s omnichannel solutions, including OpenWrap – a header bidding solution that drives incremental yield across all channels, including CTV.

Kofi Amoako has taken the position of Regional Vice President, Addressability, EMEA. In this role, Amoako is responsible for rolling out PubMatic’s Addressability Suite across EMEA, working with leading data and identity partners in the region to provide localised solutions for EMEA publishers and buyers. Amoako is also looking after PubMatic’s curated marketplaces offering and auction packages.

“We pride ourselves on continuing to support and develop the best talent in the industry,” said Emma Newman, CRO EMEA at PubMatic. “We’re delighted to see Hitesh, Jacqui and Kofi take on these expanded roles and help drive success for PubMatic, and more importantly, for our customers. We are committed to our mission of maximizing the value we deliver to our customers through delivering digital advertising’s supply chain of the future.”

Buckley to Chief Client Officer at Havas Media
Havas Media Group in the UK has promoted Ailsa Buckley to the position of Chief Client Officer, as part of its ongoing focus on client leadership and excellence in client service. She takes up the role following three years as Deputy Managing Director at Havas Media, where she has been responsible for developing best-in-class client solutions, strengthening client relationships and leading multi-disciplinary agency client teams for the likes of Hyundai, Dreams and O2.

In her new role, Buckley will drive the client experience agenda, ensuring that Havas Media Group continues to be a trusted and strategic advisor to its various clients across Havas Media, Havas Entertainment and Havas Market, mobilising the right talent, skills and capabilities to deliver more meaningful outcomes for their businesses. Alongside this, she will be responsible for introducing a new and continuous programme of client leadership training and thought leadership, designed to provoke new modes of thinking amongst their teams and clients. She will also play a pivotal role in winning new clients and driving organic growth.

Prior to joining Havas Media Group in January 2019, Buckley was General Manager at Wavemaker, leading the agency’s L’Oréal business. She has previously held positions at Maxus and MEC.

She said: “I’m really excited to take on the position of Chief Client Officer. I have a passion for ensuring our teams are delivering best-in-class service to our clients, so having the opportunity to drive this with a focus on development and leadership is something I can’t wait to get started on. I look forward to contributing to making a meaningful difference for both existing and future clients.”

Iris hires Tom Phillips as Executive Strategy Director
Iris has appointed Tom Phillips as Executive Strategy Director, Data Driven Marketing. Phillips joins from his role as Head of Strategy at MRM, where he led the strategy department for the last two years.

Joining Chris Whitson and Simon Spyer in the senior leadership team, Phillips will bring significant experience in leading strategy teams across data, CX and martech and will sit in the Iris Strategy Unit. His arrival allows Spyer to focus on his global role to lead the data driven functions across the network.

Commenting on the arrival, Chris Whitson, Global Head of Strategy and CSO for London said: “In order for us to truly be able to offer our clients real expertise across all elements of our integrated offering it is crucial we have senior talent and expertise across all we do. By bringing in Tom to lead our Data Driven offering we have secured someone special. I’m very excited to have him on board.”

Spence takes up CEO role at Mobkoi
Mobile ad platform Mobkoi has appointed Suzanne Spence as its CEO. Spence was recruited from a fellow company in The Brandtech Group, Mofilm, a people-powered video content creation network, where she most recently served as CEO. She joined Mofilm in May 2018 as President of the Americas and was named CEO in January 2021. During her tenure, she brought on clients such as DoorDash, Target, Citadel, Amazon, Brighthouse and Olive Garden, increasing US revenues by almost 300 per cent.

Prior to Mofilm, Spence was Head of Brand Partnerships at the social storytelling platform Wattpad. Before joining Wattpad, she spent nearly a decade at Google, where she led the company’s global mobile app publisher product strategy. For the lion’s share of her time at Google, she built the YouTube team in Canada and managed YouTube efforts across the Travel, Finance and CPG verticals.

The move comes on the heels of MobkoiQ 80 per cent year-on-year organic growth. The company works directly with curated publishers to deliver high-quality creative, brand-safe advertising solutions that are independent of third-party cookies.

Spence said: “Mobkoi has cracked the code for high-impact advertising at scale and has attracted an incredible number of the world’s top premium brands as a result. Their approach to mobile advertising speaks to their clients’ commitment to innovation, superior customer experience, and brand-safe environments. Moreover, they do it all without third-party cookies, so they aren’t struggling to look for the next way forward. They’ve already found it and are soaring ahead.”

TextNow hires Woo
TextNow, a mobile app offering a free cellular and wi-fi-enabled phone service, has appointed Ed Woo as Vice President, Data and Analytics. Woo brings more than 20 years of experience to TextNow, most recently as VP, Analytics at Walmart Connect, the advertising arm of the world’s largest retailer.

During his time at Walmart, Woo led the analytic consultative practice to develop deeper media and first-party shopper insights to enable better decision quality, higher performance, and stronger advertiser trust for large global brands by creating best-in-class full-stake analytic solutions, such as Walmart AdMix Modeling and targeting solutions.

He will oversee the analytics function at TextNow, including business analytics, data science, data engineering, and data strategy, reporting to Chief Product Officer Dave Chiang. In this role, he will focus on user growth and engagement, and scaling TextNow’s first-party data platform to enhance advertising opportunities.

As privacy changes and evolving consumer preferences disrupt the digital advertising industry, there is a growing demand from marketers for platforms that can deliver highly targeted campaigns using robust first-party data. TextNow helps the brands reach a strongly engaged, young, and diverse audience of more than 10m monthly active users in a brand-safe environment.

“Ed’s analytics experience is invaluable as we scale our first-party data and consumer insights capabilities,” said Dave Chiang, Chief Product Officer at TextNow. “As we continue to gain a deeper understanding of our customers, we offer a unique opportunity for advertisers looking to reach the coveted Gen Z demographic with programs that greatly outperform traditional digital marketing campaigns.” 

Khera to lead expansion at Attentive
Conversational commerce platform Attentive has hired Anup Khera as VP and GM of International to lead the go-to-market expansion in both the EMEA and APAC regions. As demand for the Attentive platform continues to grow, the company will build out its international team to work with brands throughout the world, helping them harness the value of SMS marketing programs.  

“The first step of our international expansion is the UK, as it is a smartphone-first market with some of the world’s highest smartphone usage numbers, and the second highest mobile commerce penetration of retail sales globally,” said Khera. “The amount of innovative brands based in the UK who want to provide highly curated commerce experiences to consumers makes this market perfect for personalized SMS. This expansion will allow us to be globally focused and strategically support a growing number of businesses looking to better reach and service their customers.”

Attentive has already been facilitating SMS marketing programs for brands with global footprints, including ones based in Canada, the UK, and Australia. These programs are designed with privacy compliance in mind and include tailored opt-in flows and straightforward opt-out mechanisms to meet evolving requirements. Introducing SMS marketing to additional regions will open up a new revenue stream for brands outside the US, and give US based brands an opportunity to expand their marketing efforts into new territories.

Six senior hires at Sprout Social
Social media management software firm Sprout Social has announced six senior hires in the EMEA team. Claudia Manzone OSullivan joins as Head of International Support, APAC/EMEA. She brings 12 years of experience in scaling operations and building high-performing teams to Sprout’s Customer Support team. Emmet Ward joins as Manager, Customer Support, EMEA, having previously worked at Workhuman. Kieran Keegan joins as Manager, Customer Success, Mid-Market, having previously worked at DocuSign, Indeed, and LinkedIn. Shannon Lawless takes up the position of EMEA Marketing Strategist. She joins from SocialTalent. Patrick Callinan joins as Senior Corporate Counsel, with over 14 years’ experience advising leading international businesses, SMEs and start-ups. Finally, Marie Ward joins the firm as Head of Business Development, EMEA & APAC. She comes to Sprout from LinkedIn, where she was Senior Sales Development Manager, for Sales Solutions EMEA.

Other moves:
AdTonos, which monetises podcasts, audiobooks, gaming, music and radio streams across Europe, LATAM and the US, has appointed Lisa Stevenson as Business Director to support and grow the company’s development in the UK. She has over 15 years’ experience as a business development media professional, representing some of the largest market-leading brands and spending most of her career in radio, working for GCAP Media and Global. The company has also appointed Agata Hirche as VP of Product to develop the global programmatic platform, focusing on audio media buying and cross-device targeting. She has over 10 years’ experience as a digital media professional and has worked in digital media since 2008 across the North American and EMEA markets, successfully launching a number of innovative solutions including both technology platforms and data offerings.  

Yieldmo has appointed John Tigg as General Manager, International, and Guy Jackson, as UK Commercial Director. Tigg has a long history of building both successful teams and businesses in the ad tech and media space. A specialist in the Advanced TV sector, he has worked closely with the world’s largest agency holding companies for more than 15 years, pioneering strategies for video trading desks, programmatic strategies for TV and video, as well as operating and commercial models for every aspect of the programmatic business.

Jackson brings 15 years of industry experience, having previously spent a decade at Teads, where his roles included Head of Programmatic Demand — leading the launch of Teads’ programmatic sales operation — before establishing and running the second UK business headquartered in Manchester, responsible for all business outside of London, as well as wider product acceleration, specific vertical ownership, and D2C approaches. In this new role at Yieldmo, Jackson will be launching and scaling the company’s commercial operation in the UK.

Mobile messaging firm Link Mobility has hired James O’Hare as its UK Managing Director. He joins with a wealth of experience gathered from his time as Sales Manager at business information firm Experian, and in leadership roles in the telecoms sector. He has proven expertise in leading and developing high performing teams to drive growth and create market–leading customer experiences for clients.

Zefr, which specialises in brand suitability in walled garden environments, has appointed Emma Lacey as Senior Vice President EMEA. Lacey brings over 15 years’ experience in building successful commercial teams across the advertising industry to the post. In her most recent role, she was part of the EMEA leadership team at OpenX, working as Senior Director of Buyer Development to secure strategic partnerships with media agencies and brands. In addition, she has held senior positions within a range of media and ad tech firms, including AOL, Sky and Blis. She will be tasked with bringing Zefr’s suite of pre-bid and post-bid targeting and measurement solutions for Facebook, YouTube, and most recently TikTok, to EMEA.

Live commerce and digital transformation platform Firework has appointed Matthew Lynch as its Head of Industry. In his new role, Lynch will spearhead the development of key partnerships with leading D2C brands and retailers. Before joining Firework, he most recently served as Senior Vice President of Digital Shopping Experience for Albertsons Companies. Over more than 20 years, Lynch has spearheaded digital transformation initiatives and eCommerce innovation in various leadership roles across some of the world’s most widely-recognized brands, including Albertsons Companies, Samsung, Symantec, and Amazon.com. While at Albertsons, Matthew relaunched the grocery retailer’s mobile app experience to better serve customers, and led the development of an innovative, omnichannel meals program, ‘ReadyMeals’.

Content production studio Happy Finish has appointed Lyndon Greenlees as its new Director of Strategic Partnerships. Greenlees takes over from Jerome Botbol, who has been promoted to Head of Immersive, ahead of the launch of the agency’s Metaverse Steering Group (MSG). Greenlees is tasked with managing key accounts across the agency’s content and immersive offer. Coming from Group Nine Media, where he was Director of Global Partnerships, Greenlees has experience working with big brand names including Apple, Nike, Diageo, Unilever and Adidas, adding further brand expertise to the HF commercial team.

Channel agency Sherpa has hire Sam Batstone as Client Services Director; Shiv Sharma as Channel Growth Executive, and Eshita Shah as an Account Executive. The hires continue the agency’s period of growth and focus on bolstering resource and talent. Batstone will lead and manage all operations for sherpa working closely with CEO, Tom Perry to help support a high-performing client team, drive excellence in commercial management, and enable further agency growth. Sharma will be working in the business development team, reporting into the agency’s Channel Growth Specialist Carolyn Wakeling. He will work on increasing the scope of Sherpa’s current outreach, focusing on the US market and Partner_Activate.com, Sherpa’s new platform solution. Shah will work on the client services team, with a specific focus on accounts that deliver incentives, MDF and communications solutions to Sherpa’s roster of global tech partners.

Rozzi Merrington has joined Wavemaker as Head of Innovation. Reporting into Chief Strategy Officer Verra Budimlija, she will be responsible for Wavemaker UKs innovation offering, developing insight-driven strategies and bringing to market digital solutions that will provoke growth for the agency’s key clients. An experienced strategic leader, Rozzi has been the driving force behind global campaigns and consumer experiences for brands such as Diageo, Mondalez, Unilever and Land Rover, helping them to leverage emerging and disruptive technologies such as voice, chat, synthetic media, AR and VR. She joins from conversational AI agency, Voxly Digital, where she was Head of Innovation Strategy, establishing the businesses’ consultancy arm. Prior to this, whilst working at M&C Saatchi, she also co-founded the world’s first voice-activated sampling platform, Send Me a Sample, reinventing the whole agency’s proposition. The service continues to scale globally.

Creative agency Joint has announced a new leadership team. Matthew Robinson is promoted to Chief Executive Officer, Algy Sharman to Chief Creative Officer and Rowenna Prest to Chief Strategy Officer. Joint was founded in 2012 and founders Damon Collins, Richard Exon and Lori Meakin will hand over the day-to-day running of the business with immediate effect, whilst continuing to support the new leadership team and nurture key client relationships.

Robinson joined Joint in 2016 as a Partner, having previously held roles at AMV BBDO, Weapon 7, Anomaly and Saatchi & Saatchi. Since then he has helped Joint win accounts such as Uswitch, Amazon Prime and Kettle Chips amongst others. Sharman, joined Joint in 2015 and as Partner has led on clients including Amazon Prime, Amazon Alexa, Kettle Chips, Uswitch and Fox’s Sweets. He previously had roles at BBH, RKCR/Y&R and Mother. Prest, who returns from parental leave in May, joined Joint as Group Strategy Director in 2017. She has overseen the strategy for a number of businesses including TSB, Vue, Amazon Web Services and Reach PLC.  

Digital marketing agency Wolfenden has strengthened its senior leadership team with two new hires. Dan Pratt takes up the newly-created role of Strategy Director. Following a year of momentous growth for the agency where the client base has grown 40 per cent and revenue by 74 per cent year on year, Pratt will support the team in delivering innovative channel strategies which deliver real business growth for clients. Matt Robson also joins as head of paid media from Twentysix, where he previously held senior positions in the paid search team. Robson’s role signifies an expansion of Wolfenden’s paid media offering and comes as paid media channel revenue has increased for the agency by 61 per cent in the last six months.

Bounteous has appointed Katy Allen as Managing Director, Healthcare. Most recently Senior Partner, Business Consulting at ICF Next, Allen is an expert in healthcare consulting, customer experience, and business transformation, with more than 20 years of experience in strategy, operations, and digital innovation. Her healthcare consulting experience includes Fortune 50 health payers; the world’s No. 1 hospital system; global life sciences and biopharma; and national health associations. Bounteous has also promoted Jen Spofford to Managing Director, after previously serving as SVP of Client Service, and Jesse Dundon to Managing Director, following Bounteous’ acquisition of Hathway, the leading digital growth partner for restaurant and convenience store brands.

Experience company Huge has appointed Frisco Chau to the role of Global Head of Data & Insights. In this role, he will be responsible for scaling the company’s data capability across data science, analytics and research, developing new AI-powered data products and driving greater integration of these capabilities across the business. Prior to joining the company, Frisco served as the Chief Data Officer at M&C Saatchi Group and Chief Executive Officer at Fluency M&C Saatchi, a new data consultancy created during his tenure, counting the United Nations and LVMH as clients. Frisco also oversaw an innovative audience segmentation and sizing strategy using psycholinguistics for Manchester United Football Club as well as AI-driven campaign and brand analytics for Amazon EMEA and APAC.

Hybrid Theory, a customized audience-discovery and managed-services platform for advertising agencies and brands, has appointed Ava Moran as the company’s new Senior Vice President of Sales for North America. In this newly-created role, she will be responsible for the oversight and direction of the expanding North American sales teams across key verticals, including multicultural, political, cannabis, healthcare, and travel. A seasoned sales leader with a successful track record in growing and managing teams, driving revenue growth, and advancing client relationships, Moran brings nearly 15 years’ experience to the role. Supporting her will be recently-promoted Craig Becher, Senior Director of Channel Partnerships, as well as Billy Delp, Senior Director of Sales, South.

Fintech firm SKUx has appointed Tom Smith as sales director. Smith will lead the sales effort for SKUx Offer (X)ccelerator, a new solution from SKUx that aims to transform traditional, anonymized advertising tactics into secure, serialized, one-to-one, trackable, high-value, mobile offers. Smith has extensive industry experience in martech and advertising solutions, including sales and leadership positions with companies including Westwood One/Metro Networks, ADVO (Now Vericast/Valassis), and DexYP. Prior to joining SKUx, Smith served as General Manager of Hashting USA, Inc., a mobile marketing and coupon clearing platform.