Melbourne, Australia – Global research technology platform Glow has announced the appointment of Matt Houltham as the firm’s first-ever chief marketing officer.
Prior to his new stint at Glow, he had already served with Glow as one with the firm’s advisory board for two years.
Houltham was previously the CEO of Havas Media ANZ, in which he vacated said position last December after five years at the company. He was initially the group managing director of integrated agency Havas Melbourne, before expanding his remit to include responsibility for Havas Media across ANZ.
“It is quite a jump to the left for me, after two decades of championing agency life. I’ve always loved working with emerging businesses. It meant I got to help them in a more holistic way – with brand as well as marcomms and often stretching into product and service experience,” Houltham stated.
He has also had previous stints with creative agency Naked Communications as managing director for its Australian market.
“The intrigue for me has always been the opportunity to apply a mix of skills to the challenge of simultaneously building the product/brand/experience with limited resources. It’s why I’ve sat on a number of advisory boards in the past few years, including Glow’s, and spent the first half of this year consulting to start-ups and agencies,” he added.
Speaking about his new position at Glow, he said that he feels privileged to have joined their ‘small but perfectly formed’ crew, adding that they have an awesome product – a consumer research platform that helps businesses big and small make better commercial decisions – but they also have a strong sense of purpose which was really important to him.
Meanwhile, Tim Clover, founder and CEO at Glow, stated that he was delighted to secure the services of Houltham.
“We have worked with Matt for a couple of years and it seemed a natural progression to bring him on full-time to bolster our senior management team at a time when we are growing quickly and expanding internationally,” Clover commented.
In recent months Glow has hired talent in Australia, the UK and Asia as well as appointing several new senior members to their advisory board, including US research industry veteran and entrepreneur Sima Vasa, and 99designs co-founder and tech veteran Lachlan Donald.