ITV Hires Google's Speake for Marketing / MR Role

UK broadcaster ITV has appointed former Google UK and Ireland Strategic Marketing Director Sarah Speake as Director of Commercial Marketing and Research. She will replace Paul Gilshan who left earlier in the year to join Freesat.

ITV is the largest commercial television network in the UK, operating a family of channels and delivering content across multiple platforms.

Speake (pictured) will join later in the year, and brings almost twenty years' experience in the tech media sector. Most recently at Google, she was responsible for driving sales, marketing, product and engineering alignment, along with multichannel attribution modelling, and content ownership. Prior to joining Google in 2006, she worked for Nielsen-owned VNU Global Media as European Client Services Manager, and held senior roles at Carat and IDG Communications.

In her new position, she is tasked with driving ITV's commercial marketing strategy, while also developing the broadcaster's 'value-led' research projects.

She will report to Group Marketing and Research Director Rufus Radcliffe, who comments: 'This is a key appointment for ITV as we look to consolidate and build upon the advances we've made since our successful rebrand earlier this year. Sarah is an exceptional talent and we are thrilled to have attracted such an accomplished, passionate leader to this strategically important role.'

Speake replaces Gilshan, who left in March to join ITV/BBC joint venture Freesat as Marketing & Communications Director. During his career, he also served as Head of Marketing at The Times and at BskyB, and he was an AD at OMD UK.

Web site: www.itv.com .