New executives join LiveArea in North America

This article was published prior to LiveArea's acquisition by and integration into global agency Merkle

Global customer experience and commerce agency LiveArea, a business unit of PFSweb, Inc. (NASDAQ: PFSW), has added two new executives to its North America leadership team to support the agency’s expanding capabilities.

Taking on the new role of area vice president of Growth is Michael Maione. He joins LiveArea from Publicis Sapient, where he spent more than 10 years, most recently as vice president and client executive working with Fortune 100 brands. In his new role, Maione will apply his more than 20 years of experience in advertising, performance marketing, and information technology to expand LiveArea's growth across new industries, brands, and market opportunities. Maione will report to Steve Coy, LiveArea senior vice president and head of Worldwide Growth and Client Services.

Also joining LiveArea is Anjum Merchant, area vice president of Program Delivery. Merchant has led global delivery teams in a variety of companies, including Accenture Interactive and AAXIS; most recently, he served as senior director of eCommerce at Gorilla Group. A strategic technology executive, Merchant will lead and evolve solution delivery at LiveArea. Merchant will report to Chris McComas, global senior vice president of Operations and Delivery at LiveaArea.

“The expertise and talent Michael and Anjum bring to LiveArea will be invaluable as we expand our capabilities, look to fuel growth in new markets, and enhance our delivery with leading design and technology to help differentiate our clients,” said Jim Butler, president, LiveArea.

New creative directors added

In addition to the executive appointments, LiveArea also added two new creative directors to the agency. Based in New York City and Dallas, they will be responsible for growing and strengthening LiveArea’s design capabilities, with a particular focus on the product innovation, connected commerce, and performance marketing service families the agency launched late last year. Each will report to Barry Fiske, senior vice president, Global Experience and Innovation, LiveArea.

These announcements are on the heels of recent additions to LiveArea’s European team based in London, including Samantha Mansfield, senior strategy director, and Ben Rainbow, alliances director.