Connexity has announced the appointment of a new managing director for EMEA & APAC. Giles Longhurst will be responsible for defining and executing on the commercial strategy for established and new growth markets, across Connexity’s performance marketing and content commerce business lines.
Before joining Connexity, Giles spent over 20 years within data analytics, publishing and digital advertising organisations, helping them drive incremental value for their customers. He has a passion for defining and launching new digital products to support clients across multiple verticals including retail, travel, finance and FMCG.
Connexity also has a new director, Publisher Development US, managing the Skimlinks portfolio of publisher clients and overseeing the East Coast Publisher Account Management Team. Craig Johnson joins Connexity from Zynga, where he led East Coast sales for the past two years. He brings extensive experience in the publishing industry to the team, including positions at Time Inc., Conde Nast and Meredith.
iCrossing UK has named Jamie Clifford as managing director. He will be responsible for the three offices across the UK: Brighton, London and Cardiff, as well as managing the agency’s entire portfolio of clients, which includes American Express, Fidelity, Pfizer, the Welsh Government, De Beers and Tempcover. Most recently, Jamie was chief client officer and prior to joining iCrossing UK, held a number of senior roles across the marketing landscape at agencies including iProspect and MediaCom.
Jamie said: “I’m really excited about leading such a progressive team at iCrossing. Our team is continuing to deliver outstanding work for our clients and getting us onto the pitches and rosters of some of the world’s most exciting brands.”
Wavemaker has appointed Andrew Spurrier-Dawes to the role of head of precision, EMEA. Based within Wavemaker’s Consulting Hub in London, he will be tasked with developing and delivering Wavemaker’s unique Provocative Planning offer with an EMEA focus on client digital transformation, activation excellence and Precision product development. Andrew joins Wavemaker from MediaCom where he was Global Digital Director, leading digital strategy, planning and buying for numerous global clients including Mars Pet, Mars Food and GSK. He also worked in the UK business, leading the digital business in Sky, Tesco and eBay among many others.
Andrew added, “I’m really excited by Wavemaker’s attitude of Positive Provocation and in particular its focus on driving digital transformation and growth for its impressive portfolio of clients. It’s going to be great working with Marc and the Precision teams across EMEA to help the agency achieve its ambitions in the region.”
Xandr has announced the appointment of Ammar Jawad Doosh as senior director, EMEA product management, as well as five recent new hires for Xandr’s marketplace team, specifically focused on curation, as Xandr’s Curate solution continues to grow in popularity with clients.
Doosh brings extensive industry experience and expertise from his previous roles at The Trade Desk, Expedia Group, Radiant Worlds and Ubisoft. He joins Xandr with ten years of experience under his belt including a focus on buy-side marketing and programmatic advertising. He also brings strong domain expertise in machine learning and artificial intelligence, increasingly important topics for the advertising industry.
Acceleration Partners has announced the appointment of Lisa Power as global account director. She will be responsible for managing cross-regional teams in the affiliate space and ensuring best practices and a high level of strategic service and support for clients and the AP teams alike. Lisa has over 20 years’ experience in client services working with big brand partnerships across the industry, before moving to Acceleration Partners.
Lisa said: “It’s undoubtedly an exciting time to be working in the affiliate marketing industry and I’m thrilled to be joining Acceleration Partners, using my experience with successful brand partnerships to help build on their success across the global affiliate space.”
Ve Global has appointed Nick Roberts as marketing director. With over eight years’ experience driving high-growth demand generation programmes and marketing plans, Nick joins Ve Global from crowd testing company Global App Testing, where he led the marketing team for over four years building acquisition and brand awareness and delivering revenue for the business’ SaaS solution. Prior to this, Nick was the senior marketing manager at DefenseStorm, where he was responsible for all aspects of inbound marketing, as well as developing customer, product, and event marketing campaigns.
Also joining the team is Rhian Greener, who will take up the same role at Ve Global later this month. Before pivoting to product marketing, Rhian spent over four years in creative copywriting for AnalogFolk, where she wrote editorial content for brands including Sainsbury’s, Costa Coffee and Booking.com.
Hybrid Theory has announced two senior appointments – Peter Birch joins as UK managing director and Fern Potter as global chief strategy officer, leveraging their experience in ad tech, digital media, mobile, broadcast, search, and data to strengthen the company’s position as a key partner for agencies and brands.
As UK MD, Peter Birch will be responsible for developing Hybrid Theory’s ambitions in the region, working with the company’s Global CEO and regional commercial leadership to execute on global growth strategies, balancing short term delivery with longer-term transformation. Fern Potter brings with her 15 years of experience working with global brands across data, ad tech, and media procurement. Before joining Hybrid Theory as Global CSO, Potter was Global Strategy Officer at creative data marketing agency FCB/SIX, having previously held senior positions at Neo Media World (formerly Neo@Ogilvy), Carat, MediaCom and PHD Australia.
Havas Media Group’s e-commerce practice has announced the appointment of Jessica Chapplow to the newly created role of head of e-commerce. Chapplow joins from KR MediaCom, where she was head of digital transformation, responsible for growing and extending the unit’s digital specialisms as well as establishing robust and compelling product propositions. In her new role, Chapplow will lead, manage, grow and evolve all aspects of Havas Market’s UK offering, fostering opportunities with new and existing clients and developing commerce media strategies to effectively deliver against client objectives and targets.
Adverity has named Harriet Durnford-Smith as chief marketing officer and Christina Schlesinger as chief customer officer. Schlesinger has spent her entire career in marketing SaaS businesses joining Adverity in 2017. Previously VP of sales & account management, as CCO her focus will be on grouping Adverity’s customer-facing and delivery functions together to streamline its customer-focused strategy across the business.
With a proven track record in B2B technology marketing in agency and in-house roles, prior to joining Adverity in 2019, Durnford-Smith established and scaled the marketing function at a successful UK-based technology consultancy that was recently acquired by a global IT services provider and investment firm. Previously Adverity’s VP of marketing and growth, her new role as CMO will see her responsible for driving new global marketing strategies for the business as it continues to expand.
Matt Bailey has been appointed as head of revenue at gocertify. Matt has been working in performance marketing for over 15 years and was part of the founding team at Performance Horizon, before they became Partnerize. He has just spent four years leading sales in the UK for Productsup, the leading product feed management software, before finding his way back to start up life and the affiliate world with the rocket ship that is gocertify.
gocertify is the verification software that allows e-commerce brands to offer exclusive discounts to groups of their most sought after customers. They work with brands like Farfetch, Hello Fresh and Missoma to offer discounts to students, key workers and other groups. Matt joins as Head of Revenue to spearhead the continued growth working alongside founder Jonny Matthews.
Matt said: “gocertify is a rocket ship and so I didn’t have to think twice when offered the chance to grab a seat. I’m excited to be back in the affiliate space and looking forward to getting my hands dirty again!”