PebblePost names BuzzFeed president Coleman to board, hires growth officer and European strategy manager
Programmatic direct mail company PebblePost has announced the announced the appointment of BuzzFeed president Greg Coleman to its board of directors. The company has also hired Geoff Dodge as chief growth officer and Fergus Mellon as general manager, European market strategy, to support continued growth, following the successful closing of the company’s $47m Series B debt and equity.
Geoff Dodge (l), Greg Coleman and Fergus Mellon
“PebblePost is delighted to welcome Greg, Geoff and Fergus to the team,” said Lewis Gersh, chief executive of PebblePost. “These individuals will strengthen our team and board’s breadth of talent and background. All three will play an integral role in the future development of this company as we continue to expand our Programmatic Direct Mail solution, across the world.”
Coleman joins PebblePost’s board as a veteran in the advertising and media space. He previously served as president of Criteo, in addition to president and chief revenue officer at Huffington Post and executive vice president of global sales at Yahoo. Coleman also held roles as president of Platform-A at AOL, senior vice president of Reader’s Digest Association, president of US Magazine Publishing, and vice president and national sales manager for Woman’s Day at CBS, Inc.
“I have long admired PebblePost for its innovative offering and dynamic leadership team, and I’m honored to be joining their board,” said Coleman. “I have tremendous respect for Lewis and the other board members, and I look forward to working with them.”
As chief growth officer at PebblePost, Dodge will oversee sales, customer success and marketing, as the company grows its footprint and solution set for brands across verticals and markets. Dodge is a seasoned sales and marketing executive with experience in offline media, SaaS-based customer relationship management (CRM), digital advertising and analytics technology.
“Having worked at three startups, I know what a typical early-stage growth curve looks like. PebblePost’s first-year growth has been remarkable, with an impressive number of blue-chip brands signing on and seeing immediate success,” said Dodge. “I’m thrilled to bring the simple genius of PebblePost’s Programmatic Direct Mail solution to many more brands as part of the team.”
Prior to PebblePost, Dodge was head of sales productivity at AOL, responsible for building the sales enablement and training organization to support media sales, platform sales and account management. He also led AOL’s initiative to reconstruct a global CRM system. Dodge has held additional executive positions at DataXu, Salesforce.com, BusinessWeek, MediaSpace Solutions and Time Inc.’s Money Magazine.
Mellon brings extensive digital media experience to PebblePost. As general manager, European market strategy, he will build out the company’s international footprint in new markets. Mellon previously spearheaded strategic initiatives for Criteo, where he established the company’s first online to offline/in-store solution, and led sales strategy and operations at Federated Media Publishing and Gannett, among others.
Both Dodge and Mellon will report to Gersh.