Former Cambridge Analytica Exec Named DPL CEO

Former Cambridge Analytica CMO Jean Pierre van Tiel has been promoted to the position of Chief Executive Officer at behavioural science and data science-led targeting specialist DPL, after the company secured £1.3m in an investment round.

London-headquartered DPL (Data Practitioners Ltd) focuses on 'personality-based' marketing, to understand audiences at an individual level and provide insight into how to best engage those individuals. Its brand personality assessment service uses natural language processing and behavioural science to identify a brand's 'personality' on Twitter, and analyze how well this resonates with its Twitter audience. The firm can then segment a Twitter audience based on personality profiles, enabling clients to target those customers/prospects. DPL also uses the same process to identify competitors' Twitter audiences.

Former COO van Tiel (pictured) has become CEO, having joined in 2018, after serving as Chief Marketing Officer of political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. His previous employer was accused of illegally collecting the personal data of up to 87 million Facebook users, largely without users' permission or knowledge, which could then be matched to electoral rolls. Earlier in his career, van Tiel held senior roles at Microsoft, Intel, and Dixons Carphone.

DPL's funding round has been led by the Angel CoFund, and will be used to accelerate development of the firm's platform. In his new role, van Tiel replaces David Marshall, who has moved into a non-exec director role. 'We're delighted to have secured this investment from Angel CoFund, which will help us to accelerate our next stage of growth,' van Tiel stated. 'Most firms in our space are too focused on what people did yesterday as a way of modelling future potential activity. Our platform enables clients to humanise data-driven marketing at scale by adding personality-based insights into their creative development and media execution strategies. Our goal is to make what we do accessible and affordable to enterprises of all sizes - from start-ups to SMEs to large corporates,' he added.

Web site: www.dpl.ai .