People on the move: Hires and departures at the New York Times, AOL, Google and more

The New York Times has hired Lisa Ryan Howard as senior vice president of advertising.

She replaces Brendan Monaghan, who left the Times last year and is now chief revenue officer and publisher of Conde Nast Traveler. At the Times, he served as senior vice president of advertising, vice president of luxury, and publisher of ‘T: The New York Times Style Magazine.’

In this role, she will oversee categories including luxury, fashion, watch/jewelry, retail, home, corporate and education.

AOL

AOL UK has appointed Gavin Johnson, vice president of sales in the UK for Millennial Media, to commercial director to lead the AOL UK sales team.

Johnson joined the business during AOL’s $238m acquisition of Millennial Media, holding the position of vice-president of sales in the UK since November 2014.

As commercial director Johnson will be responsible for driving advertising revenue and growth across AOL UK’s content, video, and programmatic platforms, including The Huffington Post UK, MSN, Skype, Engadget, XBox and TechCrunch.

Google

Google has replaced its out-going search chief with an artificial intelligence expert, hinting that machine learning is a core driver of its search strategy.

On Wednesday (3 February), the company announced that AI expert John Giannandrea was to replace Amit Singhal, who helped engineer the search giant’s mobile shift during 15 years at the company.

In addition to the new hire, Re/Code is reporting that the company is looking to merge its AI research and its search operation.

Viacom

Viacom chief executive Philippe Dauman has adopted the role of chairman as he replaces Sumner Redstone who has stood down from the position.

The company announced on Thursday that Dauman will fill in for the 92 year-old who now moves up to the new position of chairman emeritus, reports Reuters.

The move came amid legal challenges made against the mental competency of Redstone.

UK Government

The UK government has promoted Andy Beale, formerly the Guardian’s chief information officer, to deputy chief technology officer from his present role as director of common technology services at the Government Digital Service.

Reporting directly to chief technology officer Liam Maxwell Beale will be tasked with drawing together different technology units; including the architecture, policy and standards, service assurance and controls, and strategic change teams.

StubHub

StubHub, the eBay owned ticket marketplace, has named internet marketing veteran Charles Davies as international marketing director.

Moving from his previous position as global head of marketing for motor sports entertainment brand Formula E Davies will be tasked with overseeing the evolution of StubHub’s international marketing strategy, reporting directly to chief marketing officer Jennifer Betka.

iProspect

iProspect has made three new appointments to its senior leadership team, poaching talent from MailOnline and More Th

Set to join as vice-president of business strategy is the MailOnline’s chief of staff Kerry Hipkiss, while Hannah Fisher will take up the role of executive director, client leadership from More Th

Jack Swayne has been appointed as chief strategy and analytics officer and will be relocating from iProspect’s office in New York.

HSE Cake

HSE Cake has announced that Simon Moore will be returning to the agency as group creative director of the first entertainment hub within the global Havas Network as the agency looks to strengthen its creative offering.

Moore will be responsible for leading creative output across all clients, including the likes of Electronic Arts, Virgin Atlantic, Sony Mobile, The Coca-Cola Company, Barclays, Carling and Very.co.uk. Meanwhile, Lizzy Pollott has been promoted to associate creative director.

You & Mr Jones

Former R/GA duo Drew Burdon and George Prest have jumped ship to join You & Mr Jones in order to lead Blood, a novel practice which aims to marry technology and brand building.

Described as the world’s first Brandtech practice Blood will partner with start-ups as well as established industry players to devise technology driven solutions for bolstering brand value.

Denstu Aegis

Denstu Aegis Network trading desk Amnet has promoted Joshua Lee as platforms and technology lead as it seeks to grow its programmatic capabilities in Asia.

Lee was previously platforms and technology director at Dentsu Aegis Singapore but now moves to a wider role, joining the Amnet Asia management team. He will work alongside John Thankamony, head of operations and analytics, Marc Langenfeld, regional account director, and Mandar Kambli, publisher development lead, of which the latter two were recent hires for the business.

Blue Hive

Blue Hive, the joint agency venture created to increase collaboration and coordination between Ford’s WPP agencies, has appointed Julian Watt as chief creative officer.

Blue Hive incorporates Wunderman, Ogilvy Advertising and Mindshare, and handles all aspects of Ford’s marketing, including above-the-line, digital, direct marketing, CRM and media planning.

Watt will be responsible for overseeing all creative for Ford UK and Europe operations. He replaces Karin Onsager-Birch, who left Blue Hive in 2015 for the chief creative officer role at advertising agency network FCB in the US.

MEC

MEC announced today (4 February) that Jason Dormieux will take on the role as sole UK chief executive, while Stuart Bowden will become global chief strategy officer, developing the media planning agency globally and locally to promote growth.

Dormieux will lead the UK media agency as it moves to Sea Containers, using media, content, data and technology to lead the helm in creativity and innovation throughout the company.

ESPN

ESPN has appointed former Guardian head of client sales, Sam Coleman, as advertising sales director within the UK.

Coleman will be responsible for leading the company’s UK team servicing ESPN’s digital portfolio including ESPN.co.uk, ESPNcricinfo and ESPN FC.

He will be based at the sport content company’s offices in London and report to EMEA group director of advertising sales, Alan Fagan.

Notonthehighstreet.com

Notonthehighstreet.com has appointed Hugh Fahy as chief technology officer.

Fahy will oversee the growing technology team at the company’s Silicon Upon Thames headquarters.

He joins from Net-a-Porter where he was group chief technology officer.

Zac

Creative agency Zac has underlined growth plans for 2016 by doubling its board.

Hannah Partridge joins as client director and Jonathan Aldis arrives as first head of creative production. The hires follow the recent appointment of Susan Poole from Havas Worldwide London as head of planning and the promotion of Ben Carter to finance director.

The independent agency recently rebranded, developing from a group of three specialist agencies - Drink, wolfpack and Bambino - into one team.

Ruckus

Ruckus Wireless has appointed Nick Watson to vice-president to lead marketing, sales and operations in EMEA. Watson will report to chief commercial officer, Ian Whiting.

He arrives at Ruckus from HP Networking, where he was vice-president, EMEA. Previously, he spent 15 years at Cisco, where he held various sales and sales leadership roles, including responsibility for EMEA’s top global accounts, as well as public sector, mid-market, marketing, SMB and channel and service provider channel leadership.

Fyber

Fyber has announced the expansion of its executive team with the addition of Michael Bullion as the company’s first chief product officer.

Bullion brings two decades of global product, marketing and operations experience to Fyber, having served at companies such as Microsoft, Hibu, and PwC, as well as a variety of advertising technology startups.

Most recently he was chief product officer at London­-based ad tech company, Glow Digital Media, where he led product strategy and delivery.

Want to get your career on the move? Check out The Drum Job page and follow @TheDrumJobs for updates.