Acxiom, the interactive marketing services company, has hired former Pearson and NatWest IT executive Lester Pulsford as European chief information officer.
Pulsford, who has nearly 30 years’ experience in the IT industry, will be based at Acxiom’s White Rose Technology Centre in Yorkshire.
Most recently, he was at Pearson UK-owned examination results business Edexcel for five years, where he was IT Director. Pulsford was part of an executive team that transformed the organisation from a charity making modest profits to a key player in Pearson’s portfolio.
Prior to Edexcel, Pulsford spent five years at Yorkshire-based financial services and payments specialist TSYS Inc, where he initially played a central role in building the European business and then designed and delivered a state-of-the-art data centre as senior director IT, operations and facilities. He joined TSYS after 28 years at high-street bank NatWest.
Pulsford commented: “It’s a pleasure to be joining a global powerhouse such as Acxiom to help deliver innovative technology solutions to our client base. As the world’s leading consumer data company, we need to ensure our technology systems are best-in-class to provide optimal service to clients and maintain the highest consumer data privacy standards.”
Acxiom Europe chief executive Stephen Whyte said: “Lester’s vast experience of working on major technology projects, not to mention his tenure of nearly three decades at one of the world’s biggest banks, made him the ideal candidate to take on the job of CIO at Acxiom, overseeing tens of millions of data records and the systems that power the market knowledge we deliver to our clients.”
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