Here are some of the people you will meet at Digital Sparks: all are sponsors of the event, some are speakers too, and I highly recommend you track them down at the event for a conversation.
Richard Jones, CEO, EngageSciences
Richard started his career working for a marketing agency supporting IBM to set up their internet programs. Judging that his capabilities of actually ‘doing stuff’ in the crazy short timescales being demanded by the client were slim to none, Richard decided to move careers. Sales seemed to fit the bill perfectly. Far less emphasis on ‘doing stuff’ and much more about ‘talking about doing stuff’. Twelve wonderful years passed selling web software and marketing automation programs to the likes of EA, Reed Elsevier, Amex, Vodafone and the ruler of Dubai.
However Richard started to feel guilty. He had abandoned his agency colleagues. Remembering how hard everyone had to work when websites were just in their infancy, and realising that now the modern social web had just added much more complexity as well as sky-high client expectations to digital marketing, Richard knew he had to set about helping his old agency buddies. And so EngageSciences was born. The platform that helps agency folk exceed their clients expectations through easily harnessing the power of marketing on the social web – attracting more customers, engaging followers and unleashing fans.
Read a recent TechCrunch post about EngageSciences here.
Tracey Shirtcliff, MD of Sohnar
Tracey is the founder and Managing Director of Sohnar, the creators of the agency management software called Traffic. Tracey and the Sohnar team are striving to deliver Traffic as the no1 solution for all disciplines of the creative industry worldwide. The business runs at high speed because of the pace Tracey sets: currently Traffic is installed into over 650 creative agencies worldwide and Sohnar has offices in Sydney, NYC and the HQ here in London, to support, market and deliver their platform. With a background in client side marketing (she was Head of Marketing at RBS and ran an agency before founding Sohnar), Tracey has an in-depth understanding and knowledge of what agencies need to deliver and what their clients requirements are. She is extremely proud that Sohnar and Traffic are the market leaders – and have won the Queens Award for Enterprise (Innovation) and also a number of other accolades, including rave 5 out 5 reviews from Mac World and Mac User.
Martin Tabery, European Business Director, Celstream
Born in ‘Porsche and Mercedes City’ Stuttgart… but never found a way to work for these companies, although his parents always hoped he would! Martin ended up stranded in the IT business after studying business administration. He worked for Companies like Magirus, Xerox, Sagem, ELSA, Laplink Software and since early 2008 for Celstream/Thinxtream. There he has been responsible for Business Development and Sales in various management positions and he says his favourite activity is to start business from scratch.
Thinxtream’s PointMediaPro™ is one of the world’s most sophisticated digital signage software platforms, with a superior, database-driven design that allows for precise, dynamic scheduling and targeting of media messages across large enterprise networks…
Martin likes to travel for both work and personal life. He likes all kinds of motorsports, skiing, and some fitness activities. He also professes a fondness for Octoberfest which takes place in his home town of Munich.
Come back and visit soon to see more stories about other faces behind the names appearing at Digital Sparks!
.. and so the inaugural Digital Sparks event has taken place. We organisers had an amazing time presenting a brand new event and were very pleased with the response. We had a rich mix of attendees and some very complimentary feedback for the speakers and the event as a whole, as well as some great and very constructive suggestions for improving the format, which will be digested and taken on board for future technology intros and briefings. Here’s a selection of comments from the night:
