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- Category: August 2014 - Content Marketing
Sojern, the world's leading data-driven traveler platform, announced the appointment of Sanjay Wahi as VP of Product & Insights.
The Sojern Traveler Platform (STP) combines machine-learning technology with enhanced real-time bidding and deep data insights to deliver true one-on-one engagement — at scale — via multiple touch points across the digital landscape, including: display, video, mobile and social.
Wahi brings over 17 years of experience using sophisticated behavioral analytics to develop innovative, data-driven products for the Travel & Internet industries, and holds a patent on advanced processing and segmentation methods of web usage data.
Prior to making the move to Sojern, Wahi served as Nor1's SVP of Product Management and Analytics following a stint as Yahoo!'s Director of Data Insights. In these roles he scaled advanced data technologies and devised solutions that helped travel brands to reach and drive revenue more effectively from their target audiences.
`Singapore-based mobile applications company, U2opia Mobile has announced that Hari V. Krishnan, Managing Director, Asia Pacific and Japan at LinkedIn, has been appointed to the technology company's board of directors.
Krishnan, an INSEAD alumnus, comes with a strong record of many years of leading market entry and growth for online companies in Asia. As LinkedIn's first hire in the Asia Pacific region, he has expertise across APAC and the US in leading businesses through periods of strong monetization growth and customer satisfaction.
In his position on U2opia Mobile's board, Krishnan's insight and guidance in building a robust, agile and competitive enterprise sales organization will be key as U2opia Mobile expands its enterprise business. Also, his experience with online consumer businesses in Asia will be valuable as the company introduces its direct to consumer offerings.
Standard Media Index, the global decision grade data and solutions provider, announced the appointment of Scott Grunther as Executive Vice President of Media.
In this new role, former Nielsen and Ipsos Executive Grunther will work closely with SMI's media subscribers, ensuring they are able to leverage SMI's ad spend data to drive ad sales, improve profitability, reduce costs and make better investment decisions.
Grunther brings over two decades of experience within the media industry to SMI, joining the company from Ipsos MediaCT where he was Senior Vice President, Media. Prior to this, Grunther was with IAG Research, followed by Nielsen where he held the position of Senior Vice President with Nielsen Ad Solutions. While at Nielsen, Grunther helped media companies understand the impact of new and non-traditional advertising, including product placements, sponsorships and brand integrations.
Grunther began his career in advertising sales at CNN and also worked in business development and account management for a number of media technology companies.
He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA from Hamilton College.
Repsly Inc., a B2B Mobile Cloud solution provider who simplifies field management and increases field team effectiveness, announced that Mike Volpe, chief marketing officer at HubSpot, was appointed to the company's board of directors.
Mike currently serves as CMO at HubSpot, one of the world's leading inbound marketing and sales platform, who joined HubSpot in early 2007 as the company's fifth employee. Since then, the company has grown to 11,000 customers, expanded to over 700 employees, and increased revenue to more than $77 million.
Mike is an MBA graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management and received his BA in Economics and Government, summa cum laude, from Bowdoin College.
He is an angel investor and advisor to numerous startups, as well as a frequent speaker and guest lecturer at Harvard Business School, Babson College, Carnegie Mellon, TCU, Boston University, and MIT Sloan School of Management.
In addition to Mike, Repsly's board of directors consists of Boston area business leaders: Tom First, Managing Partner at First Beverage Group (and co-founder of Nantucket Nectars); Tim Curran, CEO at Sample6; board observer Hambleton Lord, Managing Director at Launchpad Venture Group; as well as Repsly's CEO and Co-founder, Marko Kovac and CTO and Co-founder, Marko Linke. Repsly recently secured its first round of funding lead by First Beverage Group, Launchpad Venture Group, and K5 Ventures.
Benefitfocus, Inc., a leading provider of cloud-based benefits software solutions, has announced that Ray August has joined the company as Chief Operating Officer (COO).
In the role of COO, August will oversee all operational functions and customer support efforts to drive seamless scaling as the organization grows. Over the course of a sixteen-year tenure, August held multiple roles at CSC, a multi-billion dollar company with over 10,000 employees around the world. Most recently, he held the position of General Manager for CSC's Financial Services Group.
Prior to CSC, Mr. August was Chief Technology Officer at Great Plains Software, a solution provider of middle market accounting software that was acquired by Microsoft.
Andy Howell has been named Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) at Benefitfocus. In this new role, Howell will oversee all sales and marketing functions as well as ecosystem partner relationships to help continue significant and sustainable long-term growth. Howell has been with Benefitfocus since 2007, serving in various roles during his tenure including Senior Vice President (SVP) and General Counsel; SVP and General Manager of the insurance carrier business unit; and, most recently, COO.
With more than 1,000 associates, Benefitfocus is currently expanding its headquarter's campus footprint from 13 to 40 acres with space for 1,200 additional associates. A new 145,000 square-foot Customer Success Center is scheduled to open in January.
SmartDrive Systems, a leader in driving performance solutions that reduce collisions and improve fuel efficiency, announced the appointment of Richard 'Dick' Savage as senior director of sales.
With more than 20 years of sales experience within the telematics and transportation industry, Savage will be responsible for managing SmartDrive's strategic partner relationships and spearheading the company's expansion efforts into new verticals.
Savage comes to SmartDrive from Navman Wireless, a global GPS fleet and asset management technology provider, where he served as director of U.S. construction sales for more than four years. Prior to Navman, Savage served as director of sales for Topcon, and spent 12 years at Qualcomm, most recently as director of sales within the company's Wireless Business Solutions division.
With a strong background in cultivating strategic relationships and spearheading sales expansion efforts, Savage will be responsible for leading the company's partner and vertical market teams. In addition to developing existing relationships with SmartDrive's partners, Meritor WABCO and ProSight, Savage will focus on specific vertical markets, such as Transit and Government.
Outbox Systems, a leading provider of cloud integration for the global enterprise market, announced the hiring of Carolyn Adams, an expert Salesforce.com consultant.
Carolyn will lead a team of Salesforce.com consultants for the Outbox Systems CRM practice. She joins Outbox with 5+ years of Salesforce.com experience under her belt. Starting out as a system administrator and moving up to the consultant level, she has now worked on over 100 Salesforce implementation or optimization projects.
She currently holds the administrator, advanced administrator, sales cloud consultant, service cloud consultant, and developer certifications from Salesforce.com and is constantly continuing her education with participation in the success community and local user groups. Aside from her Salesforce.com expertise, Carolyn also brings extensive knowledge on business process consulting; she is passionate about helping businesses run as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Gigamon, a leader in traffic visibility solutions with its innovative Unified Visibility Fabric™, announced the appointment of Ted Ho to the Company's Board of Directors.
Ted C. Ho co-founded Gigamon in 2004 and formerly served as a member of the board of directors from inception to March 2013 as well as chief executive officer of Gigamon from February 2008 to December 2012.
Prior to founding the company, he served as vice president of engineering at Network Associates, Inc. (which later became McAfee, Inc.), from January 2001 to May 2003. From May 1998 to January 2001, he served as a director of engineering at McAfee.
Mr. Ho holds a B.S. degree in Civil Engineering from the National Cheung-Kung University in Taiwan and an M.S. degree in structural engineering and computer engineering from the University of Southern California.
vDeutsche Post DHL, the world's leading mail and logistics group, has chosen India to pilot the development of its e-commerce business model for Asia-Pacific.
Through its subsidiary Blue Dart Express, already a national leader in door-to-door delivery, DPDHL 's business unit DHL eCommerce is investing in infrastructure and the development of fulfillment centers, multiple delivery and payment options as part of its aim to become the preferred global provider of e-commerce related services including e-fulfillment and e-facilitation.
In India, DHL eCommerce, working closely through Blue Dart will invest in developing multiple delivery options and cash on delivery capabilities. These two key needs were identified by India's top online shoppers - male, high-income, young urbanites - as part of a 20-country consumer survey on international distance selling 'Shop the World', carried out by DHL eCommerce to provide a deeper understanding of the home shoppers' journey.
The performance advertising technology company, Criteo, announced the appointment of Mollie Spilman as Chief Revenue Officer.
Spilman will lead all commercial operations globally reporting to President and Chief Operating Officer, Eric Eichmann and will be based in the New York office.
Mollie joins Criteo from Millennial Media where she served as EVP, Global Sales and Operations. Prior to this, she was CMO at Yahoo! and served as Chief Sales & Marketing Officer of Advertising.com.
Mollie has spent 24 years in the media business, with 16 of those years in the digital ad space. In addition to her roles at Millennial and Yahoo!, her experience also includes the roles of CEO at two ad tech start-ups as well as senior executive positions at other large media companies including Time Warner, Meredith Corporation and Discovery Networks.
Mollie has been honored with multiple industry awards, including Mobile Marketing's "Mobile Women to Watch" in 2012 and Ad Age's "Women to Watch" in 2013. She has also served as a Director of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, Mobile Marketing Association and the Ad Council.
Aspect Software, a leading provider of fully-integrated customer interaction management, workforce optimization, back-office and award-winning cloud solutions, announced that its key executive, Sanjay Gupta, will assume an expanded portfolio to include the fast-growing ASEAN region.
Sanjay will relocate from India to work out of Aspect’s APAC & ME headquarters in Singapore with immediate effect and take over as the Regional Vice President for ASEAN, India and the Middle East.
In his new role, Sanjay will be responsible for driving Aspect’s market strategies and go-to-market investments as well as leading the channel partner and alliance engagements across these four fast-growing territories. He will also leverage his experience to drive alignment and acceleration of Aspect’s business to enable a faster response to market changes and improved customer satisfaction.
With a career spanning over 20 years, Sanjay has previously held leadership positions at various reputable companies in the contact center management and customer interactions management industries. He holds a Masters in Business Administration and Marketing from Narsee Monjee Institute, Mumbai, and a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electronics and Communications from Mysore University.
Western Digital Corp., a global provider of products and services that empower people to create, manage, experience, and preserve digital content, announced that chief financial officer Tim Leyden is retiring after 24 years of distinguished service at the company. He is being succeeded by Olivier Leonetti, 50, who has served as vice president, finance at Amgen Inc. from 2011, after having previously spent 14 years in global finance leadership positions at Dell Inc.
Leyden will remain with the company through January 2015 in a transition role and advisory capacity to president and chief executive officer Steve Milligan and to Leonetti for an interim period to ensure a smooth transition. The changes are effective as of September 8, 2014.
Leyden first served Western Digital from 1983 to 2000, before re-joining the company in 2007 as executive vice president, finance. He subsequently served as executive vice president and CFO as well as chief operating officer of Western Digital Corp. and president of the company's WD subsidiary, before reassuming the CFO role at Western Digital Corp. in November 2013. In his earlier career at Western Digital, Leyden served in various capacities in the company's storage controller, semiconductor and hard drive businesses, both in his native Ireland and in the U.S.
At Amgen, Leonetti has managed the finance organization of the company's global commercial organization, which posted revenues of $19 billion in 2013, and he played a leadership role in defining and implementing the product development and commercial strategies of the Amgen organization worldwide. At Dell, he was vice president, finance of the worldwide consumer division and vice president, finance of the worldwide Dell.com business.
Conterra Broadband Services has hired Gregory L. Spraetz as Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Mr. Spraetz will oversee all revenue growth and retention objectives of the company across both its Enterprise (K-12, Healthcare, Business and Government) and Carrier (cell backhaul and wholesale transport) business divisions.
Mr. Spraetz has spent the past 25 years in the Telecom/Network Services industry both on the carrier and enterprise sides of the business. For most of his career he has been involved in managing the development and sales of lit and dark optical fiber-based technical solutions to large usage customers. Over the course of 11 years at Global Crossing, Mr. Spraetz worked his way up from a Regional Sales Vice President to, most recently, Senior Vice President, North America/Asia PAC Wholesale, Carrier and Collaboration Services following the company's sale to Level 3 Communications. In his Senior VP roles at Global Crossing/Level 3, Mr. Spraetz managed, developed, and executed various fiber optic transport and access marketing and sales strategies and led the integration efforts of the combined wholesale organizations technical, customer support, and financial groups. His sales organizations managed more than $2 billion in annual revenues.
Before joining Conterra, Mr. Spraetz spent a year as a Managing Partner of Business Development at Cloudsmartz, a telecom consulting firm based in Rochester, NY that specializes in providing go-to-market and IT focused business improvement strategies for companies in the enterprise and data center industry. During his first 10 years after earning his college degree, Mr. Spraetz held various positions of increasing scope at BellSouth Telecommunications.
Following a transition period, Mr. Spraetz will replace Tom Prestwood who will be shifting within Conterra to head up the company's Communication Towers division which includes a portfolio of approximately 500 tower structures and 500 roof-top locations, all owned and operated by Conterra, in 14 states throughout the country.
S2C Inc. announced the opening of a direct sales and support office in Seoul, Korea, appointing Suk-Ha Lee (SH Lee) as country manager, who will be heading the new office, located in a sparkling high-rise in Seoul's Gangnam district.
SH Lee is a professional with 24 years of sales and customer support experience in the Korean EDA market. Prior to his position at S2C, Mr. Lee was the country manager for Forte Design Systems in Korea, as well as country manager for Synplicity Korea, and Major Accounts Manager for Synopsys Korea. Mr. Lee's experience includes ESL solutions, FPGA applications, and ASIC design flows.
Founded in 2003 and headquartered in San Jose, California, S2C provides rapid SoC prototyping solutions including rapid FPGA-based prototyping hardware and automation software, Prototype Ready™ IP, interfaces and platforms, and system-level design verification and acceleration tools.
S2C's flexible, expandable and reusable hardware architecture combined with transaction-based links to system simulations make S2C's solution a great common platform for major design phases from algorithm exploration, IP design, system integration to compatibility testing.
HubSpot, a leading inbound marketing and sales software company, announced that it has filed a registration statement for a proposed initial public offering of shares of its common stock.
The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering have not been determined. HubSpot intends to apply to list its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange.
Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and UBS Securities LLC will serve as book-running managers for the offering, and Pacific Crest Securities LLC, Canaccord Genuity Inc., and Raymond James & Associates, Inc. will serve as co-managers. A registration statement related to these securities has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, but has not yet become effective.
OMD Malaysia has appointed Kelvin Lim as Digital Director, effective immediately.
In his new role, Kelvin reports to Margaret Lim, Managing Director at OMD Malaysia, and will be supporting her in creating new business opportunities and managing existing clients with a focus on digital strategy.
Prior to his appointment, Kelvin was the Head of Business Development at Digital News Asia, an independent news portal, responsible for developing and refining revenue creation, particularly in the areas of product development and platform management. He was tasked with reviewing company content and ad performances, and worked closely with the CEO to develop medium to long-term growth strategies for the company as they headed towards market expansion and content innovation.
Kelvin brings on board a diverse skill set, having worked with numerous blue-chip corporations, and PR agencies on digital strategy. This includes a tenure at Social@Ogilvy & Technology as Director in Kuala Lumpur, where he was responsible for directing social and digital strategies across the office’s disciplines and practices, and led the overall development and growth of the team.
Jason Tengco joins Campaigns & Grey as Digital Director.
In a move to boost the capabilities of its digital and activation unit Bacon, Campaigns & Grey has hired Heherson “Jason” Tengco as Digital Director.
Before joining Campaigns & Grey, Jason was Digital Director at Dentsu where he was responsible for high-profile work such as the Philippines Department of Tourism's "It's More Fun in the Philippines" global media campaign.
His other notable digital assignments include Uniqlo (the famous Shukka Roll video), Lotte Pilipinas (Toppo), SM Supermalls (SM Cares, Surplus Shop), Toyota, Oreo and Cadbury. Prior to Dentsu, he had stints at Carat, Mindshare and AdMax.
Jason holds a Philosophy degree from the University of the Philippines in Quezon City.
Opera signs licensing agreement with Microsoft.
Opera Software announced that Opera Mini will become the default web browser for Microsoft’s existing feature phones and Asha phones portfolio.
The licensing agreement applies to mobile phones based on the Series 30+, Series 40 and Asha software platforms.
As part of the agreement, people who use the current browser for these phones, Xpress, will be encouraged to upgrade to the latest Opera Mini browser. Factory-new devices will have Opera Mini pre-installed.
Opera Mini currently has around 250 million users, over 100 million of these on Android smartphones. The popular web browsers works on almost any phone. It has a built-in compression technology that allows people to save on mobile data. And Microsoft first feature and Asha phones are popular with people seeking affordable, well-designed and reliable devices capable of internet browsing, apps and more.
Geometry Global, WPP’s recently merged shopper marketing & activation entity of G2, OgilvyAction and JWTAction, has announced the appointment of Mary Jane (MJ) Butler as Client Service Director for Singapore, effective immediately.
In this newly created position, Butler will focus on company and client business growth with responsibility for leading the agency’s account management team and key global and regional clients, including GSK, Lenovo and Unilever.
Butler’s return to the WPP network comes after a five-year stint with global boutique agency StrawberryFrog in New York, and most recently Singapore, where she served as Managing Director of the network’s Southeast Asian operation since 2013.
Butler brings to the position two decades of experience in working with blue chip multinational companies in both the US and Asia across varied categories including food and beverage, beauty, baby care, professional services, telecom and government.
As Regional Business Director for Ogilvy & Mather Asia Pacific based in Bangkok, Thailand and Beijing, China from 2003-2007 Butler was responsible for the development of brands including Kraft beverages, Unilever skincare and fabric care, Kimberly-Clark and Johnson & Johnson’s 2008 Beijing Olympics campaign among others.
Prior to O&M, Butler was Regional Account Director at DDB Singapore and also worked at Publicis and Bozell Worldwide in New York before that.
Shannon Cullum will lead Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore and Malaysia as CEO, marking a significant turning point as the agencies achieve strides in creative excellence, mobile and digital technology, as well as shopper marketing.
Starting the new job next month, Shannon will add his new responsibilities to his existing portfolio as CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi Indonesia and Chief Growth Officer of Saatchi & Saatchi Asia-Pacific.
He will build a synergistic regional offering for the network’s local and regional clients.
Shannon replaces Paul Roebuck who is moving to the USA.
Integrated communications consultancy Text100 announced the appointment of Vijayaratnam Tharumartnam as Managing Consultant for Text100 Malaysia.
Effective 1 September 2014, Vijayaratnam will lead the agency’s operations in Malaysia while delivering strategic client consultancy and managing a strong team of 30 consultants with a focus on driving overall growth strategy. His appointment will bolster Text100's strategic consulting capabilities and see its Malaysia operations broaden its reach across business sectors.
The announcement came on the back of Text100’s recent integration with Bite in the Asia Pacific region, taking the combined Asia business to an approximately 300-strong integrated communications agency with expanded presence in Mainland China, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia. The integration of Text100 and Bite will merge the agencies’ expertise in the corporate, financial, telecommunications, healthcare and consumer sectors, and offers industry-leading social media and digital marketing capabilities.
Vijayaratnam brings almost 20 years of extensive in-house and agency communications experience in government, corporate, and consumer sectors to the business. In his previous capacity, Vijayaratnam was the Vice President of Corporate Communications at Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC), where he was responsible for the creation and overall communications strategy for MSC Malaysia. His previous experience also includes the role of Vice President of Communications at HSBC Global Resources (UK) Ltd and setting up the corporate communications division at BMW Group Malaysia in a 6-year stint as Head of Corporate Affairs.
McAfee (part of Intel Security) appointed Alagesan Alagappan as Country Manager for Malaysia and Indonesia.
Alagesan comes to McAfee from NetScout, where he held the position of Country Manager for Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, and developed the Indonesia market from US 1 million to US 5 million in 2 years.
Alagesan has more than 17 year of experience in the IT industry, mostly in ASEAN countries and India, with special focus on emerging countries.
He holds a Bachelor degree in Analytic Economics as well as a Master in Information Technology from the University of Malaya.
Jumei International Holding Limited, China's leading online retailer of beauty products, announced the appointment of Bob Xiaoping Xu as a new independent director, who will also serve as a member of the audit committee of the Board of Directors.
Mr. Xu is the founder of ZhenFund, an angel investment fund focused on seed investments in the TMT sector such as e-commerce, mobile, gaming, O2O, as well as in education. Prior to founding ZhenFund, he co-founded New Oriental Education & Technology Group, the largest provider of private education in China.
Mr. Xu, who is the current Chairman of China Angel Club, is known as one of China's pioneering angel investors, with distinctions from Forbes China among "Top 100 Chinese Celebrities in 2004", from Entrepreneur Magazine as "2011 Best Angel Investor in China", from Founder Magazine as "2013 Best Angel Investor in China" and "2013 Zhongguancun Angel Investor Trailblazer".
Mr. Xu received a bachelor's degree from the Central Conservatory of Music in 1983 and a master's degree from the University of Saskatchewan in 1992.
ShoreTel announced the appointment of Frederic Gillant as Vice President and Managing Director for Asia Pacific.
Based in Singapore, Gillant will lead ShoreTel’s go-to-market strategy across Asia Pacific with the goals of driving sales, expanding the partner ecosystem, developing new business and managing the sales and marketing operations in the region.
Reporting directly to US-based Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales, David Petts, Gillant brings 24 years of industry experience to the role with a 14-year working history in Asia Pacific, including Singapore (where he is a permanent resident), Beijing, Taichung (Taiwan) and Kuala Lumpur. His appointment reflects ShoreTel’s continued investment in the Asia-Pacific region, which is a key part of the company’s global growth strategy.
In this role, Gillant is responsible for overseeing the regional sales teams led by Jamie Romanin, Managing Director in Australia and New Zealand, and Bruce Downing, Managing Director for Asia and South Africa. In addition to directly leading the sales, channels, marketing and sales operations, Gillant will provide local leadership to support ShoreTel’s regional growth plans.
Gillant joins ShoreTel from Orange Business Services where he most recently led a team as Vice President of Unified Communications and Collaboration.
Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN) Asia announced the appointment of Dinna Zaratan as its new Philippines Country Manager, effective 1 September.
In this role, Ms Zaratan will oversee the operations of the Philippines office, across Viacom’s MTV, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr. and Comedy Central brands, while developing the long-term strategic plan in the Philippines. Ms Zaratan will report to Tan Chee Kiat (CK), Chief Operating Officer, VIMN Asia, working closely with him to seek out new opportunities that will bring VIMN’s presence in this key market to the next level, while tasked to bring in new revenue streams from the Philippines.
Formerly with Zenith Optimedia, Ms Zaratan brings nearly two decades of experience in the advertising and media industry to the table. Most recently, she completed her two-year tenure at Zenith Optimedia as a Division Head and the head of Nestle Philippines account. Prior to that, she was the Programming Director and Head of Content and Communications at FIC, where she led the team to programme the Philippines feed with the support of each local channel head. Ms Zaratan was also at MPB Primedia – TV5, MindShare Philippines, Oglivy & Mather Advertising and McCann-Erickson Philippines.
Brocade appointed Fiona Lam as senior marketing director for Asia Pacific (APAC), responsible for driving the company’s corporate and channel marketing strategies across the region. She will be based in Hong Kong and report directly to Brocade Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Christine Heckart.
In her new role, Fiona will spearhead strategic marketing initiatives, including focused channel programs, to reinforce Brocade’s leadership in Ethernet fabrics, Software-defined Networking (SDN), and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) across APAC.
A technology marketing veteran with two decades of industry experience driving corporate, field, and channel marketing initiatives for leading vendors, she was most recently head of marketing and director of channel marketing for Asia Pacific and Japan at Riverbed. While she was there, she led the entire marketing operations in APJ as well as driving targeted marketing programs that were vital in securing partnerships across an ecosystem spanning distributors, resellers, service providers, and integrators. Prior to Riverbed, Fiona was vice president of marketing for Greater China at Monster.com, and held senior APAC field marketing and strategic partner development roles at Juniper Networks.
Cyveillance, a leading provider of cyber intelligence solutions, announced the appointment of John Wilson as Executive Vice President.
Wilson will be responsible for integrating new services into the company's portfolio of threat intelligence services, and building out a professional services team to satisfy the increased demands and needs of customers as they deal with gathering and analyzing threat intelligence. Wilson is also tasked with expanding Cyveillance's global partner program to further grow the business.
Prior to joining Cyveillance, Wilson served as Executive Vice President World Wide Field Operations, Qualys, where he led the global sales team, supporting vulnerability management, policy compliance and web application security solutions to commercial, federal, and international customers.
In addition, he served as Vice President of Security Solutions for Verizon Business, driving enterprise security and compliance services within the US market. Prior to Verizon, Wilson held a variety of leadership roles within Fortune 500 and start-up companies as well as the US Army. He is a paratrooper and Gulf War veteran.
Integration of Bite and Text100 Asia to create new regional powerhouse
Next Fifteen Communications Group announced a proposed global reorganisation bringing together Text100 and Bite in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.
The newly combined Asia business, operating under the Text100 brand, will form an approximately 300-strong integrated communications agency with an expanded presence in Mainland China, India, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia.
Anne Costello, currently Text100 regional director for APAC, and Paul Mottram, currently APAC executive vice president at Bite will report into Aedhmar Hynes, Text100’s global chief executive officer (CEO) and serve as regional co-directors during the integration. The integration of Text100 and Bite is intended to take place in the September-December timeframe. With enterprise and consumer technology communications at the core, the merged firm also has expertise in the corporate, financial, telecommunications, healthcare and consumer sectors, and offers industry-leading social media and digital marketing capabilities.
Both Bite and Text100 have made considerable investments in developing their integrated communications capabilities. The combined company will offer clients a full suite of creative, web, app development, digital marketing, analytics and search services to complement its core media and influencer relations offerings.
David Ketchum, Bite’s APAC president and founder of Upstream Asia will leave the business after a transition period.
comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, announced that Mel Wesley will be joining the company as Chief Financial Officer, effective August 29th. He will step into the position following current CFO Kenneth Tarpey's retirement from comScore later this month.
Mr. Wesley is a technology industry veteran, who has served in a variety of financial leadership positions in his career. Most recently, he served as CFO of Mandiant Corporation, a provider of advanced endpoint security products and security incident response management solutions, which was acquired by FireEye in December 2013.
Prior to Mandiant, he spent over eight years at OPNET Technologies, a publicly traded company that provided application and network performance solutions, where he was Senior Vice President and CFO when OPNET was acquired by Riverbed Technologies in December 2012. He also served as Corporate Controller for OPNET from June 2004 through November 2004.
Previously Mr. Wesley also served as Corporate Controller for SteelCloud, Inc. and as Assistant Controller for Learning Tree International, Inc., both publicly traded companies in the technology sector.
He holds a B.S. in Accounting and an MBA from George Mason University and is licensed as a Certified Public Accountant in Virginia.
DST Systems, Inc. announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Stephen C. Hooley, DST's President and Chief Executive Officer, as Chairman of the Board, effective immediately.
The Board remains comprised of six members, five of whom are independent, and Lowell L. Bryan remains Lead Independent Director of the Board.
Stephen C. Hooley has served as the Company's President and Chief Executive Officer since 2012 and previously as the Company's President and Chief Operating Officer beginning in 2009.
He served from 2004 through mid-2009 as President and Chief Executive Officer of Boston Financial Data Services, Inc., DST's 50/50 joint venture with State Street Corporation and has also served as Chief Executive Officer of International Financial Data Services Limited Partnership, another 50/50 joint venture with State Street.
Mr. Hooley is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Boston Financial.
RS Components, the trading brand of Electrocomponents plc, announced the key appointment of Alex Tsui as the Country Manager for Greater China and Korea that supports the company's ongoing strategy to become the distributor of choice to the engineering community in Greater China and Korea.
In his new role, Alex's focus will be on expanding the customer base, fuelling growth in eCommerce, as well as acquiring and developing corporate accounts in the Greater China and Korea markets.
Prior to this, Alex was the Country/Region Manager for Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea since April 2012. Under his leadership, these markets exceeded sales targets and continue to experience healthy growth.
The world's first completely free and truly mobile call app - nanu – launched this week, with the aim of revolutionizing the telecom industry by offering free quality calls to everyone, everywhere.
Unlike conventional voice apps such as Skype and Viber that only work in high bandwidth 3G/4G/Wifi environments, nanu can be used on any network including 2G thus allowing it to provide quality calls where other apps cannot. As the majority of the world's mobile phones still use 2G, this means billions of people in rural areas and developing markets will have access to free calls for the first time.
Furthermore, unlike conventional voice apps, nanu provides all calls completely for free, including calls to non nanu users such as landlines. To do this, nanu inserts an unintrusive short advert to play over the ringtone while you are waiting for the call to be picked up. The revenue from the advert allows nanu to subsidize the cost of the call so you can make calls completely for free, even to landlines or mobile phones that don't use nanu.
nanu believes that everyone around the world has the right to make free phone calls and is on a mission to end phone bills once and for all.
To join the mission, you just need to download nanu - go to: http://bit.ly/downloadnanu
The first one million users, get free unlimited nanu-to-nanu calls and also 15 free minutes of nanu to non - nanu calls across 73 global destinations.
nanu launches on Android, with the iPhone and other devices to follow very shortly and will also be available for Mac and Windows.
Eventbrite, the global self-service ticketing platform and events marketplace, and 99designs, the world's largest marketplace for graphic design, announced an integration that seamlessly connects event organizers to graphic designers, so they can source professional and unique banner designs for their event pages.
Through 99designs' service Swiftly, Eventbrite event organizers can get small design jobs done quickly and effortlessly. Once an event organizer has created an event page on Eventbrite, they can visit swiftly.com/eventbrite, provide a description of the banner design they want, and a designer will be assigned to create the design within one hour, for $19. The new event page artwork can then be automatically uploaded to their event page.
By partnering, Eventbrite and 99designs have simplified the marketing process for event organizers by eliminating the need to search for a designer, provide design specs, download the file created, and then upload it to the event page. Everything is handled behind the scenes; event organizers only need to submit their requests and then select the design they like. For more information, visit the Eventbrite app page or swiftly.com/eventbrite.
Shutterstock, a leading global provider of commercial digital imagery, celebrates that it has reached 40 million images in its collection.
To celebrate this milestone, the award-winning Shutterstock Blog has curated a collection of "40 Images That Will Change Your Perception of Stock." The collection speaks to the power of imagery and provides a cross section of the exceptionally diverse content available from Shutterstock.
Shutterstock continues to be a top design destination for graphic designers, publishers, marketing and media organizations around the world, licensing 4 images per second. For more information, go to www.shutterstock.com.
MHI Global, the world’s largest dedicated sales-performance company formed by the merger of Miller Heiman, AchieveGlobal, Huthwaite, Impact Learning Systems and Channel Enablers, announced the appointment of Greg Moore to the role of managing director for Asia.
Moore was most recently managing director of Huthwaite Asia, where he led the company’s growth and operational performance throughout the region. Prior to this, Moore spent more than 10 years at Huthwaite’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., U.S., as director of Global Accounts, where he was responsible for overseeing the company’s global financial services and professional services clients.
With more than two decades of sales management consulting experience with the world’s leading organisations, Moore’s immediate remit for MHI Global is to spearhead integration efforts to form one formidable entity that aims to be the undisputed resource for sales leaders and customer-focused organisations across Asia. MHI Global has a direct presence throughout Asia, spanning Southeast Asia, India, Greater China, Korea and Japan, with its regional headquarters in Singapore.
As the largest dedicated sales-performance company in the world, MHI Global provides all of the key components of a multidimensional and interdependent sales system, based on the central belief that everything starts with the customer. The company’s tagline and promise to empower growth signify its goal to help sales leaders optimise their time, effort and potential to better create and manage customer relationships while achieving business goals.
Local Measure announced the appointment of Sara Axelrod as the company’s first Chief Operating Officer.
The location-based social platform helps businesses understand and manage the social conversations and influencers at their locations, stores and event venues. Local Measure merges local content, social media and mobile technology, to provide some of the world’s largest businesses and brands with live access to data, rich content and analytics at a local level.
Following Local Measure’s recent global expansion supported by new operations in Singapore, Manila and Miami, Axelrod joins the Australian start-up to further grow the business, oversee the day-to-day operations and ensure operational excellence across the company in all markets.
At Local Measure, Axelrod will be responsible for driving all customer-facing departments, including professional services, customer services and support as well as sales. The new COO will bring a combination of extensive sales experience, operations improvement and global go-to-market expertise to Local Measure.
Having driven growth strategies globally within several business units at Twitter, Axelrod will also focus on fuelling Local Measure’s continued expansion across the US, Asia and other regions.
Prior to Local Measure, Axelrod spent three years at Twitter during which she successfully grew Twitter’s mid-market sales team to over 130 employees globally. As the head of Technology, Telecom, and Mobile sector for Twitter, Axelrod’s role involved overseeing the company’s first efforts to develop and market mobile products.
“Axelrod is a prominent personality within the start-up community globally as she currently serves as a strategic advisor for various start-ups, including Mdundo in Kenya and Settled in the UK. She is renowned for her extensive experience scaling and monetising technology companies.
MediaMath announced the opening of a new office in Sydney, Australia.
MediaMath, based in New York with 12 locations across 5 continents, develops digital marketing technology and offers deep industry expertise that enables marketers to connect with consumers individually and at scale, across the entirety of the world's digital media. The company’s TerminalOne Marketing Operating System™ allows marketers to customise their own technology infrastructure and leverage their data and industry data in the planning, execution, optimisation and analysis of digital marketing programmes, resulting in smarter decisions that grow their business.
Staff from Kinected, one of Australia's leading advertising technology companies, will join as part of the MediaMath team in Australia to enhance their presence in the country and broaden product offerings to clients and partners. Kinected has worked in partnership with MediaMath for the past two and a half years in Australia, a fast-growing market that has become a key focus for MediaMath's continued global expansion. Meanwhile, the remaining members of the Kinected team will continue to focus on other projects as a separate entity.
This news follows recent announcements of office openings in both Singapore and Japan as the company further expands in the region.
LeapFrog Enterprises, Inc., the leader in educational entertainment, announced that Scott A. Steinberg has joined the company as vice president of platform marketing responsible for the development and marketing strategies for LeapFrog's educational hardware platforms.
In his role, Steinberg will lead LeapFrog's efforts to grow the company's existing platforms including the recently unveiled LeapTV educational, active video gaming system, the market share leading and award-winning line of LeapPad tablets and the no. 1 selling LeapReader learn to read and write platform, while developing future engaging and educational experiences for children that broaden the LeapFrog brand experience with children and parents.
Prior to joining LeapFrog, Steinberg was vice president of product marketing at Sony PlayStation, where he was responsible for annual marketing strategy development, new product introductions and go to market planning. Steinberg has also held executive positions at Sega of America, Napster, Roxio, King Brown Partners, Imagicast, Inc., Liquid Audio, Inc. and Eidos Interactive, Inc.
Civolution, the leading provider of technology and solutions for identifying, managing and monetizing media content, announced the appointment of Luke Boyle as Sales Director, Teletrax.
Boyle brings twenty years experience in the media and sports markets to Civolution, including the launch of his own company and various management and sales roles at Sport Business Group, Press Association Sport and Kantar Sport. He will be joining Civolution’s media analytics division Teletrax in the UK.
By utilising Civolution’s award-winning fingerprinting and watermarking technologies, Teletrax enables advertisers, entertainment studios, news agencies, sports organizations and TV syndicators, to determine precisely when, where and how their video content is being aired on broadcast TV around the world. Teletrax broadcast intelligence can be accessed via a state-of-the-art online portal, allowing its customers to analyse their data in near real-time to the level of detail most valuable to them. With over 2,300 television channels in more than 60 countries monitored constantly, Teletrax is the leading media monitoring solution specifically developed for video content. Customers include Red Bull, Associated Press, Reuters, America’s Cup, Volvo Ocean Race, NBC, and MLB to name only a few.
Spikes Asia has announced the jury members that will make up the Creative Effectiveness, Design, Film, Print, Outdoor & Radio, Media, and PR juries for the International Festival of Creativity which will take place in Singapore from 23-26 September.
Well-known industry names will be part of the juries for Spikes Asia 2014, crowning the best of creative communications in the region:
CREATIVE EFFECTIVENESS JURY
• Matthew Godfrey, President - Asia, Y&R, Asia Pacific - Jury President
• Charles Cadell, President, Asia Pacific, McCann Worldgroup, Asia Pacific
• Natalie Pidgeon, Chief Strategy Officer, IPG Mediabrands, Asia Pacific
• Nick Garrett, Managing Director, Colenso BBDO, New Zealand • Paul Roebuck, Chief Executive Officer, Singapore/Malaysia, Saatchi & Saatchi, Singapore
• Rahul Kansal, Executive President, Bennett Coleman & Co, India
• Ross Jackson, Asia Pacific Head Brand, Product, Client Marketing and Cross Border, Visa Worldwide, Asia Pacific
• Wong Mei Wai, Head of Marketing, Vietnam Brewery, Vietnam
DESIGN JURY
• Stefan Sagmeister, Designer, Sagmeister & Walsh, Global - Jury President
• Dan Ellis, Regional Creative Director, S & SE Asia, Brand Union, Singapore
• David Park, Creative Director, Maud, Australia
• JJ (Jongjoo) Ha, Executive Creative Director, Cheil Worldwide, South Korea
• Jon King, Executive Creative Director, Beacon/Leo Burnett Tokyo, Japan
• Lana Roulhac, Design Director, Siegel+Gale, China/UK
• Praveen Das, Chief Creative Officer, Happy Creative Services, India
• Pum Lefebure, Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer, Design Army, Thailand/USA
FILM, PRINT, OUTDOOR & RADIO JURY
• Ted Royer, Chief Creative Officer, Droga5, Global - Jury President
• Ajay Thrivikraman, Chief Creative Officer, Publicis, Singapore
• Erick De Souza Rosa, Executive Creative Director, Lowe and Partner, Regional
• Gavin Siakimotu, Creative Director, Y&R, New Zealand
• Kitti Chaiyaporn, Chief Creative Director, Choojai, Thailand
• Morihiko Hasebe, Executive Creative Director, Hakuhodo, Japan
• Patrick Baron, Executive Creative Director, McCann Melbourne, Australia
• Raoul Panes, Chief Creative Officer, Leo Burnett Manila, The Philippines
• Raymond Chin, Creative Director, Wieden & Kennedy, China
• Sami Thessman, Executive Creative Director, TBWA\Worldwide, Hong Kong
• Sonal Dabral, Chairman & Chief Creative Officer, DDB Mudra, India
• Zenobia Pithawalla, Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather, India
MEDIA JURY
• Mark Patterson, CEO, Asia Pacific & Chairman, China, GroupM Asia Pacific - Jury President
• Atiek Sudirman, Managing Director, UM, Indonesia
• Jeffrey Seah, Chief Executive Officer, SE Asia, Starcom MediaVest Group, Singapore
• Jun-Woo Park, Media Group Director, HSAD, South Korea
• Mike Wilson, Chief Executive Officer, Havas Media, Australia
• Roid Sin, Chief Executive Officer, OMD, Hong Kong
• Yesudas Sankara Pillai, Managing Director, Indian Subcontinent, Vizeum, India
• Yusuke Suzuki, General Manager, Hakuhodo DY Media Partners, Japan
PR JURY
• David Brain, Chief Executive Officer, APAC/MENA, Edelman, Asia Pacific - Jury President
• Christina Cheang, Chairman, CMG Group, Singapore
• Dilip Cherian, Founding Partner & Group Chairman, Perfect Relations, India • Hock Chuan Ong, Partner, Maverick, Indonesia
• John Orme, President APAC, Porter Novelli, China
• Kat Thomas, Executive Creative Director, One Green Bean, Australia
• Koichiro Shima, Co-Chief Executive Officer, Creative Director, Editor in Chief, Hakuhodo Kettle, Japan
• Leah Huang, Managing Director, Ogilvy PR Manila, The Philippines
Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity is the result of a collaboration between the Lions Festivals, organisers of Cannes Lions, Lions Health, Dubai Lynx and Eurobest, and Haymarket, publishers of Campaign Asia Pacific. The Festival provides the region's growing creative and advertising industry with a platform to network and exchange ideas, bringing together some of the finest creative thinkers from across the region and around the world.
Spikes Asia, attended by over 1,800 delegates from 30 countries in 2013, offers an inspirational programme of seminars and workshops focusing on creativity and learning, exhibitions of creative work from Asia-Pacific, networking events in the evening and the Spikes Asia award show.
Spikes Asia is accepting entries until 8 August. Further information on how to enter, along with categories and fees can be found at www.spikes.asia.
element14 has signed a direct agreement with Swissbit AG, a leader in industrial DRAM modules and Flash storage products, covering EMEA, North America, APAC and Japan regions.
Swissbit products are particularly targeted at the industrial computer markets including Embedded Computing, Automation, Measurement, Communication, Network, Military, Aerospace, Transportation, Casino Gaming and Medical Equipment. Swissbit customers can rely on long-term availability due to a dedicated controlled Bill of Material (BOM) process that results in products with long lifecycles, reliability, endurance and longevity, even when running 24 hour / 7 day service cycles.
Airbag Productions has chosen Frankie to conduct video review sessions both internally and with its local and remote clients after testing and comparing many other options.
For its work - creating commercials - Airbag found Frankie to be the easiest product to use, with the most appealing interface and PDF summary. Production companies like Airbag now have an affordable and simple-to-use option to complete video reviews. Airbag Productions, in Melbourne, is a combined VFX, animation and production company that creates commercials, films and documentaries. It spent several months testing video review packages, using trial versions side-by-side on the same project so it could have an accurate comparison. This allowed the studio to get an idea of how simple each tool would be for its clients to pick up, as well as which features it needed across every project. In the end, Airbag chose Frankie, the video review tool from the maker of cineSync.
Abacus, the region’s leading travel solutions provider announced the appointment of Agatha Lee as the new General Manager to lead the company’s Hong Kong operations, as Winnie Lau steps down from the role.
With the Hong Kong gateway, Lee takes over one of the strongest portfolios for Abacus, contributing 10 per cent of revenue to the global distribution business. Responsible for the strategic development of new partnerships, she will also drive the adoption of the latest travel management technologies within Abacus.
Lee, who holds an MSc in Electronic Commerce has been Country Manager Italy for Cathay Pacific since 2011. Prior to the Rome posting, she held various sales and marketing positions with the airline and its subsidiary, Dragonair.
