Key Tech Hires and Departures in June
360Leaders
Last month saw several key tech hires and departures across the industry. 360Leaders has collected tech moves that we thought you should know about. Stand out key tech hires in June were Accel’s new Venture Partner — an ex-Facebook Executive who will be looking after Israel, HTC’s new CFO, who had been long overdue, and Arun Sarin, former CEO of Vodafone taking on another advisory board seat.
VC firm Accel Partners has made a key tech hire to it’s London office by welcoming on board a new Venture Partner to focus on Israel. Nir Blumberger has joined from Facebook, where he was a Corporate Development Executive, and was involved in M&A and strategy in areas such as virtual/augmented reality, messaging and video. Prior to his time at the social networking behemoth, he worked for McKinsey in Europe and Israel. Blumberger has an MBA from Stanford University and previously studied computer science at The Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, where he participated in the Zell Entrepreneurship Program. He has also co-founded two technology startups and was a participant at Singularity University’s Graduate Studies Program.
Apple has hired a security expert, Jon Callas, in order to bolster the security of its handsets following the recent encryption clash with US federal authorities. Jon Callas is a noted cryptography expert who has co-founded a number of well-known companies, including PGP Corp and Silent Circle. This is not the first time that Callas has worked for Apple, he has previously been one of the key tech hires for the iPad maker in 1995 to 1997 and held the position of ‘Senior Scientist II’, but left a year before Steve Jobs returned to the ailing company. He also worked for Apple between 2009 and 2011, where he was responsible for an encryption system to protect data stored on a Macintosh computer.
360Leaders has been busy helping the global music streaming player Deezer to make several key tech hires to it’s operations around the world. Oscar Castellano joined Deezer as its new Managing Director for Latin America. Castellano will be based in Miami and joins from Brightstar, where he was VP Global Distribution. At Deezer, he will be reporting into Chief International Officer and will be responsible for leading the entire LATAM region. Deezer also hired a new VP of Communications, Julia Herd to lead the development and execution of a global communications strategy. She previously worked at HTC, where she held various positions within communications and PR function.
Fox Networks Group’s long-standing chief finance officer (CFO), Del Mayberry, is due to step down after more than 30 years at the company. FNG’s executive VP, business operations and development, Ravi Ahuja, will take over the CFO role. In his new post Ahuja will directly manage finance and accounting and will continue to oversee business development for all FNG business units. Mayberry joined Fox in 1983 and after moving up through the company was promoted to executive vice-president and chief financial officer for the Fox Networks Group in 2002. Ahuja meanwhile joined Fox in 2007 from Virgin Entertainment Group where he was Chief Financial Officer. He is currently on the boards of Roku and YES Network and has also served on the LA Mayor’s Council on innovation and industry.
HTC, a Taiwanese smartphone maker, has made a key tech hire by appointing Chia-Lin Chang as its new chief financial officer as his predecessor, Winston Yung, shifts focus to corporate development. Chia-Lin, who has previously worked for Goldman Sachs and Motorola and has a PhD in electrical engineering from Princeton, will oversee corporate finance, accounting, strategic acquisition and investment and investor relations.
Paytm’s payments bank partnerships head Vikas Purohit has quit. In January, Paytm had appointed Purohit into a leadership position for its payments bank, and said it planned to hire 3,000 people for the same business. Purohit was previously the director of fashion at Amazon before he joined Paytm. Prior to that, he worked as the COO of Planet Retail, head of retail at Reliance Brands, head of business operations at Tommy Hilfiger and brand initiatives manager at Madura Garments.
Truecaller’s latest key tech hire is Arun Sarin who recently joined its advisory board. Sarin was the CEO of the Vodafone Group for 5 years and serves as an advisor on the boards of Cisco Systems, Charles Schwab, Blackhawk Networks, Ola Cabs, Devicescape and Safeway, Inc. He also served as a senior advisor at the private equity firm KKR.
Trustly, the Swedish FinTech company, recently announced the opening of its office in London, together with the appointment of new key tech hire, Michael Parkinson as General Manager of Trustly UK and Director of Travel and Airlines. Parkinson has over a decade of experience in payments, having held various senior positions at Worldpay, including Head of Partnerships and Head of Global Corporate Sales. At Trustly UK, Parkinson will head business development for the Travel and Airlines segment, along with managing day-to-day operations.
Twitter has promoted Ross Hoffman as its VP of global media. Hoffman has been at Twitter since 2010, where he previously held the role as media partnerships manager, brand strategist, head of brand strategy East and UK, director of brand strategy of US and as senior director of global brand strategy. Before that, he worked with YouTube, Google and William Morris Agency. Hoffman replaces Nathan Hubbard who quit in May.
Xaxis EMEA chief executive Caspar Schlickum is departing the WPP-owned trading desk to take on the chief executive role for Wunderman in APAC. Schlickum — who was named Digital Trading Leader of the year at the 2016 DTA’s — was one of the founding staff members when WPP set up its trading desk over five years ago. Since then the unit has made several acquisitions, with Schlikum eventually rising to chief executive of its EMEA business, which spans 25 markets and 500 staff, including developers and data scientists. In Wunderman, Schlickum will be tasked with expanding the agency across the Asia Pacific region, with a focus on digital and data-driven marketing.
