Just days after securing a buyout deal with Nick Dixon’s Veriteva venture, agency Blueberry Wave has drafted in co-founder of insight consultancy Tree and former VCCP Me chief Steve Mattey as head of operations.
Mattey, who stepped down in March after 15 years at Tree, will report to Blueberry Wave co-founder Steve Schneekloth. He will lead the agency’s technical deployment, database development and customer solutions.
Schneekloth said: “We are delighted that Steve has joined us in this new role to assist the team with the next stage of growth and development of Blueberry Wave. This completes the strengthening of our senior management team.”
Mattey started his career client side at HSBC in 1986, then had spells at City Financial Marketing, Wunderman and Black Cat before launching Tree in June 2001 with Matthew Bayfield, initially as a joint venture with AIS London.
The agency was bought out of AIS by marketing group Cagney (now Cubo Communications Group) in 2008, but Mattey soon found himself as CEO of the group, charged with turning it from loss into profit.
Tree was bought by Chime in January 2010 and merged with what was then Stephens Francis Whitson to form VCCP Me. Bayfield quit in 2013 to join OgilvyOne.
Mattey remained chief executive of Tree, which also had its own client base, including Telefonica O2, VW Group, Virgin, Channel 4, Hiscox, Barnardo’s, BMW, Lever Faberge and Fortnum & Mason. He was also chief operating officer of VCCP Me.
Mattey commented: “Having developed and run my own business for 15 years, I am excited to be joining an entrepreneurial company to offer clients a range of services from strategy, insight and campaign planning through to the omni-channel deployment of campaigns.”
Dixon and business partner Rick Taylor launched Veriteva in November 2014 and took a controlling stake in Blueberry Wave earlier this week. This is the first stage of its plan to build an entrepreneurial group of “best-in-class” companies using a range of multi-channel disciplines with data and analytics at its core.
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