Category Archives: Appointments

Appointments

Virgin Atlantic Announces Appointments to Leadership Team

Virgin Atlantic has announced two crucial appointments to its senior leadership team. The UK airline has confirmed that Estelle Hollingsworth will take up the position of Chief People Officer, meanwhile Oliver Byers has been in the role of Chief Financial Officer since September 2020.

As Chief People Officer, Estelle will be responsible for ensuring the airline’s people can thrive at work, by creating inclusive experiences that energise teams and drive its vision to be the most loved travel company. Estelle brings over 25 years of People experience to the role, most recently as Vice President, Cabin at the airline, leading its cabin crew. Estelle joined Virgin Atlantic as Vice President, People Experience where she was responsible for talent, leadership development and learning across the company. Previously, she spent three decades working across sectors including hospitality, financial services, defence and aviation, having joined the airline from BAE Systems, where she was UK HR director, Talent and Organisational Effectiveness.

Estelle Hollingsworth, Chief People Officer, Virgin Atlantic, said: “The unique spirit, and innovation of our people at Virgin Atlantic is what differentiates us. I feel so privileged to be moving into the role of Chief People Officer, where my focus will be to recognise what we have been through together as a company this year and to create a unique people experience, to be the best at what we do and ultimately delight each and every one of our customers.”

Following his instrumental role in securing new investment for the successful private-only, solvent recapitalisation of the airline in September 2020, Oliver Byers has been promoted to Chief Financial Officer. Oliver will focus on rebuilding the airline’s balance sheet and creating a platform for it to become sustainably profitable.

Oliver brings more than ten years of commercial aviation experience from Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Group and has held several leadership roles including Senior Vice President Revenue Management; Senior Vice President Global Sales & Loyalty; Senior Vice President Data & Customer Loyalty; and Chief of Staff. Oliver currently serves as an alternate Board Member for Virgin Atlantic Limited.

Oliver Byers, Chief Financial Officer, Virgin Atlantic, said: “I am proud and excited to be taking on the Chief Financial Officer role at a crucial moment in the history of aviation and look forward to working with the Leadership Team to drive Virgin Atlantic through economic recovery and back to profitability.”

Shai Weiss, Chief Commercial Officer, Virgin Atlantic, said: “The Covid-19 crisis has shown that now more than ever, it is our amazing people that sets us apart. Following the most challenging year in our history, we now have the Leadership Team in place to drive our march forward at pace. Estelle and Oliver both bring deep knowledge and expertise in their specific fields. They will do an amazing job leading our teams, as we continue to return to our very best for our people and our customers.”

The two internal promotions complete Virgin Atlantic’s Leadership Team and are effective immediately.

Appointments

Premier Forest Group branch out with new Crumlin manager

One of the UK’s leading timber groups has strengthened its team with a new appointment.

Premier Forest Group has appointed Gary Pugh as branch manager of Mill Timber Direct, its sawmill outlet store near Crumlin.

Gary brings a wealth of experience with him to his new role. In addition to 20 years within the builders merchant sector, in which he developed an extensive knowledge of the local construction industry, Gary has also honed his managerial skills running his own business.

Outside of work, Gary is passionate about rugby, particularly at the grassroots level, and spends his weekends coaching the Pontypridd under 8s team.

Gary said: “I’m excited to be joining such an ambitious company at a pivotal moment of growth. I look forward to applying my experience to this new role and building my knowledge in the specialist area of timber further to help the company continue to grow.”

Joe Walker, managing director of Premier Forest Products, said: “We are thrilled to welcome Gary to Premier. His vast knowledge and experience will be a great asset and strengthen our brilliant team at Mill Timber Direct.”

Part of the award-winning Premier Forest Group, Mill Timber Direct is an outlet store supplying a range of high-quality timber products and ancillaries directly from the on-site sawmill to both trade and the public.

Premier Forest Group is a vertically integrated timber operation engaged in the importation, sawmilling, processing, merchanting, and wholesale distribution of timber and timber products from its 16 sites in the UK and Ireland.

Appointments, News

CyberGuard Technologies appoints Tom Godfrey to boost public sector client base

CyberGuard Technologies, the cybersecurity division of IT services provider OGL Computer, has appointed Tom Godfrey as Public Sector Sales Consultant, following the recent addition of a Midlands-based NHS Trust to its public sector client base.

Reporting directly to CyberGuard Technologies’ Security Operations Centre (SOC) Manager, Sean Tickle, Tom’s appointment comes as part of the launch of a dedicated healthcare team, providing the NHS Trust and other public sector clients with specialist consultants.

Following a competitive tender, CyberGuard Technologies is now providing a range of cybersecurity services to the Midlands health trust. Initially, a critical Incident Response service was set up, so that CyberGuard’s Security Operations Centre (SOC) can investigate, react to and fix any real-time security threats, to ensure it can continue operations at full capacity.

“The healthcare sector is struggling with ageing infrastructures and an over-whelming volume of threat alerts which is putting a lot of internal teams under immense pressure,” Tom Godfrey explained. “The need to also achieve compliance with the Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT) by end of March is applying yet more pressure in an already stretched organisation. We work closely with internal teams at the Trusts we support and make sure that they have the protection they need in place as well as design solutions that utilise their existing security products to maximise the investment they have already made. We then provide that extra layer of protection through our 24/7 UK SOC Team whereby our cyber analysts monitor their networks to quickly identify, isolate and eradicate any threats made against them.”

Using its proactive Managed Detect and Respond services to prevent the new NHS Trust client from becoming a victim of cyber-crime, CyberGuard has implemented a SIEM (Security Information & Event Management) solution whereby all outputs from the various security products that the Trust had in place are centralised and any alerts are now sent from a single source. This provides a clearer picture of potential threats and removes any duplication.

A spokesperson from the NHS Trust client in the Midlands commented: “As a Trust, we have been very impressed with CyberGuard’s knowledge, response and proactivity. Whilst this has only been in place for a short period of time, we have full confidence that our security has been strengthened and will continue to be on the forefront.”

The healthcare team at CyberGuard’s SOC is improving efficiency within the NHS Trust and boosting its limited internal resources. Sean Tickle, SOC Manager at CyberGuard Technologies, said: “Our robust security approach provides the NHS Trust with an additional centralised security-operational layer that works seamlessly across any ageing infrastructure. This allows us to mitigate any potential impact to the health authority and, as a result, the wider community. By improving the communication between all existing security products, all security alerts are pulled into one single portal for our SOC team to identify which threats could be genuine.”

CyberGuard Technologies is looking to provide a number of specific cyber security services to other healthcare providers from its Kidderminster base, including:
• Incident response
• Vulnerability assessments
• Managed SIEM (Security information and event management)
• Threat detection
• Cyber protection improvement consultancy

CyberGuard Technologies is CREST-certified and its position on the Cyber Security Services 3 and G-Cloud12 (both frameworks under Crown Commercial Service), as well as Edge4Health now enables the firm to extend its reach among the public sector including local authorities and education providers.

Appointments, Marketing, PR and SEO, News

AML Group announce new hire

AML Group, the London-based ad agency, has appointed Sophie Sheard to the role of Account Manager.

Working predominantly on the Vanguard account and on a new (and undisclosed) project for a major financial institution, Sophie will report to Merope Beddard, Client Services Director and Annabelle Meddows-Taylor, Account Director.

Commenting on joining AML Group Sophie says: “AML has such a great reputation and I feel really fortunate to be part of a hugely talented team working on some top brands and on projects that I am passionate about.”

AML Group, who moved into new offices in Shoreditch’s Tea Building one week before the first national lockdown in March, have continued to operate at full capacity winning a number of new clients including the private bank Weatherbys and NOW Pensions and launching national campaigns for, amongst others, Bibby, Robeco and The Big Exchange.

On the decision to appoint Sophie, Merope Beddard says: “Sophie comes armed with some big brand experience and a proven track record in engaging audiences across the conversion funnel – and we are delighted to welcome her to the AML family.”

Sophie joins from the marketing agency Campaign Works, where she worked across a broad portfolio of clients in the financial and hospitality sectors including the Hilton EMEA account.

To learn more visit: https://aml-group.com/

Appointments, Creative News, News

Waste boosts entertainment marketing credentials with appointment of Michael Rekab as Lead Strategist

Independent digital creative agency Waste has announced the appointment of Michael Rekab as Lead Strategist, as it seeks to bolster its fan-first offering for entertainment brands.

Rekab joins from Irish strategy agency MCCP, where he was Senior Strategist specialising in brand and communications strategy and innovation, for brands including National Lottery, Jameson and Heineken. He also brings extensive experience in entertainment marketing to Waste, having helped to develop through-the-line campaigns for brands such as Virgin TV, Entertainment One and the Irish language TV station TG4 since starting his career in 2013.

In his new role at Waste, Rekab will focus on the agency’s gaming and entertainment clients including Nintendo, SEGA and Supercell, helping gain a better understanding of brands’ fan communities and sub-tribes, and delivering compelling content and campaigns across the entire fan ecosystem.

He will report to Christian Perrins, Head of Strategy, with joint oversight of a team of seven data, creative, and SEO strategists.

Rekab has previously held positions at Publicis Dublin and Zenith Ireland.

Michael Rekab, new Lead Strategist, Waste, said: “Digital has given us new and exciting ways to reach our audiences, but I believe it’s essential for brands to create work that connects with people on a human level, too. I can see that Christian and the team at Waste share this belief, which is why this is such a fantastic move for me. I’m excited to be joining at a time of real growth and innovation for the agency.”

Christian Perrins, Head of Strategy, Waste, added: “Michael’s a ‘human’ strategist who’s as big-empathy as he is big-data. Our work is increasingly powered by nuanced understanding of fan-tribes, their distinct emotional and rational needs and channel behaviours. Michael will help us deliver that blend of deep personal insight and big-picture ecosystem thinking. We’re delighted to see him become part of the Waste family.”

Appointments, News

Vungle appoints Jeremy Bondy as CEO

Vungle, a leading mobile ad and in-app monetisation platform, announced the appointment of Jeremy Bondy as CEO. Bondy, previously Vungle’s COO, succeeds Rick Tallman, who moves to the role of strategic advisor for Vungle.

Tallman joined the company as COO in 2015 and was appointed CEO in 2017. Under Tallman’s vision and leadership, Vungle has experienced substantial growth and is positioned as a leading player in the in-app mobile marketing space. He steered the company through its 2019 successful acquisition by Blackstone, as well as its recent purchase of machine-learning-based marketing optimisation pioneer, AlgoLift.

Bondy, who joined Vungle in 2014, has held a number of senior sales and operational roles at the company, most recently as COO. During his tenure, Bondy has been responsible for setting up and scaling Vungle’s global commercial organisation, establishing seasoned and tenured teams in Berlin, London, Beijing, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles.

“For many years, Jeremy has been a key contributor to Vungle’s success, and it is my honour to pass over the reins to him,” said Rick Tallman, outgoing CEO at Vungle. “His work spearheading the company’s global expansion, together with his unmatched understanding of Vungle’s business, customers, people and culture, make him the ideal person to lead the company into its next chapter.”

“I am honoured to assume the role of CEO. Vungle has many exciting future growth opportunities, and I look forward to guiding our world-class team in creating the industry’s leading suite of tools to help mobile app developers maximise the value of their businesses,” said Jeremy Bondy, Vungle’s new CEO. “On behalf of the entire Vungle organisation, I want to express my gratitude to Rick for his invaluable contributions to the company’s historical success and, personally, for his mentorship in preparing me for this role. I look forward to his continued partnership with the company and wish him all the best.”

Appointments, Digital Transformation, News

Eric Newcomer Joins WSO2 as CTO to Drive Next Generation of Solutions

WSO2, the leader in digital transformation technology, today announced that Eric Newcomer has joined WSO2 as chief technology officer (CTO). Eric comes to WSO2 from Citibank, where he most recently served as global head of security architecture and strategy for the Consumer Bank. He brings more than 35 years of leadership and innovation in enterprise architecture and technologies, open standards, and open source software.

Hundreds of the world’s largest corporations, top universities, and governments now rely on WSO2’s open source, cloud-native solutions to drive their digital transformation—executing over 6 trillion transactions annually. Using WSO2 for API management, integration, and customer identity and access management, these organisations are harnessing the full power of their APIs to securely deliver the digital services and applications powering their businesses.

At WSO2, Eric will play a strategic role in contributing to the company’s technical vision, leading the rollout of WSO2’s next generation of solutions, and promoting the adoption of WSO2 products and services across enterprises worldwide. He is based out of WSO2’s New York office.

“I have had the great pleasure of knowing Eric through our years of working together on open source initiatives where he has contributed to many of the standards driving today’s enterprise, consumer and mobile applications,” said Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana, WSO2 founder and CEO. “Eric’s innovation and his success in leading some of the world’s largest financial firms in navigating their technology strategies and adoption will be invaluable as we drive our next stage of growth.”

“I have known Sanjiva for nearly two decades. He is a man of vision, purpose and action, and the opportunity to work together is one of my motivations for joining WSO2,” said Eric Newcomer, WSO2 CTO. “WSO2 is at the forefront in providing the cloud-native technologies essential for participating in a global economy increasingly driven by trusted digital products and services. I’m excited to work closely with Sanjiva and the team in taking the company to the next level.”

 

About Eric Newcomer

For nearly a decade, Eric held senior architecture roles at two of the world’s leading financial firms: Credit Suisse and Citibank. There he focused on introducing new technologies and best practices, including open source, big data, microservices, Docker and Kubernetes.

Prior to his most recent role at Citibank, Eric served as global head of architecture and innovation for the Treasury and Trade Services division there. Before joining Citigroup, he was the chief architect, Investment Banking division at Credit Suisse. Eric also served as CTO at IONA Technologies until its acquisition by Progress Software. Prior to this role, he was a distinguished engineer at Digital Equipment Corporation (now part of HP), specialising in database and transaction processing.

Long a proponent of open standards and open source, Eric has served on the Eclipse Foundation and OSGi Alliance boards of directors, and he chaired the OSGi Enterprise Expert Group. He is the co-author of WS-Transactions and has contributed to many other industry standards, including SOAP, WSDL, UDDI, WS-Security, OTS, AMQP, STDL, and XA. Additionally, he oversaw IONA’s participation in open source projects, such as CXF, ActiveMQ, and Camel.

Eric is the author or co-author of three widely respected textbooks: Principles of Transaction Processing (with Phil Bernstein), Understanding Web Services, and Understanding SOA with Web Services (with Greg Lomow). He is also co-author of a patent on mobile messaging technology.

About WSO2

Founded in 2005, WSO2 enables the composable enterprise. Our open source, API-first, and decentralised approach helps developers and architects to be more productive and rapidly build digital products to meet demand. Customers choose us for our broad, integrated platform, approach to open source, and digital transformation methodology. The company’s hybrid platform for developing, reusing, running, and managing integrations prevents lock-in through open source software that runs on-premises or in the cloud. With offices in Australia, Brazil, Germany, Sri Lanka, the UK, and the US, WSO2 employs over 600 engineers, consultants, and professionals worldwide. Today, hundreds of leading brands and thousands of global projects execute over 6 trillion transactions annually using WSO2 integration technologies. Visit https://wso2.com to learn more. Follow WSO2 on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Trademarks and registered trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.

 

Appointments, News

Workhuman names Lead Edge Capital Operating Partner Lorrie Norrington and Utmost CEO Annrai O’Toole to Board of Directors

Workhuman®, the world’s fastest-growing Social Recognition® and Continuous Performance Management platform, has announced the appointment of Lorrie Norrington, Operating Partner at Lead Edge Capital, and Annrai O’Toole, CEO at Utmost and former European CTO at Workday, as independent members of its board of directors, effective 16 September 2020.

“Workhuman is on an incredible growth trajectory as more enterprises commit to galvanise their workforces in the new normal that’s been created as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. We’re proud to be attracting such accomplished humans to help us accelerate toward our mission and get to the next level as a company,” said Eric Mosley, Workhuman CEO. “Lorrie and Annrai bring a wealth of deep expertise and experience as seasoned executives that will help propel us along our journey and we are thrilled to welcome them to Workhuman.”

With more than 35 years of experience leading some of the biggest companies in e-commerce, Lorrie Norrington currently serves as an advisor and in an operating partner capacity for Lead Edge Capital, a growth equity firm. Prior to Lead Edge Capital, Ms. Norrington was the President of eBay, CEO of Shopping.com Inc., an Officer at Intuit, Inc., and led a variety of businesses at the General Electric Company over a 20-year period in a broad range of industries.

“The power of human connections delivered by the Workhuman® Cloud platform has transformed work environments during this incredibly difficult time,” said Ms. Norrington. “As we look ahead, human-centred workplaces will be the cornerstone of winning companies. I look forward to bringing my experience in scaling great companies to the board and working in tandem with the leadership team to usher the company into its next phase of accelerated growth.”

Annrai O’Toole is currently Founder and CEO of Utmost, the first extended workforce system. Prior to co-founding Utmost, Mr. O’Toole served as European CTO at Workday, where he also held several positions over his decade-long tenure. Mr. O’Toole was also instrumental in founding IONA Technologies in 1991, where he operated as Director and CTO, playing a key role in the organisation’s eventual IPO in 1997. He later became Co-Founder and CEO of Cape Clear Software, an integration middleware company, which Workday acquired in 2008.

“If this global pandemic has reinforced one thing, it’s that a company’s ability to pivot and thrive is tied directly to the resilience of its culture; leveraging technologies such as Workhuman to spur greater connection and performance is vital to success,” said Mr. O’Toole. “I am excited to work with Eric, my fellow board members, and the leadership team to build even more value in Workhuman as we continue to bring more humanity to workplaces worldwide.”

Key executives to propel growth

Workhuman has seen first-hand the power of Social Recognition throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. In April 2020, for example, the company saw a 40% increase in revenue from April 2019 as companies doubled down on their Social Recognition programs for employees that have been traumatised by what was – and still is – going on in the world. During the pandemic, customers have turned to Workhuman and Social Recognition to keep their employees connected, engaged, and motivated. Merck, for example, introduced its Social Recognition program INSPIRE several years ago to keep employees engaged in a virtual workplace. During the pandemic, the continued recognition moments between peers, rather than manager-down, supported employee engagement in these challenging times.

To further propel the company’s rapid growth and expansion globally, Workhuman has introduced Emily Miller as VP of sales EMEA and Dave Clark as VP of customer success. Emily comes to Workhuman from Gartner, where she was managing vice president for the sales and marketing practice and led a team of 70 leaders, account, and sales executives across Europe and APAC. Based in the U.K., Emily will be responsible for overseeing and expanding Workhuman’s sales team in the EMEA region. Dave, who will be overseeing all teams related to customer success and contributing to the company’s stellar retention and net expansion rates, joins Workhuman from Lavastrom Analytics, where he spent the last six years in executive customer success and support roles.

For more customer examples and information about Workhuman’s pioneering Social Recognition platform, visit https://www.workhuman.com/.

Appointments, News

Trident Worldwide Welcomes Vice President of Sales

Trident Worldwide, the flexible warehousing and logistics platform, is delighted to announce the appointment of Richard Tucker as Vice President of Sales.

Bringing over 20 years wealth, experience and knowledge working in the 3rd party logistics, supply chain, retail, e-commerce, end-to-end SaaS technology and final mile strategy customer facing solutions, Richard has been instrumental in high growth new product go-to market strategies , having worked with some of the biggest brands in the fast paced industry.

Richard joins the business to continue to successfully deliver new business channels, growing revenue from an existing customer base and developing prodigious partnership channels. Due to rapid business growth he will also be managing and developing the new sales and account management team.

Of his new appointment Richard commented: “Trident was founded on the basis of being the cutting-edge warehousing and logistics platform that’s transforming the way thousands of businesses send, store and sell, I am really looking forward to taking the business into 2021 and beyond.”

As the effects of Coronavirus highlight the importance of a streamlined supply chain more than ever, Trident software allows businesses the flexibility to manage their logistics and fulfilment with no restrictions, at a time when businesses most need to focus on growth.

Arjun Thaker, CEO at Trident Worldwide added: “We’re thrilled to welcome Richard to the team. This year has seen logistics demand increase rapidly and we are delighted to have been able to continue to develop our highly-regarded team throughout this time. Richard brings a wealth of knowledge and experience and it’s appointments such as this which will prove vital in ensuring Trident Worldwide continues to be at the forefront of warehousing and logistics services.”

Appointments, Marketing, PR and SEO, News

Studio BLUP, part of the LAB Group of agencies, promotes Laura Lane to Chief Marketing Officer as part of its ongoing growth plans

Studio BLUP, part of the LAB Group of agencies, has promoted Laura Lane to Chief Marketing Officer as part of its ongoing growth plans.

Laura has spent just over a year and a half freelancing at the agency to help manage client projects for the likes of Nerf and Reebok whilst also running her own personalised gift and visual storytelling business My Icon Story (myiconstory.com) where she has created product ranges for global brands including Mr Men, Lovehearts, Transport for London and the Natural History Museum.

Prior to this Laura worked for Wavemaker (previously MEC) for over six years, moving her way up from graduate to Creative Lead, where she worked for clients including Netflix, EE, Paramount Pictures, Peroni, Evian, Nivea, B&Q, Comparethemarket, Johnson & Johnson, Ferrero and TfL. In 2016 Laura was named one of Campaign’s 30 under 30 Rising Stars. She has also won a number of creative awards including a Young Cannes Lion and a D&AD Pencil & Webby Award for her work on Public Health England.

In her new position, Laura will be responsible for overseeing the marketing strategy across the agency, whether it’s the corporate brand positioning or building communities, creating unique content and initiatives to ‘stop the scroll’ and will focus on formalising and launching Studio BLUP’s in house talent network. She will also continue to develop the BLUP brand, managing agency events, product launches and collaborations.

She will work directly alongside BLUP’s Chief Creative Officer, Dines, and Chief Operating Officer, Alex Evans, as part of the leadership team.

Laura’s promotion comes three months after Studio BLUP joined the LAB Group whose portfolio now includes digital agencies VERJ, Riverr and Reflect Digital.

Dines, Chief Creative Officer and Co-Founder at Studio BLUP, said: “We’re really excited to have Laura on board.

“She adds great energy, creativity and strategic thinking, encouraging us to explore areas we have yet to develop.

“With her previous agency experience and running her own business, Laura’s new role as Chief Marketing Officer is the perfect opportunity to introduce a creative and strategic marketing plan for Studio BLUP – to elevate the agency to the next level.

“With the LAB Group merger, we want to represent Studio BLUP as a top agency in Europe.

“This new CMO role really signifies a change in our direction and professional approach. The time is now, the time is right.

“Due to COVID, the industry has been affected but we want to keep progressing.

“Laura can identify different angles for our marketing strategy that will position BLUP as leaders in the industry, including new areas of the business such as the BLUP50 Talent”

Laura Lane, new Chief Marketing Officer at Studio BLUP, said: “This promotion could not have come at a more exciting time and I know I’ll be able to make the greatest impact to Studio BLUP as a growing agency.

“Although I am not a founder, I hand on heart see BLUP as my own business so being promoted to Chief Marketing Officer only reinforces the ambitious journey BLUP are on and I’m thrilled to be shaping the agency’s direction.

“To me, BLUP isn’t work. It’s a collaborative mission to disrupt and shape the future of the creative industries by providing meaningful opportunities to the young creative talent we support.

“I’ve found my new work family.”