DigitalMR Hires First Chief Operating Officer

London-based DigitalMR has appointed former Synovate ops director Efthymios (Akis) Damalis as Chief Operating Officer. He will be based in Cyprus.

Founded in 2010, DigitalMR offers proprietary solutions for social media intelligence and DIY private online communities - listening247 and communities247 respectively. The company specialises in using artificial intelligence for text and image analytics, and the integration of social media, survey and sales data.

Damalis (pictured) previously spent more than a decade at Synovate (acquired by Ipsos in 2011), where he latterly served as Operations Director for the Central Eastern Europe, Middle East and North African regions. In this role, he was charged with addressing operational issues, and developing and enhancing policy and procedures covering performance, resource planning, and data delivery requirements. During his time with the firm, he also created and rolled out a unified online project tracking system across all 30 offices. Since leaving, he has held senior roles with commercial development company D&D Holdings, and renewable energy specialist DREAM EP Global Energy, and he was a founding member of land development business IHL.

Commenting on the appointment, CEO Michalis Michael said: 'Akis and I worked together at MEMRB and Synovate for over a decade. I always had great respect for his engineering approach to creating systems and processes and his second to none people skills. I look forward to the great things I know he will achieve with his team out of Cyprus. I am confident that, not only will we reach the same levels of success we enjoyed working together at Synovate, but will exceed them by far'.

Web site: www.digital-mr.com .