GroupM has made two senior hires to its newly named 'Connect' and Plista brands as it aims to strengthen the group’s capabilities in digital media.
Renee Fittock joins GroupM Connect, which was formerly AgencyM, as general manager from her most recent post as head of trading and platforms at Yahoo7, where she was overseeing the programmatic buying and selling operations, as well as developing the media company’s performance solutions and managing technology partnerships.
Gary Nissim was general manager of AgencyM, but left in February to launch Indago Digital - a digital marketing agency that specialises in running acquisition campaigns. He launched with clients such as the BBC Worldwide Australia and New Zealand, the IAB, Crown Resorts, Contiki Holidays and helloworld.
GroupM Connect brings together the group’s digital biddable media operations, including search, social, mobile and programmatic buying units.
At GroupM’s content distribution platform, Plista, Brett Poole takes on the role of general manager. Poole spent eight years at Yahoo, most notably leading the Yahoo7's search business and broader platform, product and engineering efforts as platform director.
Plista landed on Australian shores in January and at the time GroupM's head of digital, John Miskelly, told AdNews that Plista would be working with every major publisher in Australia.
“We're there or thereabouts with every major publisher in Australia so, as you can imagine, there is a lot of tyre kicking involved, that's understandable. But most of the publishers have really dug deep under Plista and found out what we do and, most importantly, don't do and they all seem pretty conformable, so we're pretty confident,” Miskelly said.
Of the new appointments Miskelly added: “Renee and Brett represent the very best talent when it comes to the online and advertising technology industry.
“Recruiting leaders of this calibre demonstrates the group’s commitment to further strengthening our digital products and services for our clients. Both will add to our already strong digital leadership team across the agency management teams and Xaxis.”
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