Openings & New Hires at CityGrid, Google Wallet, Groupon, and more…

Every two weeks, Search Influence’s Kelly Benish — who knows practically everyone in hyperlocal — covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. (Plus, scroll down for jobs on offer now.)

Jason Finger – Citygrid
Corporate contacts confirmed with Street Fight that Citygrid CEO Jason Finger is officially off the grid after only being appointed CEO in March, 2012. In the past, Finger co-founded SeamlessWeb in 1999 and took the business up to its acquisition by Aramark in 2006 and beyond until February 2010, when he officially stepped down to “explore other challenges.” Since then, Finger has been an entrepreneur-in-residence at Bessemer Ventures and an active local angel investor.

Faisal Masud – Groupon
Faisal Masud, the VP of Groupon Goods, will be leaving the company later this month. One source said he has taken a top position at Staples. Groupon Goods follows a more traditional e-commerce model by selling discounted goods from companies like Dell. Masud was hired away from eBay in 2012 to help build Goods which now reports $2 billion in global billings annual. Nobody knows where Faisal is going but I’ll bet we’ll know at the end of this month.

Steve Altman – DeCarta
I was fortunate enough to meet Steve Altman last week at the ADP conference in Saint Augustine where he caught me up on his recent change. DeCarta snapped him up as their VP of business development earlier in the month, leaving Navteq in something of a tizzy, as he was their cornerstone and VP of consumer products North America. Steve decided to throw in the Nokia towel and head over to the technology platform behind location-based solutions such as Navteq’s PASSPORTIQ product. Steve is a great asset to the DeCarta team already, I saw him closing deals at the conference. Go Steve!

Osama Bedier – Google Wallet
]Google Wallet VP Osama Bedier is checking out to pursue “other opportunities.” Bedier joined Google in 2011, after an eight-year stint at PayPal as that company’s VP of product development. Google Wallet has seen pushback since its 2011 launch, with many carriers refusing to allow it (and sometimes outright Goog-blocking it). Bedier was presented with the unique challenge of promoting sales & brand exposure (a.k.a. herding cats in a highly saturated area) of the mobile payment platform and he took a very humble approach.

James Smith – Verve Mobile
Mobile advertising platform Verve Mobile has appointed James Smith as its CRO last week. Smith will oversee all sales and marketing efforts as he has extensive history in driving revenue to Warner Bros. Entertainment, Flixster, Rotten Tomatoes and the Huffington Post under the same title.  Ages before that, he was SVP of key accounts at AOL where he was responsible for developing and managing AOL’s most important ($$$) advertising partners and over $125M in annual revenue for AOL.

Village Voice Employees Walk Out
Will Bourne, who became editor in chief of The Village Voice in November, and Jessica Lustig, the deputy editor since January, staged a coup this week. The troubled weekly publication has come under fire over the past couple of months, shutting down one office completely and leaving employees out in the cold. The company has been riddled with rumors of bad debt and employment cuts. Christine Brennan, the executive editor of Voice Media Group evidently instructed Bourne & Lustig to cut five positions from the 20-person staff last week, but rather than carrying out the cuts, they resigned. (Will also immediately changed his heading on Linkedin to FORMER editor in chief)

Where to look for jobs now….

Swipely is looking for a sales development representative Apply here.

Word on the street says that Signpost is looking for many different technology and sales roles. Apply here

AT&T is in search of a principal network engineer.  Apply here

Can you do development work? Contact Spyder Trap Marketing about this unique gig. Apply here

Nifty Marketing seeks skilled account managers & sales reps in Burley, Idaho. Submit Your Details Here

Worldnow is hiring a digital media sales director. Apply here

Linkedin is looking to hire a customer education specialist. Apply here

AOL  seeks a senior recruiter. Apply here

Amazon wants to find a could support engineer. Apply here
Can you do software development work? Rumor has it that Google is on the hunt for a software engineer in lovely Chapel Hill, NC. Apply here.

And for employers: Who’s looking to make the jump…

Current  president of online consulting firm, he’s been online since 1999 working with IYP’s & newspapers and eventually moving over to loyalty-based and digital solutions. Willing to relocate from New England.

Past experiences in directing SEO, account management and marketing for agencies and marketing companies since 1996. He is an OG in the industry and I personally vouch for his successes.

Current VP of business development with over 12 years of digital marketing strategy, management, and business development experience in the hospitality and retail verticals. Ready to move in one month, located in the metro DC area.

Current director of development in the Boston metro area, with 6 years of business development, customer acquisition,  partnership building & product development. Available now.

Current VP with 29 years experience in sales management, corporate actions, HR and business development. Located in the Charlotte metro area & ready to move now.

Current PHP developer with 15 years experience, located in the southeast, ready to move now.

If you are interested in any of these candidates e-mail me for more information.

Kelly Benish is VP of sales and marketing at Search Influence, a national online marketing firm focused on SMBs and white label online marketing for publishers and media partners who serve them. You can follow her on Twitter @Lokellsearch.