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…

Elshareef takes up Chief Product Officer role at OneFootball
Football media platform OneFootball has hired Ismail Elshareef as its Chief Product Officer. Elshareef brings to the role over a decade of experience developing and delivering high-volume profitable products on a global scale. 

He joins from enterprise software company UpKeep, where he was also Chief Product Officer. Prior to this, he spent over four years at Ticketmaster, having most recently served as SVP, Consumer Products, where he played an integral role in helping the company provide fans with an elevated ticket-buying experience, especially in high-demand situations, harnessing consumer data to give artists better insights, and for developers to build fan-centric products. 

In his new role, Elshareef will work to elevate the OneFootball fan experience, driving the continued development of its product, which brings fans closer to football. His strong commitment to advancing user experience will be crucial in furthering OneFootball’s ambition to create an even more tailored and engaging experience for its 100m monthly active users worldwide.  

“Im thrilled to welcome Ismail to OneFootball,” said OneFootball, CEO and Founder, Lucas von Cranach. “Football fans are at the heart of our company, and Ismails outstanding track record for developing innovative customer experiences and delivering exceptional results will ensure we continue to bring fans closer to the sport they love. His expertise will be invaluable as we develop the OneFootball product in a way that deepens our connection with football fans across the globe.” 

Shears to CMO at TotallyMoney
Credit app TotallyMoney has appointed Rebecca Shears as its Chief Marketing Officer. She holds over 20 years’ experience in national and international marketing roles, working with global consumer brands including T-Mobile, HP and global fintech payments company OFX. More recently she was Global Chief Marketing Officer at BIMA, responsible for growing the healthcare and micro-insurance customer base in emerging markets, for the under-served communities in Africa and Asia.

At TotallyMoney, she will be responsible for honing the business’ positioning, driving forward its mission of helping everyone move their finances forward, at a time when the rising cost of living is putting pressure on millions. Her appointment comes after the company raised £9m at the end of last year and hit its latest milestone of 4m customers.

She said: “TotallyMoney’s purpose-driven approach, which is truly embedded across the business, meant it was an extremely easy decision to join the team. It’s never been more important that people are supported and guided to understand and improve their financial situation, and that is what sits at the heart of TotallyMoney. I’m looking forward to working with everyone to drive real change, and we have an exciting year ahead.”

FeastBox and Red Rickshaw promote Jones
Sister companies FeastBox and Red Rickshaw have promoted Liam Howard-Jones (previously Head of Growth) to Chief Marketing Officer and a position on the Board.

World cuisine recipe firm, FeastBox, recently unveiled a rebrand. Led by Howard-Jones, the new branding aims to inspire adventure for home cooks across the UK. Red Rickshaw, the UK’s largest online grocer of hard-to-find world produce and ingredients, is also being relaunched with an updated look and feel, plus a significant increase in range and cuisines.

Howard-Jones said: “Both FeastBox and Red Rickshaw have such unique and fantastic offerings, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed helping both evolve over the last few months. Consumer awareness has already increased and both models have seen organic growth, so we’re in a great position to really scale it up. My mission is to show consumers the variety of what both our brands have to offer. We search the globe high and low for new, amazing ingredients and make them accessible through Red Rickshaw, but we teach people how to use them to create a taste like no other with FeastBox.

Partridge to head EMEA operations at Yahoo
Yahoo has appointed Josh Partridge as Head of EMEA. He will be responsible for driving that continued growth in all of Yahoo’s EMEA markets, as part of the new Global Revenue & Client Solutions organisation led by Elizabeth Herbst-Brady. n

Partridge’s promotion follows a period leading the UK and Nordics business since July 2020. He brings over 20 years of commercial experience to the role. Before joining what was then Verizon Media to lead the UK team in 2020, he was VP of EMEA at Flipboard. Previously he led Shazam through its acquisition by Apple following five years of successful growth as its commercial VP for EMEA and LATAM, and before that spent six years at Yahoo leading commercial teams. 

Yahoo has also promoted Steven Mchenry to the role of Country Manager, UK, leading Yahoo’s agency account and strategy teams and driving promotion of its ad tech platforms. 

McHenry began his career at TV sales house IDS in 2002, where he spent eight years before joining the Walt Disney Company for the launch of DisneyMedia+ in the UK. In 2012, he joined Yahoo as Agency Lead and he was most recently Head of Sales for the UK.

King tasked with integrating Croud’s recent acquisitions
Digital marketing agency Croud has appointed Jon King, former CEO of Performics, as Group General Manager. King, who is taking on this newly-created position with a global remit, will be focusing on the integration of Crouds recent acquisitions, particularly Verb brands, supporting management teams, and helping scale the business. He will join the Executive Team and report into Luke Smith, Co-founder and Global CEO.

King brings a wealth of experience to the role, along with a reputation for delivering profitable growth, digital transformation and building high-performing teams. He is well versed in the space in which Croud operates; in addition to five years at Performics, he was MD at digital agency Possible (now Wunderman Thompson) for five years, and has also worked client side at Virgin Media.

King has been working for Croud in a consultancy capacity for the past year, but rapid expansion created the need for additional senior support. He said: “Croud is at an incredibly exciting juncture following the acquisition of Verb Brands so it’s a great time to come on board. Having spent time working with the team and getting to know the business over the past year, I have seen for myself that the model is truly differentiated and I know what a talented, engaged and focused team I am joining”.

Taylor takes up newly-created role at Hawk Platform
Media and insights platform Hawk has appointed Henry Taylor to the newly-created role of UK Publisher Partnerships Manager, reinforcing the growth of the DSP’s omnichannel offering.

Taylor’s previous positions include planning and activating global programmatic ad campaigns at Dentsu International for clients such as DAZN, Honda, Intel and Kellogg’s. He has also worked on programmatic dynamic creative optimisation (DCO) campaigns, enabling advertisers to use real-time technology to optimise the performance of their creatives, at Adylic, Omnicom Media Group’s DCO specialist.

In his role at Hawk Platform, Taylor will manage and expand the relationships between Hawk and its UK supply partners across mobile, digital audio, DOOH, CTV and in-game advertising. The role will see him develop in-depth knowledge of each publisher’s offering, in terms of how it enables agencies and brands to meet their specific objectives, as well as triallingnew ad formats and supply partners.

“As digital advertising has increasingly focused on omnichannel, it has also become more complex,” said Mehdi Aroussi, Director of Publisher and Customer Success at Hawk Platform. “The new role, which has been designed to help us meet the needs of our supply-side partners across mobile, audio, CTV, DOOH in-game advertising and the metaverse, is a key element of our global strategy. Henry’s experience and industry knowledge will help to develop and enhance synergies with our publisher network in the UK, further cementing those relationships and thereby enhancing our client offering.”

Hawk Platform enables its clients to plan, activate and manage advertising campaigns across mobile, digital audio, connected TV (CTV), digital out-of-home (DOOH), in-game advertising and the metaverse. Advertisers can also work with Hawk’s creative studio to build bespoke creatives optimised for each channel, while the platform’s media insights technology enables meaningful and actionable insights to be extracted from all channels and used to enhance the effectiveness of future activity.

Knegten to CMO at Outbrain
Outbrain, the recommendation platform for the open web, has appointed Paul Knegten to the newly created position of Chief Marketing Officer, following the company’s recent IPO. Knegten will lead Outbrain’s global marketing initiatives and will be instrumental in promoting Outbrain’s global brand. He will oversee the global and regional planning, development and execution of Outbrain’s strategic and product marketing programs and campaigns. 

With a deep background in advertising technology, Knegten has previously held roles at companies including Comcast, Yahoo and MediaMath. Prior to joining Outbrain, he was CMO of Beeswax, which was acquired in 2021 by Comcast’s CTV platform, FreeWheel. Following the acquisition of Beeswax, Knegten joined FreeWheel as a Senior Marketing Executive. Knegten brings his experience in this hyper growth sector of ad tech to Outbrain following its acquisition of video intelligence AG, a contextual video platform in the CTV space.

He said: “I have been watching Outbrain since its founding with admiration and am beyond excited to join this amazing team and build upon Outbrains unparalleled technology and product leadership. We’re at an exciting moment in an ad industry projected to cross $1 trillion by 2025, especially as the industry becomes less dependent on cookies and moves even more toward platforms like Outbrain that deliver value through context and better user experience.”

Starcom promotes two
Starcom has promoted Sophie Barr and Danny Weitzkorn to Managing Partners, welcoming them onto the Starcom UK Leadership team led by CEO Nadine Young.

Barr was previously Business Director on the Samsung account for three years, leading planning, mobile and ecosystem campaigns, as well as supporting Power of One strategic and operational integration. One Publicis Team Samsung (OPTS) is a hybrid team that fuses Media, CRM, DTC and Commerce expertise. In her new role, she will lead a team of 80 and report into Jane Holding, Managing Director for OPTS.

Weitzkorn has worked on Samsung alongside Barr, with other current clients including P&O Ferries, DP World, Karcher and NS&I. Reporting into Starcom Managing Director, Richard Friar, he will lead a team of 15, and his responsibilities will include driving growth, increasing greater success with ID based media solutions, and shaping the planning function within the agency. 

“Sophie and Danny have been key players in the success of their teams, from building strong relationships with clients to bringing innovative, fresh ideas to the table,” said Starcom CEO, Nadine Young. “Both are solid leaders; Sophie led our Pitch in A Day event in collaboration with leading UK charity Mind last year. And Danny has led on agency planning sessions and has featured in our Brave Stories initiative with Channel 4 which aims to make our industry more inclusive. Both promotions couldn’t be more well deserved.” 

Samsung Ads veteran Naguib heads to Hivestack
Independent programmatic digital out of home (DOOH) ad tech firm Hivestack has recruited former Samsung Ads ad tech veteran, Mina Naguib, as its Chief Technology Officer. Reporting directly to CEO, Andreas Soupliotis, Naguib will be responsible for the long-term strategic direction of the organizations overall technology function.

In this new role, Naguib will establish technology standards to direct strategic design, manage and implement an enterprise-wide technology infrastructure, and play a key role in recognizing and analyzing trends and innovations that directly impact the company’s products and performance. 

“We are beyond thrilled to welcome Mina Naguib to Hivestack in this new global leadership role,” said Andreas Soupliotis, Founder and CEO of Hivestack. “Mina is widely respected within the ad tech industry and joins our team at a pivotal time and brings with him a wealth of knowledge to support our efforts of driving innovation across the DOOH landscape.”

Naguib previously held the role of Director, Operations Engineering at AdGear, where he worked since its inception to oversee design, operations and growth of various advertising technologies and teams. In 2016, AdGear was acquired by Samsung, now Samsung Ads, where Naguib held the role of Chief Architect. Prior to this, he worked as an Architect at creative marketing and communications agency, Cossette. A tech industry veteran since 1997, his expertise spans many areas including data center management, cloud and virtualization, low-level system development, web and application development, and distributed systems.

He said: “I am thrilled to be joining the Hivestack leadership team at such a transformational time for the industry. I look forward to working closely with Andreas, Bruno and the entire team to ensure Hivestacks technology is world class, empowers our customers, and is a joy to use.”

MiQ appoints UK Strategy Director  
Global programmatic media partner MiQ has hired Pierre de Lannoy as its Strategy Director for the UK. De Lannoy will be responsible for powering MiQ’s UK product development and commercial solutions across performance, identity, and advanced TV. 

In his role, de Lannoy is tasked with restructuring the solutions team and developing MiQ’s business enablement offering. By connecting sales, product, solution, and strategy, de Lannoy will help align processes to provide an industry-leading client experience and robust go to market strategy. He will also be responsible for driving the upcoming implementation of MiQ’s latest range of post-cookie solutions, which are currently in development.

De Lannoy brings over 10 years’ experience in the media industry to the role. He first joined MiQ six years ago as Operations Manager, Strategy and Product Director, ANZ, before joining MiQ’s team in Canada as their VP of Product. In these roles, de Lannoy successfully delivered ATV and CTV solutions throughout ANZ and Canada. Before joining MiQ, he was a Campaign Executive at IPG MediaBrands, Optimisation Specialist at Xaxis, and a Data Council Member of IAB Australia.

He said: “2021 was the year of CTV advertising, and looks set to be a huge focus this year. With almost 80 per cent of advertisers looking to boost their ad investments across CTV compared to 2021 spending, cost, measurement and reach will remain the emphasis for CTV campaigns. But with growing competition in the space, marketers choose partners likeMiQ who provide value added services, creative consultancy, analytics support and help with campaign planning through pre-flight intelligence and competitor mapping.”

PubMatic appoints Phang to head up mobile
PubMatic has appointed Lashanne Phang as Senior Director of Mobile to focus on driving growth of PubMatic’s global mobile business. A digital advertising veteran, Phang recently served as Director, Publisher Development, for the Asia-Pacific region at PubMatic, where she drove development of the company’s mobile and omnichannel business in the region.

In her new role, Phang will build on the important global brand and publisher relationships she has developed, and will explore new potential opportunities. This includes promoting the growth of PubMatic’s OpenWrap SDK unified auction product, building relationships with mobile game developers and connecting them with brand advertising demand, and driving interest for PubMatic’s addressability solutions.

Prior to joining PubMatic in 2019, Phang held sales and business development roles at Smaato, Arton Capital, and Experian. She said: “We are committed to bringing new monetization opportunities to mobile publishers with programmatic brand spend. As well, creating value for buyers has been a key differentiator for PubMatic and that will remain a priority.”

Teads expands with several new hires
Teads has appointed several new employees as part of a recruitment drive to include more vertical specialists, deliver greater insights, and bolster its customer experiences teams, as well as further develop the company’s Manchester office. 

Andrea Lo Presti joins Teads as Industry Director, Auto, from Stellantis where he served as Marketing Director for Fiat & Abarth UK. James Colborn joins as Head of Global Data from Yahoo/Verizon Media, where he was Head of Global Data Solutions. Henry Vernon has also been appointed as Head of Insights UK. He was previously Senior Commercial Insight Manager at Global. 

Becky Waring and Amanda Tushingham also both join Teads as Global Client Partner, Insights and Measurement, and Head of Retail, respectively. Prior to joining Teads, Waring was Global VP, Insights and Client Solutions at Unruly, while Tushingham was Senior Director of Partnerships Whalar, following a long career client and agency development across premium publishers including The Guardian, Time Inc (now Future), and The Telegraph. 

Ryan Virgo, has joined as Global Industry Director – Entertainment from Sky, where he was Head of Customer and Product Marketing. Other previous roles include Head of Marketing positions at 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures. The new line-up is completed by Dominic Barry, who joins Teads as Global Industry Director – Gaming.

“It’s been a really successful year for Teads and these new hires will enable us to expand the business by giving clients access to new verticals and further their growth,” said Teads UK MD, Justin Taylor. “We’ve witnessed a growing trend and greater demand in automotive, gaming, entertainment, and luxury retail, so employing specialists in these key areas will boost our offering. Everyone joining brings with them a wealth of experience and unique skills which we are eager to use to drive the company further.”

Gleason leaves GroupM for Criteo
Criteo has hired Brian Gleason to lead its global commercial organisation, effective 1 April 1. Gleason comes to Criteo from media investment agency GroupM, a WPP subsidiary, where he serves as Global Chief Commercial Officer, overseeing a high-growth, multi-billion-dollar portfolio of dynamic businesses. 

As Chief Revenue Officer at Criteo, he will lead a global team of over 1,500 associates focused on helping clients drive outcomes on the open internet through Criteos Commerce Media Platform solutions.

Prior to his current role at GroupM, Gleason served as CEO of Xaxis, one of the worlds largest programmatic audience platforms, and in roles at various advertising and technology companies that enjoyed significant growth under his leadership. 

He said: “Criteo has grabbed the attention of the market by carving out a unique and compelling position within our industry. Im excited to help our clients and our company realise the full potential of the Commerce Media opportunity were all staring at across the open internet.”  

Stimmel takes up growth role at Sabio
Digital TV ad platform provider, Sabio Holdings, has appointed Jon Stimmel to the role of Chief Growth Officer. In the role, Stimmel will oversee strategic marketing, drive adoption of Sabios demand-side platform (DSP), and increase awareness of AppSciences actionable campaign analytics.

Stimmel was most recently Chief Investment Officer at UM Worldwide, where he drove cross-channel buying strategy by applying market and consumer insights to create foundational partnerships for IPG Mediabrands and their clients. Previously, he served as EVP Director, Investment & Activation at Publicis, and Director of Media Investment & Partnerships at Unilever.

He said: “Sabio is taking an innovative approach to CTV, helping marketers seamlessly integrate the channel into their evolving cross-screen strategies with a focus on results. Im looking forward to joining the team to help marketers and agencies increasingly turn to AppScience and Sabio solutions for a holistic and proven approach centered around brand performance.”

AppSciences proprietary household graph consists of in-app data from 300 million opt-in mobile devices and 55 million CTV households. The household graph correlates consumer behavior mobile data with connected TV data for individual households, resulting in richer, more sophisticated insights into audiences. The AppScience platform can be used to audit existing CTV ad campaigns, as well as develop more advanced audience segments for future media buys.

Other moves:
Ad tech firm Ogury has appointed Geoffroy Martin as its Chief Operating Officer. He brings over 20 years of senior leadership experience in technology companies to the role, much of it spent in Silicon Valley. He was the CEO of Art.com from 2010 to 2015, which he grew to become the world’s largest online art retailer, serving more than 19m customers in 150 countries. Prior to joining Ogury, he was General Manager and Executive Vice President of Growth Portfolio at Criteo, where he built and managed the Retail Media Division. Under his leadership, the division’s revenue more than tripled. Martin will be based in Paris and report directly to Ogury’s CEO Thomas Pasquet. 

Cloud communications platform and omnichannel engagement firm Infobip has hired Ivan Ostoji as its Chief Business Officer after 10 years at leading global consulting company, McKinsey & Company, where as a Partner he co-founded and co-led McKinsey´s Global Technology Council and McKinsey´s Innovation & New Business building (Leap) practices. One of his main goals will be to further strengthen Infobips critical functions, including strategic project office, marketing, go-to-market and business model innovation, partnerships and alliances, and strategic M&A. Based in Zurich, he holds a doctorate in Natural Cciences from the University of Basel and a masters degree in Management, Technology and Economics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.  

Performance marketing firm Moloco has hired Ryan Goldman as Vice President of Marketing. He will be responsible for developing and implementing strategies that strengthen the companys competitive position in the marketplace and for increasing revenue. He will work closely with the executive team to lead the companys growth strategy, while overseeing and expanding all aspects of the marketing team, including corporate marketing, demand generation, communications and other functions. Prior to joining Moloco, he was VP of Product Marketing at SoundCloud, and also served as VP of product marketing at Pendo, where he overhauled the companys product marketing function in order to help it raise Series F funding at a $2.6bn valuation.  

Ascential, the information, analytics and eCommerce optimization company, has made Edge by Ascential Global Chief Revenue Officer Tom Schutz the Chief Revenue Officer for Ascential Digital Commerce. In his new role, Schutz will oversee sales and revenue for all of Digital Commerce, Ascential’s business segment focused on helping brands and digital marketplaces win by optimizing and accelerating their digital commerce performance both in the US and globally. Prior to joining Ascential, Schutz was Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing Strategy, North America at Experian, where he designed and executed transformational strategy to drive market expansion across all businesses. He aligned marketing and sales execution to accelerate revenue in new markets with new products and solutions, while improving sales execution productivity and efficiency.  

What’s Possible Group has hired John Warwick as Creative Director to expand the Group’s creative offering. Warwick will drive growth of Whats Possible Creative Studio, which offers creative innovation to the clients of the Group’s agencies: The Specialist Works, Hubble, Pintarget and Connections. Warwick’s thinking has been behind work for brands including O2, comparethemarket, Vauxhall, Dyson and Alpro across the UK and Europe. He has worked in all media – from ATL advertising, digital and direct response to POS, experiential, social and CRM, and at agencies including VCCP, LIDA/M&C Saatchi and MRM McCann. He joins What’s Possible Group from strategic and creative agency Awkward Works, which he founded three years ago.

Digital agency Organic has appointed Dids Reeve as its Head of Paid Media. She joins the agency from AccuraCast where she was Agency Marketing Lead. Bringing almost a decade of experience in the industry, she will oversee all the agency’s media clients, including Capita, Improve International and Honestly Tasty. She will also collaborate with all departments from across the business (notably SEO, UX and Dev) to deliver the best possible results for clients.

Digital agency Given has appointed Amanda Jones to the role of Planning Director. The newly created role will involve developing and growing the agency’s first planning team as part of its strategy department. The planning team will further hone  the agency’s impactful and operational brand purpose strategies – creating even stronger clarity of messages and more powerful comms and engagement for its clients. Jones has over 13 years’ experience working in strategy and planning, having started out as a graduate at M&C Saatchi Group, and most recently working as Planning Director at The Gate in London.

Social agency Wilderness has hired six new team members across the UK and Amsterdam, and established a new international division in Copenhagen, Denmark.  The new hires include three additions to the central team, Rob Hall as Head of Creative; Rebecca Watson, Financial Director; and Ruby Lloyd the agency’s new Marketing Manager. Additionally, there are three main team hires, including Rae Low, an Account Director; Fred Bhat, Senior Social Strategist; and Mollie Lyons, Senior Social Manager.

Independent media services agency, The Specialist Works, has appointed Pete Kemp as its Managing Partner. In his new role, Kemp will head up the Frasers Group account, consult on other clients and work on new business. Previously, Kemp held leadership and strategic planning roles across WPP’s GroupM, and most recently worked as an independent media consultant for creative agencies.

Digital agency Sagittarius has appointed a new growth team. It will be led by CEO Ian MacArthur, and includes Natalie Waite, who has recently been promoted to Experience Director; Kingsley Hibbert, Chief Technical Officer; Andrew Reeves, Chief Financial Officer; Jo Seller, Head of People; and Sharon Van de Vert, Head of Delivery. Sagittarius helps brands create high-converting digital experiences. It is owned by The Remarkable Group, an international conglomerate of of integrated digital consultancies.

As part of its ongoing strategic development, Fifty has appointed Simon Eaton as the company’s new Managing Director after serving as UK Commercial Director since 2020. The appointment comes at a time of rapid business growth, encompassing the launch of Fifty’s new cookieless targeting solution FiftyAurora and the company’s recent expansion into North America and APAC regions.