Movers and Shakers: The Wella Company, LinkedIn, Havas Media Group and more

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.

(L-R) Hugh Dineen, Laura Kell, Andy Ankrah, Oli Saunders, Rich Edwards, Jose Ramirez

The Wella Company appoints three executive leaders 
Global leader in the beauty industry, The Wella Company has appointed three diverse C-suite executives to its Leadership Team.

Virginie Costa joins as Global Chief Financial Officer, bringing more than 25 years of financial management experience and a proven track record of developing winning teams. Most recently, Costa served as CFO of GODIVA where she was instrumental in helping transform the company, including expansion at retail and across eCommerce. She is a member of the Board of Directors for Advantage Solutions, a global communications, and media company, where she chairs the Audit Committee.

Gretchen Koback Pursel joins Wella Company as Global Chief People Officer. Pursel has extensive experience running human resources for large global public companies. Most recently she held the position of CHRO at Tiffany & Co. where she led the people agenda during the company’s transformation over her two-decade tenure.

Hugh Dineen joins Wella Company in the newly created role of President of Global Brands and Global Chief Marketing Officer. Dineen joins from MetLife where he built a breakthrough marketing engine that successfully leveraged digital to significantly accelerate business growth as their CMO. Prior, he helped turn around Avon’s significant beauty business including the skincare, haircare, color cosmetics, and fragrance portfolios.

Turner joins LinkedIn 
LinkedIn has announced the appointment of Mimi Turner as Head of EMEAL for the B2B Institute.

Turner was previously Director of Strategy, Messaging and Research for the Liberal Democrats, and before that held various senior marketing roles positioning businesses like LADbible, talkSPORT and the Health Lottery for significant expansion.

“In the last decade I have become more than a bit obsessed with the puzzle of marketing effectiveness. Like many marketers, I have used the paradigm-shifting ideas of Ehrenberg-Bass, Binet & Field, Rory Sutherland, Iain McGilchrist, Mark Ritson and others to deliver practical results. And at the Liberal Democrats, our work with Juergen Maier CBE on the contribution made to our social, economic, and political matrix by small and medium-sized businesses, really opened my eyes to the impact of systemic growth. Putting that together within an amazing team and company is simply a dream job. I am IN!” said Turner. 

Havas Media Group recruits Kell 
Havas Media Group, the media division of the global marketing and communications group Havas has announced the appointment of Laura Kell to the newly created role of Chief Data and Product Officer.

A 16-year veteran of Omnicom Media Group in the UK and EMEA, Kell joins from OMD EMEA, where she was most recently Group Marketing Intelligence Partner. Over the last seven years, she has built and led the agency’s Marketing Intelligence team, while playing a key role in developing Omnicom Media Group’s data and analytics offering, network tools and solutions. She has worked with clients in all key sectors, designing new analytical approaches to planning.

In her new role, Kell will oversee Havas Media Group’s data and product offering, unifying its engineering, analytics, technology and data strategy capabilities in order to help make a meaningful difference to brands.

“The passion, energy and ambition at Havas Media Group is infectious at the moment, which is why I’m so proud and excited to be joining. It’s clear that the media group has invested in the right areas to deliver meaningful outcomes for brands, while the Village model delivers against the promise for integrated services which is essential to unlock the true potential of data, tech and analytics” said Kell. “I’m really looking forward to working with the team to create solutions that have a significant positive impact on our clients’ business growth.”

Ankrah to lead Merkle’s UK Technology Consulting Practice
Technology-enabled, data-driven customer experience management (CXM) company, Merkle has appointed Andy Ankrah to head of technology consulting, leading a new dedicated UK practice that aims to drive business value through technology investment and optimisation for clients.

Previously senior director of solutions, Merkle EMEA, Ankrah founded a similarly successful Customer Experience Optimisation (CXO) practice in the UK, which led global deployment of new technology for clients such as Stanley Black & Decker and Volkswagen Group.

Wavemaker recruits Saunders 
Media agency network, Wavemaker has appointed Oli Saunders to the role of Global Head of Addressability and DCO.

As part of Wavemaker’s Consulting Hub and based in London, Saunders will be tasked with ensuring the ongoing and continual growth of addressable content opportunities across the agency and for clients, building out the agency’s capabilities in market and globally, and embedding addressable content opportunities into the planning process.

Saunders joins Wavemaker after acting as a strategic advisor to the GroupM Addressable Content Unit, prior to which he was Chief Product Officer at Omnicom’s programmatic creative specialist shop Adylic. He is also the COO and co-founder of the award-winning lifestyle blog platform FitnessOnToast.com.

M&C Saatchi appoints Head of Planning 
Creative company, M&C Saatchi has further bolstered its customer capability with the appointment of Rich Edwards as Head of Planning for its O2 business.

Prior to a short break from agency life, Edwards was most recently Executive Strategy Director at creative agency Iris, where he built and ran the integrated strategy team in London, and led the development of the agency’s approach to customer and brand experience. As part of the role, he oversaw customer, loyalty, digital and innovation strategy for KFC, and also led planning for clients including Formula E, Suzuki and Haven Holidays.

Edwards previously spent nearly eight-and-a-half years at M&C Saatchi Group customer agency LIDA, which merged with M&C Saatchi in January 2020, holding various account handling and planning roles between 2004 and 2012. He was part of the LIDA pitch team which originally won the O2 business.

Ramirez joins IAS team 
Digital media quality company, Integral Ad Science (IAS) has announced the hire of a new SVP of Technical Customer Operations, Jose Ramirez.

Ramirez joins IAS with more than 15 years of experience in technical and client service roles at some of the world’s largest technology companies. Most recently, he was the Head of Account Strategy at Verizon Media where he led the native and programmatic advertising client services organisation in North America.

Prior to that, Ramirez was the Senior Director, Programmatic Services at Yahoo where he built the company’s expansive demand-side platform (DSP) optimisation strategy services team in North America, expanded its team across key markets including Latin America, and established its customer support resources in India.

Vamp announces CEO 
Influencer and content platform Vamp has announced the appointment of Gabriele Famous as CEO.

Previously Chief Marketing Officer at Trustpilot, Famous brings extensive experience leading and scaling global technology organisations including Salesforce and Zendesk to her new role.

“Vamp has an incredible track record across Australia, Asia, the Middle East and Europe, in delivering beautifully effective content for leading global brands. The platform puts the power of social communication at a brand’s fingertips and allows them to harness it in a fast, efficient and scalable way. Its intuitive nature will allow Vamp to grow, enabling more marketers, of all abilities and budgets, to run influencer campaigns” said Famous. 

Gardner joins Croud 
Digital marketing agency, Croud has announced the appointment of Dean Gardner as global chief operating officer, a new role for the business, as it looks to build on its impressive growth, particularly in the US market, and further drive its new global M&A strategy.

Gardner has spent the last 13 years working within Omnicom Media Group across both US and UK markets, where he was integral in building and leading the digital performance, operations and transformation teams, with a focus on data and technology. He held senior roles at Resolution Media, Accuen and most recently at OMD USA, where he was Business Transformation Officer.

Journey Further announces Chief Strategy Officer 
Performance marketing agency, Journey Further has appointed James Addlestone as its new Chief Strategy Officer.

Addlestone will join the executive team and lead strategy for the Leeds, London and Manchester agency, working closely with CEO, Robin Skidmore, and Managing Director, Matt Kwiecinski, to deliver on the business’s global growth plans.

Addlestone began his career in strategy consulting and data science at Deloitte, before moving to a number of agency groups including Interpublic and Omnicom. He departs his role as Head of Decision Science at RAPP to join Journey Further.

LoopMe expands team 
Outcomes-based advertising platform has appointed Rob Cukierman as GM of Measurement and Product Partnerships to further drive its measurement and data business.

Cukierman brings with him a deep expertise in business strategy from his executive positions at Nielsen, IAC, and multinational video hosting service, Vevo. Most recently, he was SVP Strategy & Measurement at video advertising company, ZEFR.

Evawin moves to Code Computerlove 
Digital product studio, Code Computerlove has appointed Jamie Evawin as Head of Experimentation as popularity for experiment-led product innovation continues to soar.

Evawin, who worked at Code for four years before moving to musicMagpie 18 months ago, returns to the Manchester-based digital studio to advance Code’s culture of experimentation and drive growth of the agency’s performance function.

As Head of Experimentation he will embed more experimentation tools and practices into its cross-discipline product teams, as well as expand Code’s range of services that sit under performance and user experience, including CRO, analytics and user testing. Evawin will also work closely with the wider Mediacom North Group and the recently launched Google Practice, delivering best practices across experimentation and optimisation.

Adverty makes two new hires 
In-game platform for advertiser, Adverty has established local presence in Istanbul, with two new hires.

Erdem Can Tüzün joins Adverty as Director of Programmatic Sales and will grow and maintain programmatic partners, both direct SSPs, such as PubMatic, InMobi and Azerion, and indirect opportunities via DSPs such as The Trade Desk, Amazon and Media Math. He was previously at AdColony for three years – most recently as Team Lead of Programmatic, having rapidly risen through the ranks at the mobile video advertising company.

Ça?la Mordeniz is appointed as Director of Publisher Growth and will focus on growing Adverty’s catalogue of game developers in the region. She brings considerable experience in the mobile gaming industry, having worked at AdColony as well as gaming company BoomBit, where she was Publishing Manager, locating high quality Turkish mobile game developers and studios.

Admix recruits Berman 
In-Play advertising platform, Admix has announces the appointment of senior advertising industry leader Marty Berman as VP of Sales for North America and LATAM.

Berman joins Admix with over two decades of media and advertising industry experience, having held senior leadership roles at global organizations such as InMobi, Integrate Marketing, NBC Internet, Triad and Monster, with key accounts including American Family Insurance, United Airlines, GMC and Progressive Insurance.

W?odarczyk joins RTB House 
Online advertising solutions company RTB House has announced that Lukasz W?odarczyk been appointed to the newly created position of VP of Programmatic Ecosystem Growth & Innovation.

In his new role, W?odarczyk will be responsible for projects and activities related to the companys development of the programmatic ecosystem in the Open Internet, along with strengthening RTB Houses leading position in shaping the digital landscape following the replacement of cookies by other mechanisms.

W?odarczyk held the position of Director of Global Inventory Partnerships at RTB House and has played a key role in leading the business partnerships with inventory suppliers and the companys cookieless education.