(L-R): Dave Bennett, Rise at Seven, Claire Butters, Sale Sharks.

This week's national appointments

This week’s round up of national appointments includes Rise at Seven, Mark Roberts Motion Control, Rugby League World Cup 2021 Revenue and Communications, and Sale Sharks. Read on to find out more.

Dave Bennett, Rise at Seven

The appointment of Dave Bennett to the senior leadership team comes as the agency gears up for its launch in the US.

Rise at Seven, the Search-first creative agency was founded by Carrie Rose and Stephen Kenwright in 2019, reaching over 100+ staff in two years and four offices across London, Sheffield, Manchester, and now New York.

With the agency fast expanding and growing in the states, and a flow of numerous account wins including Monzo, Klarna, Boxt, Muscle Foods, Mark Hill, and more - the agency adds over 30 years of experience in agency management to its senior leadership team.

Dave will be working alongside Nick Hussey, their now COO, snatched from agencies Jaywing, Mccann and Mother as well as Luke Cope, Rise at Seven’s content marketing director, and Phoebe Russell, head of brand campaigns (ex Global Head of Brand at Look Fantastic, The Hut Group) and PR director WIll Hobson.

Dave has held senior leadership positions at agencies like Freuds, Edelman, Fleishman Hillard, and Exposure, and has led client work for Xbox, LEGO, Netflix, Converse, Champion, and Uniqlo among many others.

The hire comes after Rise at Seven’s announcement that they are now expanding to NYC to get access to a whole new talent pool of creatives and digital talent and growth into the German, Spanish, and Netherlands markets too.

The US move will be led by CEO and Co-founder Carrie Rose.

On Dave’s appointment, Carrie Rose, CEO and Co-Founder of Rise at Seven, said: “Dave is the perfect example of where the agency is going, With a vast amount of experience in consumer and b2b communications, on an international scale - Dave brings a huge amount of value to Rise at Sevens search-first creative offering and growth plans.

“Our brand, PR, and social teams coupled with the search, data, and technical offering - is the future of the creative industry, and appointing Dave to take a lead on that is a huge jump for us as an agency.

Carrie concluded: “From building brands in fashion and lifestyle to leading client work for Xbox and Netflix, he has vast expertise that will be integral to taking our offering to the next level.”

Graeme Kelly, Mark Roberts Motion Control

Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) has announced experienced design engineer Graeme Kelly is the latest recruit to its Broadcast division.

Kelly, who joins from senior engineering and management roles at Grass Valley, is MRMC’s new Head of Broadcast Products.

In over a decade at Grass Valley, Graeme has been at the cutting edge of the industry-wide transition from SDI to IP. He joined in 2011 as principal engineer in the Routing Group, contributing architecture, hardware and FPGA designs to GV’s successful Sirius Routing range.

He led the team within GV working on both SDI and IP interfaced multiviewers helping the MV-8 Series become a cornerstone of GV’s Live Production Business and as Senior Manager he also assumed responsibility for the software-defined Kaleido IP multiviewing platform.

Armed with a Masters Degree in Electronics and Physics from the University of Glasgow, Graeme started his career at Snell & Wilcox as a design engineer and held various design and technical positions with a number of broadcast companies including Gennum, Sigma Designs and Vutrix before arriving at Grass Valley.

He will bring all of this vast experience to bear at MRMC working alongside Paddy Taylor, head of broadcast at MRMC and the Broadcast team.

Graeme Kelly said: “This industry is constantly changing because of technology advances and the clever application of that technology by engineering and design teams collaborating on research, development and approach to market.

“I am very excited to be joining a company at the forefront of extending technology into live broadcast and to helping my colleagues at MRMC continue to inspire and innovate new products and services.”

Paddy Taylor, head of Broadcast at MRMC said: “I am thrilled to welcome Graeme to the MRMC team and our expanding broadcast division. His passion for product and his technical expertise are clear for all to see and I know that with Graeme on board our drive for excellence can only attain new heights.”

The Broadcast division at MRMC develops and markets a range of remote camera solutions designed from studios to live sports productions. These include but are not limited to PTZs and robotic pods, real-time pan bar controls and automated player tracking software to the Polymotion Chat automated camera tracking solution.

Mick Hogan, Rob Meaden, Lucy Jones, Rugby League World Cup 2021 Revenue and Communications

Rugby League World Cup 2021 (RLWC2021) has revealed its new Revenue and Communications team as the organisation announces its new marketing structure and agency roster.

Leading the Revenue team is experienced sports consultant Mick Hogan who has worked at the highest level across both codes of rugby since the early 1990’s. Mick is joined on the senior leadership team by Upneet Thandi, who joins RLWC2021 as Head of Marketing from Scottish Rugby.

Rob Meaden, formerly of the EFL and Birmingham 2022, has joined the tournament as Head of Communications and is a member of the senior leadership team.

Rob will work alongside Abby Burton, who joins from British Cycling as Communications Lead, and specialist PR agency Hatch, who have successfully worked with the tournament organisers for the last five years.

The senior leadership team has been further bolstered through the promotion of Lucy Jones (Head of Match Operations), who has extensive experience of managing major sports events, and Jenn Stock, a consultant who will lead on culture and wellbeing.

Bonded digital and media agency have been appointed to manage all paid media for the tournament, bringing a wealth of experience.

The remit of the Revenue team is to raise awareness about the tournament, drive sales and ensure there is a world class customer experience across the 61 fixtures taking place. RLWC2021 is a tournament with a purpose and a new marketing focus will see civic pride across the tournament’s 18 host towns and cities.

On his appointment and the new team Mick Hogan, director of revenue, said: “We have a completely new and exciting challenge ahead of ourselves this year, a year full of international sporting events here in the UK.

“We believe the internal appointments and the agency relationships we’ve developed will allow us to showcase Rugby League to a bigger audience than ever before and will help drive sales while significantly making a difference to the sport regionally, nationally and internationally.”

Claire Butters, Paige Edwards, Sale Sharks

Premiership rugby club Sale Sharks has announced two key appointments.

Claire Butters joined the club’s marketing team in the summer from footwear giant Brooks but her role has now been extended to include responsibility for the sales team as part of a restructure of the club’s commercial teams.

Paige Edwards joins the club as digital marketing manager from marketing agency Wavemaker, where she worked as an SEO manager. Sharks CEO Sid Sutton hailed the new appointments and said it was a sign of progress right across the club.

Sharks CEO Sid Sutton said: “We are at the start of a new era for Sale Sharks on the pitch and off it as well and it’s an incredibly exciting time to welcome Paige to the club and extend Claire’s role to lead the sales team.

“There is so much potential right across the club and building the commercial and marketing teams so we are better placed to maximise the opportunities ahead has been a huge priority.

“I’m delighted we could attract people of this calibre. Claire has a wealth of experience in sports marketing and since she joined Sharks, she has made a huge impact right across the club. We’re confident Paige will help us take our digital offering to a new level as we grow the fanbase in the North.

Sid added: “Both Claire and Paige wanted to join us because they can see the opportunity we have with the club and believe in what we are building. I can’t wait to see the impact they are going to make.”

Since September 2018, Claire had worked as Brooks’ Marketing Manager for UK, Ireland and Benelux, and prior to that she held senior roles at both Asics and Reebok

Her new role as sales and marketing director will see her take responsibility for the Sharks sales team and commercial revenue as well as developing the brand, marketing, content, social media and PR across the club.

Paige joins the club to develop its digital strategy as well as taking the lead on the club website, email communications and pushing the CRM to the next level.

Claire said: “It’s a really exciting time for the club on and off the field and I’m loving the challenge of growing the club and its fanbase right across the North. We’ve got so much ambition and there’s so much we want to achieve as a club. We’re just at the beginning.”


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