People on the move: hires and departures at Bauer, Twitter, Skrill, Press Association and more
This week has seen another wave of appointments and departures at brands, media owners and agencies. The Drum has rounded up the key moves below.
Bauer
Bauer Media has appointed Morgan Rees editor-in-chief of its flagship film brand Empire magazine, following the departure of Mark Dinning, who left Bauer Media in August to join Time Out Dubai as editor.
Rees, who will join the publication on 3 November, has been running an editorial agency providing editorial consultancy to digital, magazine and sports brands, and has also managed a digital start-up.
He has been replaced by Kevin Weil, the firm’s head of revenue products, who will also be responsible for overseeing the product team.
Weil joined the firm in 2009 as a data scientist and has quickly risen through the ranks.
Graf will retain the title of head of product although he will no longer lead the consumer product team, according to his updated bio on the Twitter website
Skrill
Skrill and Paysafecard has promoted its recently appointed chief commercial officer, David Sear, to the role of chief executive effective 1 January 2015.
Sear, who joined the company in July of this year, will replace Siegfried Heimgaertner, who has been chief executive since June 2012. He will assume a position on Skrill’s Global Advisory Board, providing strategic direction to the company.
Press Association
A former editorial executive at MSN and the BBC Clifton will be charged with driving the news organisation's digital transformation which sees it move closer to its goal of becoming a multi-platform news and information business.
Metro
Charlie Cox has been confirmed as managing director of Metro after taking the post as an interim position when former MD Steve Auckland left the company for ESI Media.
Cox, who has had a lengthy career with Metro owner DMGT (Daily Mail & General Trust), was named acting MD in July after Auckland announced his departure
ODD
Independent creative house ODD has hired Ogilvy’s Greg McAlinden as creative director to draw on his strong digital background and to spearhead the agency’s creative department.
McAlinden will join ODD following nine years within the Ogilvy group as digital creative director for brand activation and creative director at OgilvyAction, and then Geometry Global, following the merger between OgilvyAction and G2 Joshua.
Radio Advertising Bureau
The Radio Advertising Bureau has appointed JWT’s communications director Lucy Barrett as its client director.
Barrett, who will take up the position from January next year, will work alongside planning director, Mark Barber, to improve advertising, agency and radio group relationships.
Global Blue
Blue Rubicon's chief innovation officer Craig Le Grice is to join Global Blue, the tax-free marketing services loyalty business, as its chief customer officer.
Le Grice joined Blue Rubicon in May 2013 to work with the business in UK, Middle East and Asia.
He will take up his new role at Global Blue, which aims to help foreign travellers on their shopping and spending needs, in November.
Novastone
Former director at Barclays Wealth and Investment Management, Peter Reading, has joined Novastone as its chief technology officer.
As part of his responsibilities, Reading will assume ownership of product development, focusing initially on developing the company’s mobile chat platform WealthChat.
OpenX
Web and mobile ad company OpenX has appointed Scott Braley as senior vice president of demand and Julie Van Ullen as senior director of publisher business development, as it continues to scale in support of increased interest in and demand for its programmatic solutions and full-stack platform.
Before joining OpenX, Braley ran the US sales and global agency team for Facebook’s Atlas division, where he oversaw all US new business and account management functions.
Most recently, Van Ullen served as vice president of member services at the IAB and was responsible for developing a portfolio of opportunities and initiatives to maximize partnerships and keep members engaged.
Simpson Carpenter
Emily Hunt, former director of insights and senior vice president at Edelman Berland, is joining research and insights consultancy Simpson Carpenter as head of strategic insights and innovation.
Hunt joins after spending two years at Edelmen Berland growing and leading the primary research team where she specialised in complex, mixed methodology, multi-country projects.
Her new board-level role will involve creating a unit focusing on communications research, strategy consulting and innovation, as well as developing Simpson Carpenter’s corporate reputation practice. Hunt’s technology expertise will also support the agency’s growing TMT (Technology, Media, Telecoms) business.
Return Path
Marketing analytics company Return Path has hired Scott Roth as chief marketing officer to lead its global market awareness, demand generation, and brand development initiatives as the company intensifies its focus on email marketing optimisation and email fraud protection, and expands its data-driven consumer intelligence offerings.
Roth was most recently vice president of global marketing for Salesforce Marketing Cloud, helping the organisation achieve 50 per cent annual growth, rapid expansion into Asia, Europe, and Latin America, and a successful IPO as ExactTarget, which was then acquired by Salesforce.com in 2013.
Bell Pottinger
Bell Pottinger has appointed Harvey Smith as an associate partner to strengthen its integrated offer for financial and professional services clients within its digital consultancy.
Smith joins digital consultancies Bell Pottinger Wired with more than 20 years’ experience. He previously set up his own digital marketing agency, Initio Consulting, before selling it to Haggie Partners, where he joined as head of digital.
He will work closely with Bell Pottinger’s financial and corporate teams, to ensure the group continues to deliver cutting-edge digital services within all the sectors is serves.
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