Performance marketing people: Spotify has a new Head of Consumer Marketing and Group M shuffles its COOs

In our latest round up of industry hires, Meta's former VP of Northern Europe is set to join YouGov as Chief Executive, LoopMe has hired new Client Director and Seedtag has made some internal moves.

Spotify has promoted Leroy Harris to Head of Consumer Marketing UK&I after he joined the company three and a half years ago as Artist Marketing Lead. Harris previously held roles leading culture marketing for the likes of Red Bull and ASOS.

Former Vice President of Northern Europe at Meta, Steve Hatch, has announced that he will be joining market research company YouGov as Chief Executive. This follows YouGov’s incumbent Chief Executive, Stephan Shakespeare, being promoted to Chair. Hatch announced his departure from Meta in February of this year and will begin the role with YouGov in August.

Group M and EssenceMediacom have shuffled their Chief Operating Officers. EssenceMediacom’s COO Luke Bozeat has been promoted to Group M’s COO and will be succeeded at EssenceMedicom by Satin Reid, previously EssenceMediacom UK’s Managing Director. Bozeat has worked at Mediacom for more than two decades while Reid joined the company in 2017 after 12 years with dentsu.

LoopMe, a technology company that uses AI to improve brand advertising performance, has announced the hire of Nikki Sheridan as Client Director. She joins from Teads where she specialised in global digital advertising solutions and selling large scale multi market media campaigns.

CleverCards, a global payments platform provider, has hired Gaurav Khurana as the company’s Senior Vice President of Marketing to accelerate the launch of the business into new regions across Europe. An industry veteran with over 23 years’ experience, Khurana most recently served as EMEA Head of Commerce Payment Partnerships at Meta and, before this, was CMO for one of the divisions at American Express.

Gordon Bowman has been appointed Sales Director at mobile marketing consultancy, ConsultMyApp. Bowman has over a decade of experience in mobile app sales, most recently as the Sales Manager and International Client Partner at Liftoff. Prior to that, he spent two years at Twitter in its app and mobile sales team in San Francisco.

Seedtag, a contextual advertising company, has announced that Emilia Kirk has been promoted to UK Commercial Director, based in London. Previously she was Global Head of Growth for Seedtag, based out of its Madrid office. With over 15 years’ experience in digital media across a range of growth and development leadership roles — including positions at dentsu’s London and New York offices — Kirk will bring a deep knowledge of contextual and programmatic advertising to the company’s UK base.

Ad tech company Adnami has appointed Ryan Burnett as UK Sales Director and Bjørn Laffrenz Bukholt as Head of Programmatic and Ad Operations. Burnett’s experience is extensive and varied; he was previously a Senior Account Director at Azerion, Commercial Manager at Inskin Media and has worked in sales at ShortList, Haymarket, The Daily Telegraph and IPC Media.

Having spent over 15 years in the media industry, Laffrenz Bukholt was most recently the Director of Advertising Technology at Omnicom Media Group in Denmark and prior to this spent five years at eBay, latterly as Digital Commercial Specialist.

Cybersecurity company Trellix has hired Ash Parikh as Chief Marketing Officer. Parikh brings with him almost 30 years of experience leading and growing enterprise software organisations, joining the company after a decade at Informatica.

Anna Bäck has joined data-driven digital marketing agency Precis Digital as Chairman of the Board to lead the appointment of the agency’s first board after it welcomed Nalka Invest as a minority investor last year. Bäck joins Precis with extensive leadership experience and knowledge in scaling tech companies globally, having held previous operative roles such as CEO for Kivra and Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company, along with past and present board positions in Nordnet Bank, Permobil and Kivra.

Technology-enabled business services group Paragon has announced the appointment of Jim Hartshorne as Chief Executive Officer in the UK, Ireland, and Luxembourg. This news follows the promotion of predecessor Jeremy Walters to CEO of all regions in which Paragon operates. Having spent the past 15 years as Managing Director at DHL Supply Chain, Hartshorne will oversee Paragon’s growth and diversification strategies.

IoT and connected packaging agency SharpEnd has appointed Jessica Markowitz as Client Director for North America. It marks the first leadership hire for the company in the region as it continues its growth in the US. Prior to joining SharpEnd, Markowitz spent 10 years in the spirits industry across a variety of marketing and commercial roles and was a founding member of HALO Hydration.

As reported by our sister publication Campaign, after more than 20 years with Direct Line, its Head of Marketing Wendy Moores has departed the company to join car finance start-up Carmoola as Director of Marketing. The news closely follows the departure of its former CMO Mark Evans to tech startup Studiospace. Prior to joining Direct Line, Moores worked at Barclays and Wolters Kluwer.

The Jamie Oliver Group has appointed Megan Van Someren as Chief Commercial Officer tasking her with driving commercial and brand growth, underpinned by the Group’s ambitious social impact agenda. Van Someren brings with her 23 years of strategic brand development and a proven track record in leadership and commercial delivery, having previously held positions with the likes of Edelman, Nespresso, Kraft Heinz, Unilever, Kellogg’s and Danone.

Commerce platform for global merchants, Lightspeed, has appointed Liam Crooks as its new Managing Director for the EMEA Region. Formerly Lightspeed’s Senior Vice President of Hospitality, Crooks brings over 15 years of experience within the tech industry to the new position. He joined Lightspeed in early 2022 after spending 10 years at Yelp as Vice President of Sales.


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