Data services giant Acxiom has once again raided the ad industry by recruiting former Microsoft Advertising boss Scott Howe to be global chief executive.
He replaces John Meyer, who left the company suddenly in March, along with chief finance officer Christopher Wolf.
Earlier this month, Acxiom also ousted both European chief executive Stephen Whyte – a former McCann boss – and European marketing director Joanne King; neither has been replaced.
Howe joined Microsoft as part of the firm’s $6bn (£3.7bn) acquisition of interactive agency aQuantive in 2007.
In his role, as corporate vice president of Microsoft Advertising Business Groups, Howe managed a multi-billion dollar business encompassing online advertising, including search, display, ad networks, in-game, mobile, digital cable and a variety of enterprise software applications. He was also credited with building strong relationships with agencies and advertisers.
Howe is known as a deal-maker, having been credited with unifying Microsoft’s ad networks and managing the sale of the company’s Razorfish interactive ad agency to Publicis nearly two years ago.
News of the appointment comes as the Arkansas-based company released its Q1 earnings, showing net income rose 11.9% to $11m (£6.7m) compared with Q1 2010. Revenues rose 6.8% to $288.9m (£177m). Gross margin shrank 1.6% to 20.6%, driven by increased costs, which rose 9% compared with last year.
The company claims most of the revenue growth came in its core US marketing services and products division. It did not detail how the European division was faring.
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