Openings and New Hires at IBM, Verve, Infutor, and Pandora
Every two weeks, Geoff Michener covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. Please send him a message via LinkedIn if you’d like to share any job changes. (Plus, scroll down for jobs on offer now.)
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Pandora Founder Returns as CEO
As Pandora struggles to increase revenue and bring shareholder value, the board has appointed Tim Westergren as CEO. Westergren started Pandora in 2000 and has been an integral part of the company ever since. Music streaming has become increasingly competitive. The big players include Spotify, Apple Music, and SoundCloud are adding pressure to the 16-year-old company to diversify its product offerings and monetize its core products.
Founder and CEO of Lavu Resigns
Andy Lim, the founder and CEO of Lavu, has stepped down as CEO but Lim will remain on the company’s board. The iPad point-of-sale company has brought on seasoned executive Marc Chesley to run the business. Chesley was CTO of Infusionsoft for the past 10 years. His leadership and experience in the small business space will be instrumental to Lavu as the business competes for customers in a crowded space (Square, Revel, Clover, Micros, etc). According to the company, they have over 4,000 clients and continue to grow aggressively. Most recently, Lavu raised $15m in venture capital in June 2015.
AOL Exec Joins IBM
After completing the acquisition of AOL to Verizon, Bob Lord has left AOL as President to join IBM as Chief Digital Officer. According to Lord’s bio, he Grew AOL revenues from $1.5B to over $3.0B through both M&A and organic growth. Its no surprise based on normal practices that the AOL executive departed after the acquisition. What’s more interesting is that Lord joined IBM as their new digital head. IBM which is known for hardware and software will now have a digital expert and executive to take on major challenges and compete in the complicated digital sphere.
New CRO at Unacast
Chris Cunningham is joining Unacast, the world’s largest network of beacon and proximity data, as Chief Revenue Officer. Before taking on a full-time role, Cunningham was Unacast advisor since November 2015. He will oversee the creation, development, and monetization of ad and data products at the company. He will continue to run C2 Ventures — a seed investment and advisory firm.
Early Localeze Exec Departs for Infutor
Former Neustar and Localeze sales exec Brian Wool has joined Infutor Data Solutions as Executive Vice President of Sales. Wool will oversee the sales organization and the expansion of Infutor’s on-demand data services. Wool was a founding member of Localeze in 2002, which was acquired by Neustar in 2011. He stayed on the Neustar team until joining Infutor.
Verve Hires Exec From Acxiom
Verve continues to add staff following the hire of Nada Stirratt as CEO last year. The company recently brought on Ian James to run Verve’s international business. The UK based exec was most recently European Managing Director and GVP at Acxiom.Yik Yak,Pandora, Axcion,
New Hire at Javelin Strategy & Research
Industry veteran Emmett Higdon has joined Javelin Strategy & Research as Director of Mobile. Before joining the team, Higdon was Senior Director of Mobile Strategy at TIAA-CREF and ran his own consulting company.
Yik Yak CTO Drops Out
The formerly popular anonymous chat app Yik Yak has been fading lately, according to TechCrunch, which cites “download stats, traffic charts, surveys and a source that says the college app’s monthly user count has been declining.” In the past year and a half, the company has lost “its VP of Product, Director of Engineering, Lead Product Designer and other senior employees” and now the company’s original CTO Tom Chernetsky has left as well.
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Looking for a new job? Here are some openings!
Street Fight is looking to add a talented, dynamic managing editor and a few new regular columnists. Write [email protected] for more info.
Review Trackers has a bunch of open positions in sales and analytics.
Mapquest is looking for a director of product management, among many positions.
EatStreet is looking for mobile and web designers as well as a software engineer.
Factual is seeking a director of product management.
Ground Signal has a number of jobs available in enterprise sales and business development.
Netsertive has an opening for a digital marketing strategist.
Button is seeking a developer evangelist, among several other positions.
TruMeasure is looking for a business development manager. Live/work where you want & meet a few times a year for team bonding and for strategic initiative pow-wows.
RetailMeNot is looking for a vice president of consumer marketing.
Vistaprint is looking for a channel marketing specialist.
Changed jobs or have one to list? Let us know!
Geoffrey Michener is the co-founder of ProspectWise and head of agency relations at Matchcraft.
