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.

Uber selects Roylett as UK GM
Melinda Roylett has been appointed the general manager for the UK and Ireland at Uber – a role which covers the app’s Rides business in more than 40 towns and cities across England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland.

Roylett joins from Square, where she was most recently head of Europe and responsible for all business and operations in the region. Before joining Square, she spent almost 10 years at PayPal, where she managed the small and medium business segment and launched products across Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

“Having grown up in the suburbs, with limited transport options, I know how apps like Uber can make a genuine impact on the day to day,” said Roylett. “Getting from A to B should be easy, no matter where you’re going or what time it is. I am excited to be joining the company as we look to build out even more ways to get the UK moving, support licensed drivers and help make our cities cleaner.”

Mackaro joins AccuWeather to lead science
AccuWeather has hired Scott Mackaro as vice president of science, innovation and development. He will lead AccuWeather’s scientific development and research operations, serving as the senior advisor on innovation and overseeing the advancement of new products and solutions in meteorology and other scientific disciplines.

Mackaro arrives from Iteris ClearAg, a precision agriculture platform, where he served as product manager and, most recently, director of key accounts. Prior to that, he was product manager and research scientist in the applied meteorology group at Vaisala, and he also spent a year as a visiting assistant professor of meteorology at Metropolitan University in Denver before a post-doctoral position at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s research laboratory. He is a founding member of Precision Wind.

“Scott brings an impressive range of experience and an extensive breadth of skills to this critical role,” said Chris Patti, AccuWeathers chief technology officer. “His leadership and scientific knowledge base make him an ideal fit with AccuWeathers core leadership team, and will be essential in helping us develop new and better tools to help businesses in every industry more effectively manage the unique risks and opportunities created by weather events around the world.”

IAS makes Johnson revenue boss
Chance Johnson has been named as chief revenue officer at Integral Ad Science (IAS). Based out of New York and reporting directly to chief executive officer Lisa Utzschneider, he will lead the company’s global sales organisation, spearheading an accelerated growth plan and optimising its global sales approach and strategy.

Most recently, he served as senior vice president of sales at Amobee. Before that, he was global vice president of sales at Rubicon Project, joining the company via the acquisition of Chango, where he led the sales and client services functions.

“I am honoured to be joining IAS at this exciting juncture. IAS powers digital media quality and outcomes for the world’s largest set of brands, publishers and proprietary platforms and I am excited to grow these relationships even further,” said Johnson. “Marketers everywhere are looking to build more meaningful connections with their respective audiences, and I’m thrilled to be a part of the driving force in helping them deliver great impressions.”

Koronaios to lead publisher relations at Bidstack
In-game advertising platform Bidstack Group has made John Koronaios its vice president of publisher relations. He will be responsible for building relationships with game developers and publishers are the company expands its presence in the US market.

Koronaios boasts more than two decades’ experience in business development, sales, wand working in the wider media and entertainment industry. He has previously worked with some of the biggest entertainment companies in the world, including Atari, Ubisoft, and Sony. Most recently, he was vice president of GlobalStep, which deals in risk management and mitigation in the development, production, and maintenance of video games.

“I’m delighted to join the growing Bidstack team and excited by the opportunity to work with such an innovative and dynamic company,” Koronaios said. “My focus will be to help increase knowledge of Bidstack in the US market and forge stronger links with games publishers and developers who I know are keen to work with such revolutionary technology.”

4C opts for Mogensen as finance boss
Lisa Mogensen has been appointed as chief financial officer at 4C Insights, a data science and martech firm. She will oversee the company’s financial planning and reporting, legal, accounting, tax, and treasury functions, replacing Brent Dobsch, who has been name chief financial officer and chief operating officer at Kinetiq.

Mogensen arrives at 4C with nearly three decades of experience in financial and operating management for public and private companies. She began her career in investment banking ultimately switching to media with companies including News Corp. and NBC. Mogensen was previously CFO of TheStreet and then CFO of Forbes Digital.

“Ive admired 4C for years and it’s evident to me that the company has an incredible value, engaged clients, and a strategic team with their eyes set on innovation. Im excited to join at this time of dramatic momentum behind the business,” said Mogensen. “Im looking forward to partnering with 4C’s leadership team to enhance the companys financial and operational standing, and build on its growth.”

Bink takes charge of customer success at 1plusX
1plusX, a predictive data management platform, has chosen Carolin Bink as its vice president of customer success, where she will report directly to chief executive officer and co-founder Dr. Ing. Jürgen Galler.

Bink was head of data products at Axel Springer following her role as had of data & performance at Axel Springer-owned Media Impact. At Axel Springer, she used 1plusX to develop and implement data strategies.

“As a data management platform, 1plusX offers the most extensive criteria for defining and building bespoke audiences. Rather than offering rigid, pre-segmented, broad audiences, campaign managers can get creative with 1plusX. They can define unique, targeted audiences for each individual ad campaign. 1plusX enables them to type-in specific keywords to target hyper-relevant consumers by their real-time interests – much like they would use a search engine. Campaign managers can generate completely unique mass audiences of hyper-targeted, statistically relevant consumers within just 24 hours and four clicks,” she said.  “This is because 1plusX is more than just a data management platform – it is a fast, easy-to-use and accurate profile data source. It creates profiles for pages of content as well as consumers. This is a significant data strategy, encouraging the industry towards cookie-less targeting.”

Cavai hires five alongside UK office launch
Five new faces have been added conversational advertising platform Cavai’s global team. Ed Preedy has been named global chief revenue officer, Fabian Bjørne-Larsen has been appointed head of creative, Dan Jones joins as commercial director, George Seed arrives as vice president of product, and Julia Smith becomes PR director.

Preedy will lead the commercial team, focusing on the UK market initially and then expanding into other markets. He has been tasked with introducing the concept of conversational advertising making ad spend more effective for marketers and the experience more compelling for consumers. Before Cavai, he had senior roles at InMobi, Exponential, Global and, most recently, GumGum, where he was managing director.

“I am excited to be joining Cavai and to once again be working with Dan and George who I had the pleasure of working with at Exponential and GumGum,” Preedy said. “We deliver a real point of difference for our clients in that our formats build logic is based on a decision-tree model, providing the advertiser with total control of the chatbot conversation, making it 100 per cent brand safe.”

Bjørne-Larsen will be working on every aspect of Cavai create campaign delivery and marketing. He has previously worked at We Are Live and McCann.

Jones will focus on working with media agencies and developing all partner opportunities, including UK publishers and rich media specialists. Most recently, he led programmatic platforms at Adform and, before that, headed-up the programmatic team at Venatus Media.

Seed will work with clients to deliver new products and solutions to the market. He previously worked as European lead solutions engineer at TripleLift and has held roles at GumGum, PHD, and Mindshare.

Smith will work with the Cavai management team directly to implement a high visibility PR and communications strategy to increase brand awareness. She has held commercial roles at Associated Newspapers, The Mirror Group Newspapers, Dennis Publishers, and IAB. She currently also provides consulting services for Impact, Appetite Creative, Channel Factory, and The 614 Group.

Hogan takes seat as Rippll chairwoman
Rippll, a location data firm, has selected Sarah Hogan to be its non-executive chairwoman. She will offer strategic advice on how to evolve the company’s new transaction-based attribution product for use by the FMCG market.

Hogan is currently global marketing director for Wall’s Ice Cream at Unilever. The hope is that she will provide ‘invaluable advice’ that will help the company unlock its new product level sales data to create a unique solution for FMCG brands.

“All marketers want access to data but its only useful to gather if you know what to do with it! Im delighted to have an opportunity to help shape how best to leverage the latest transaction intelligence technology Rippll have added to their portfolio of services,” she said. “This is a great tool to gather rich behavioural insights by tracking full consumer journeys from ad exposure through to purchase, while providing the right value exchanges for consumers along the way. Such rich data will enable marketers to make real time tweaks to customise content better to consumers while simultaneously optimizing ROI.”

Ericsson hands new role to Pharaon
Fadi Pharaon has been appointed senior vice president and head of market area Middle East & Africa and member of the executive team at Ericsson. He will succeed Rafiah Ibrahim on 1 September when she leaves the position and becomes advisor to chief executive officer Börje Ekholm.

Pharaon currently holds the position of vice president of networks & managed services within Ericsson’s market area Europe & Latin America. In his over 21 years at Ericsson, he has held several management positions with sales responsibilities in markets across Asia, Europe, Middle East, and Latin America.

“The mobile industry is transforming countries and industries and with 5G becoming a reality, we will see new business opportunities and innovations across our markets,” said Pharaon. “I really look forward to taking on this exciting new role in market area Middle East & Africa and work together with both the team in the market area as well as the executive team. Our abilities to work closely with our customers in our market areas are key to leveraging our technology leadership in 5G.”

Bartlett added Monetate to leadership team
eCommerce personalisation platform Monetate has recruited Jonathan Bartlett as its chief product officer. He is tasked with leading the creation of innovative products for customers and enhancing Monetate’s existing platform with new capabilities, while also leading technical partner development.

Boasting more than 20 years of experience managing product for marketing and advertising technology companies, he was previously vice president of product at Contently, where he delivered content marketing technology and services to Fortune 500 brands. Before that, he was vice president of product at Mimeo.

“Brands need to deliver deeply personal experiences to resonate with each customer, forging lasting relationships and higher lifetime value. This challenge can be difficult for many brands to accomplish alone, as they become more sophisticated with their requirements, and the traditional marketing stack is quickly collapsing as brands search for better capabilities. Monetate’s focus on our customers’ evolving needs informs an offering that delivers immediate and lasting lift,” said Bartlett. “I’ve spent my career working with customers facing challenges like these and am elated to work with Monetate’s stellar team and connect with our customers to bring differentiated personalisation offerings to market.”

LocatorX presents place on board to Watjen
Thomas Watjen has appointed to the board of directors at location tracking company LocatorX. He will provide strategic guidance in the areas of corporate growth, responsibility, risk management, and governance.

Watjen brings almost 40 years of executive-level insurance, asset management, and financial services to LocatorX. Prior to retiring in 2015, he spent 12 years as president and chief executive officer at Unum Group. He joined Provident Companies in 1994 as executive vice president and chief financial officer, and was later named as vice chairman and a director of Provident, Inc. Following a merger in 1999, Watjen became executive vice president, finance and risk management, for successor company, UnumProvident Corporation. In 2002, he was elevated to vice chairman and chief operating officer of what would become Unum Group in 2007.

He currently serves as a non-executive member of Prudential’s board of directors. Between 2010 and this year, he was a non-executive member of the board at SunTrust Banks.

“LocatorX is already breaking the mold when it comes to refining real-time tracking capabilities,” Watjen said. “Im pleased to offer my guidance as the technology sets a global standard for the future of IoT.”

Robins picked as PM technology head
PM Connect, a mobile payment solutions provider, has hired Andrew Robins as chief technology officer. He will lead the specialist development team in designing, creating and maintaining mobile subscription services for global brands – opening up new revenue streams by making lifestyle and sport content, tickets, videos and news articles available to purchase through customers’ phone bills.

Robins will join in September, along with his 16 years of industry experience, from sports gaming business Inspired Entertainment.

“It’s exciting to be joining PM Connect at such a crucial point in the company’s upward trajectory, as it establishes itself as an industry-leader – both in the UK and internationally. I’m driven to further enhance our tech output – with solutions grounded in security, scalability and reliability, particularly as the mobile payments industry grows and inevitably becomes more regulated,” said Robins.

“The role also offers me the chance to focus on development and mentorship, working with one of the brightest and most dynamic workforces currently operating in the sector – something I find extremely rewarding.”

R2i welcomes Horowitz and Turner
Aaron Horowitz has been chosen to be vice president of business development in the Great Lakes Midwest region and Justin Turner chosen to be vice president of business development in the Central US and Rockies at data-driven performance marketing agency R2i.

Prior to joining the R2i team, Horowitz successfully led client development and growth for a number of agencies, including 50,000feet, Acquity Group (now Accenture), iCrossing, imc2, and Razorfish. In past positions, he worked with many well- brands, including BCBS NC, Chicago Board of Trade, Coca-Cola, Discover Financial, FedEx, Global Hyatt, Highmark, NYSE, Procter & Gamble, Sears, United Airlines, USG, and Voya.

Turner joins after leading business development at Epsilon. Before that, he held key positions with Alterian and Yes Marketing, where he focused on cross-channel platforms and services. He has previously engaged with brands including Albertsons/Safeway, GNC, Kellogg, Party City, Patagonia, and Verizon.

“The pace of change in business, society and technology is accelerating and world-class digital tools and committed support is an essential component to win,” said Kelly Kennedy, R2i CSO. “Thats why R2i is expanding our team and developing new opportunities to help clients thrive and flourish. Were excited to welcome executives of Aarons and Justins calibre to the team and look forward to working with them to fuel client success.”

Three executive additions made at Raken
Construction app software firm Raken has named Mike Bates as vice president of strategy, David Nuffer as vice president of product, and Matthew York as vice president of engineering.

Bates has more than 25 years of experience delivering solutions for Fortune 100 and high-growth organisations, most recently as senior vice president of strategy and partner solutions at AvidXchange and payment solutions leader at Intuit. Nuffer has worked at GoodData, Liftopia and, most recently, Shipt, where he was head of product. Yorks previous experience includes Kratos Defense and Security Solutions, Pathway Genomics Corporation and most recently PayLease, where he served as director of engineering.

“Building a world-class executive team has been one of our top priorities in 2019, and were thrilled to welcome Mike, David and Matthew to the team,” said Kyle Slager, Rakens founder and CEO. “All are making an immediate impact in furthering our mission to deliver the most powerful solutions to the construction field.”