Data Activation Company Opens New London Office and Names Former Microsoft Executive as Managing Director of UK

CUPERTINO, CA. and LONDON, UK – September 9, 2013 – BlueKai, the only independent SaaS solution for data management, analysis and activation in marketing, today announced the opening of a new London office along with the appointment of Zuzanna Gierlinska, as Managing Director, UK.  BlueKai’s extension overseas is a key objective heading into 2014 as the company looks to expand its core “big data for marketing” solutions to better serve brands and marketers in Europe and other international markets.

With the widespread adoption of audience customization and targeting as a conventional marketing strategy on Madison Avenue, Europe promises to be the next growth area as brands have seen an unprecedented increase in the number of ways they can use data to increase marketing effectiveness.  A report issued earlier this year shows a staggering 227% increase in brands that spent more than one fifth of their budgets on data-driven marketing over the last 6 months. Furthermore, many marketers were seeing positive impact from data-driven initiatives including an increase in performance, interaction and media efficiency.

“BlueKai is vitally engaged in growing our overall business and we’ve seen revenue grow by more than 9,000% over the past four years,” said Omar Tawakol, CEO of BlueKai.  “Our expansion into the international markets represents and reflects this momentum as we look to build on our US growth and tap into other marketers around the world with our industry leading data activation technology offerings.”

With the expansion comes the appointment of Zuzanna Gierlinska, which is effective immediately.  In this new role, Gierlinska will be responsible for all strategic partnerships and Data Management Platform (DMP) business development efforts in Europe as well as overall management of all UK operations. One of the first tasks she faces is to open a London office and hire an account and sales team.

“We are excited to welcome Zuzanna to the BlueKai team,” added Tawakol. “Zuzanna’s expertise in driving strategic partnerships with key partners will be instrumental as we accelerate our growth and break into new markets. I am confident that she will rapidly expand our first International office.”

Gierlinska served as Global Agency Director at Microsoft, driving the global media & enterprise strategy, relationship and business with leading agency partners. She has 14 years digital media experience focusing predominantly in the ad tech space with prior tenure at aQuantive, Yahoo, and AOL to name but a few.
 
“BlueKai has always been at the forefront of data innovation and I am hugely excited to be joining a company whose technology creates real value.” said Gierlinska. “I’m thrilled at the opportunity to build out the first International office for BlueKai, this is a very exciting point in my career and I can’t wait to get started.”

Gierlinska joins the company on the heels of industry wide recognition for BlueKai. The company was recently named to Inc Magazine’s annual 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies list, showcasing the company’s tremendous growth over the past few years.  BlueKai was also named as a leader in the DMP category in the Forrester Wave Q3 report.