Tag Archives: People Moves

Appointments, News

CTI Digital appoint WPP’s Justin Bland as Chief Operating Officer and Laura Packwood as Human Resource Director

CTI Digital has appointed Justin Bland as Chief Operating Officer to bolster the executive leadership team. In his remit, Justin is charged with developing and enhancing the delivery of work for CTI’s clients and improving operational performance across the full suite of services offered by the integrated digital agency.

Justin joins CTI with over 13 years in the marketing industry, working at agencies such as Razorfish, R/GA, Essence and Wunderman, and, most recently, at an agency and group level at WPP and GroupM as Global Executive Director of People, Operations and Transformation.

He’s an experienced and versatile operator. At Wunderman North America, he helped establish the Operations practice and led the Design Kitchen business as MD of the SF office, focusing on social content creation. He then went on to design, launch and grow Essence and GroupM’s offshore product, scaling it to over 1,000 specialists in four countries within a two-year period. Most recently, Justin was part of WPP’s Open-X team, partnering with Coca-Cola to drive its marketing transformation across the entire customer journey. He was a leadership team member who designed and built a brand new fully integrated studio operating model specifically for Coca-Cola, which included a 1,500-strong team deployed across nine global studios.

On his role at CTI, Justin said, “CTI is well positioned in the market to continue its track record of sustained success, and I look forward to helping accelerate its growth rate. Its core DNA, talent, tech capabilities, and proposition are all very strong, along with the opportunities to integrate client needs across the digital marketing ecosystem. I’m thrilled to join the outstanding team of people at CTI, and I look forward to partnering with the executive leadership to power the company through the next phase of its exciting journey.”

Justin will focus on agency client delivery, business growth and margin. He leads Operations across the entire CTI portfolio, including its project management, facilities and IT teams. In addition, he will optimise the design and utilisation of the business’s talent and resources for maximum productivity and growth.

Laura Packwood joins as Human Resource Director and will sit as part of the agency’s Senior Leadership Team. Laura joins from AppLearn, a global tech business that has recently undergone a successful sale. At AppLearn, Laura was the Global VP of People. Laura joins CTI at a time when the agency is reinvesting in its global people strategy and will be driving significant change to enhance the employee value proposition to ensure that CTI becomes a destination employer for digital talent across the UK and also internationally.

Laura said: “I am delighted to join CTI during this phase of growth. I’m looking forward to championing our incredible teams, nurturing their talents and fostering a culture of growth and innovation. It’s an exciting time to join CTI, and I’m optimistic about what we can achieve together with our employees.”

CTI CEO Chris Woodward said: “With the arrival of Justin, we have now completed the transformation of our executive leadership team in less than six months. Justin brings substantial international experience, and it is a testament to our organisation’s ambition that we can attract someone of his calibre. He will make a very fast impact on our organisation and benefit our people and clients.

“It is equally pleasing that Laura is joining us at this important moment; Laura also brings significant experience that will benefit our people and our clients as we seek to scale the business over the next two years. Her track record speaks for itself, and I look forward to working with Laura to build the strongest employee value proposition of any agency in the UK.” Chris added.

News

Napier welcomes industry leader Julian Clarke to lead its global corporate development

Napier, a global end-to-end intelligent compliance platform and provider of advanced financial crime risk management solutions, has announced the appointment of Julian Clarke as its new Global Head of Corporate Development.

In his new role, Clarke is set to work closely with Napier’s CEO, Greg Watson, to develop a robust strategy for the firm’s global third-party distribution, including partnerships and alliances.

Clarke’s addition to the Napier team brings considerable expertise in corporate development, gained from over 20 years at the likes of Capgemini, Sopra Steria and, most recently, as Fenergo’s Vice President and Head of Global Partners and Alliances.

Continuing the award-winning RegTech’s trajectory of aggressive expansion, corporate development under Clarke will form a key pillar of Napier’s growth strategy over the next several years, with a view to solidify its presence in existing markets and expand its global footprint.

“It is tremendously exciting to join Napier at this point of its expansion. As a market-leading vendor offering exceptional technology to combat financial crime, Napier is in an excellent position to build upon and foster new relationships to create a world-class distribution network to deliver the best services and new opportunities for our clients,” said Clarke.

This key hire signals the next phase of the firm’s already thriving partners programme, which has been built and is overseen by Napier’s Global Head of Partnerships, Melissa Warren. Securing partnerships and third-party alliances worldwide, the UK-headquartered SaaS provider will leverage the expertise of regional networks to deliver its solutions with greater customisation to the requirements of local regulations, implementation needs, risk landscapes and cultural nuances.

 

“As Napier continues to grow, partnerships and alliances will form a key part of our strategy in delivering a superior customer experience and help our clients build the most effective financial crime risk management ecosystem. We are thrilled to have Julian oversee this drive which will broaden our offering by complementing our highly flexible technology with strategically-chosen partners, products and services,” said Greg Watson, CEO at Napier.

With presence in key financial markets across the globe such as North America, the Middle East, the UK, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region, Napier serves over 200 enterprise clients globally including banks, payment providers, asset managers, FX, gaming, crypto exchanges and other financial institutions.

Appointments, News

Greg Watson takes the helm as CEO of Napier

Former CEO Julian Dixon moves to a full-time role as Founder and Board Member

Napier, a global end-to-end intelligent compliance platform and provider of advanced financial crime risk management solutions, has announced that its current Chief Operations Officer Greg Watson, is to take the helm as Chief Executive Officer with immediate effect, as former CEO Julian Dixon moves into a full-time role as Founder and Board Member.

Greg’s tenure at Napier as well his wealth of experience in operational management and business strategy, gained at the likes of Fenergo, HSBC and UBS, makes him the ideal choice to lead Napier into its next phase of growth, building on the past several successful years of rapid expansion for the flourishing company.

“Greg’s an outstanding candidate for the position. His experience and understanding of our products and clients is exemplary, as is his commitment to making Napier the pre-eminent provider of AI-enhanced financial crime risk management software. I’m looking forward to seeing him take the company from strength to strength,” said Julian Dixon.

Since joining the award-winning company in 2020, Greg has worked closely with Julian and the executive team at Napier to put in place a robust operating model to support Napier’s rapid growth.

Greg Watson said: “I am proud to be taking the mantle from Julian. Since founding Napier in 2015, Julian has built a world-class tech company from the ground up, steering it through a period of exceptional and rapid growth into the leading financial crime risk management business that it is. Filling Julian’s boots will be no easy task, but this change is very much about evolution, rather than revolution. My job now is to take Napier to even greater heights, as we continue to innovate and to deliver increasingly higher levels of customer satisfaction.”

Following a period of aggressive expansion, Napier has presence in key financial hubs across the globe including North America, UK, Europe and APAC. As provider of choice to over 200 enterprise clients including banks, payment providers, asset managers, FX, gaming, crypto exchanges and other financial institutions, Napier doubled its annual revenues in 2021 by providing its award-winning AI-enhanced platform for intelligent AML and financial crime compliance.

Napier’s Board of Directors also includes Andy Maguire, Chair of Global Banking and Managing Director and Senior Partner in the London office of The Boston Consulting Group. Other Board Directors include senior partners from Big Ideas Group, Rosa Howard and its founder Sebastian Gray, while Wall Street veteran John Neary and ex-PwC partner John Barnsley sit in global advisory roles.

About Napier

Napier is a new breed of financial crime compliance technology specialist. Our intelligent compliance platform is transforming compliance from legal obligation to competitive edge. All Napier products are built using cutting-edge technology, and the platform can be delivered via public cloud, private cloud or on-premise. (https://www.napier.ai/)

Appointments, News

Armadillo appoints Wunderman Thompson’s Andrew Terry as Head of Strategy

Bristol-based CRM agency, Armadillo, has named Wunderman Thompson’s Andrew Terry as new Head of Strategy. Terry will work across its big-name brands including McDonald’s, Disney and Carnival UK.  

Andrew Terry brings with him a rich history of work in the marketing and advertising industries. Most recently Data Strategy Director at Wunderman Thompson, Terry spent three years working across Shell Drivers’ Club globally, and two subsequent years on its multi-million-pound BT account.  

At Wunderman Thompson, Terry trained up the global team and worked across a wide range of different international markets, optimising the model to be as efficient as possible. Always starting with the question ‘How do we understand customers better?’, Terry was responsible for using data to inform personalisation and measurement; loyalty and membership benefits being at the forefront of his role.  

With in-depth knowledge of data acquisition and optimisation, social and digital data strategies and CRM data optimisation, Andrew Terry’s career has spanned the B2B and B2C sectors, with a firm focus on driving excellent ROI.  

Previous roles also included Data and Marketing Specialist at Newsquest, the UK’s second largest publisher of local media, in which Terry worked with internal and external data to support the centralised recruitment ad sales process and deliver business intelligence garnered from transactional information from both regional and economic trends. 

As Head of Strategy, Andrew Terry will work across all Armadillo accounts with a focus on putting data at the heart of decisions made for customers, using data creatively to change customer behaviour and deliver unrivalled ROI; reaching the right people, the right way at the right time. Keen to involve each part of the agency in achieving this, Terry will ensure results are used to feed back into strategy for maximum effect.  

Armadillo CEO, James Ray, comments: “With the rapid growth trajectory of Armadillo, we value outstanding strategy at the heart of all of our campaigns. From the moment we met Andrew we were blown away by his passion and enthusiasm for results-driven strategy. His vast experience and knowledge were exactly what we were looking for and we’re thrilled to welcome him to the team.” 

Andrew Terry adds: “The people at Armadillo are very, very good at what they do. Their long-lasting relationships with big-name clients are a fantastic indication of just how strong they and their operations really are. It’s an incredibly exciting time to be joining the agency.  

“Like most of the UK over the last 18 months I’ve established a relationship with more new brands than ever before & this presents a huge opportunity for brands entering the CRM space.  CRM is a big, big world but Armadillo is at the forefront. They have the unique ability to pull people together and form teams around the client with remarkable pace and effectiveness. Armadillo is a fantastic blend of passion and enthusiasm; skill and talent and I can’t wait to dive in.”