Former search.co.uk MD Gillespie confirms move to S1

In the role of sales director, Gillespie will be tasked with maintaining growth of S1, its new business strategy while also developing the company’s other channels such as property, cars and entertainment.

Gillespie said: “Things are going well here. They’ve just reported healthy figures, while traffic is up, revenue is up and the recruitment market is pretty good so there’s nothing that needs fixed straight away. There are lots of things which need to be developed in the near future and over the years there will be lots of other channels in addition to jobs to look at, as there is so much opportunity.”

Asked why he chose to make the move to S1, Gillespie explained: “When you’ve worked in a market for a long time and you have lots of ideas about what you want to do but not the means to get there, then you look at who’s already done it and who’s been successful and you start to understand why they have been successful and this was quite attractive. I was in the situation where I’ve got lots of things I’d love to do online and when this opportunity came up it seemed only right to go to the market leader and effect some real change there. That was pretty compelling.”

Before joining to launch search.co.uk at the end of 2007, Gillespie has previously headed up Talk107, the now defunct talk radio station in Edinburgh.

At the time of writing, The Drum had not heard back from search.co.uk as to whether a replacement for Gillespie has been appointed.

Updated:

Stephen Currie, former head of sales at S1 has become director of Stand Management, an outsourced sales and marketing consultancy which launched last month. Currie joined S1 in December 2008 from Inbev where he was regional director.