You & Mr Jones rounds off Q2 with a raft of senior hires during media and e-commerce expansion
On the back of stellar 2020 growth, the global technology group sets itself up for the velocity to accelerate
The fast-growing global brandtech group has brought in several senior hires over the last few months, and now has 16 partners, half of them women, and is poised to accelerate its growth even further.
Most recently, Virginie Douin (below), one of Amazon’s most senior leaders, joined as partner tasked with expanding and accelerating the technology group’s e-commerce business, with more than US $100MM to back M&A strategies. Just before Douin joined, the group hired Integral Ad Science cofounder, Will Luttrell, as partner and chief technology officer. He will focus on connecting the group through technology and accelerating its technology roadmap. Luttrell is the second You & Mr Jones partner to have founded a company that went on to an IPO. (The other being Ron Croen, cofounder of Nuance Communications, which was acquired by Microsoft in April for US $19.7BN.)
Alongside this, Rebecca Sykes, global CEO of Mofilm, a You & Mr Jones group company, was tapped as associate partner to lead client growth across the technology and automotive sectors and Karima Otmani was also promoted to associate partner and Group Deputy CFO. A move that reflects the expansion in the group’s operational capabilities as it continues to scale and grow.
The company began the year with the addition of Paulette Forte (below) as associate partner and the group’s first chief people officer, joining from her role as senior director of human services at the National Basketball Association. Technology and talent are at the core of You & Mr Jones’ model and Forte has been brought on board to ensure that the focus on talent is as important as the focus on technology, and to help manage the group’s exponential growth. In six years, the group has grown from zero employees to more than 4,500 and there are currently 600 open positions across group companies.
Meanwhile, the group’s new media operation, You & Mr Jones Media, launched in April with former Mindshare CEO, Nick Emery, at the helm as founding partner. Since then, it’s added former global president of EightBar, GroupM’s IBM unit, Jeff Matisoff, and former Media by Mother chief operating officer, Will Heins, as partners, Hearts & Science’s Jess Nachtigall as associate partner, as well as former MightHiver Rachel Adams as director of media services. You & Mr Jones Media is actively looking at potential M&A deals, for which it is equipped with a war chest of more than US $300MM. David Jones and team anticipate speedy global growth for You & Mr Jones Media as its combination of technology, transparency, and in-housing is high on the agendas of global CMOs.
Brands saw a huge need to dramatically accelerate digital transformation across the year, and while 2020 was a year of very strong growth (+27.1 percent net revenue organic growth for the year) for the group, the speed and scale of the growth is expected to accelerate across 2021 and beyond, as the company expands and continues to disrupt marketing, creating a whole new brandtech category.
The group, owner of companies including Oliver, the global market leader in in-housing, 55, Gravity Road, Mobkoi, Mofilm, Blood, and Collectively raised a further US $260MM at a $1.36BN valuation in 2020.
Original illustration of Karima Otmani, Rebecca Sykes and Will Luttrell by Kelsee Thomas, Instagram @kelssweetie