Neil Evans, the man who led the creation of Amaze One – the St Ives-owned direct marketing agency formed from a joint venture between Amaze and Occam – has quit the business to take a major stake in Cheltenham-based charity agency DMS in a move which sees him become chief executive.
Set up in 1979, DMS was bought out by Mosaic Print Management founders Tony Gill and Steve Smith in 2012, when its former parent company The Involve Marketing Partnership (previously Millennium Group) went bust.
Its clients include Macmillan, Action for Blind People, British Red Cross , International Fund for Animal Welfare, Royal Voluntary Service and Deaf Blind UK; it also works for commercial clients.
Evans joined Occam in 2006 as managing director; within four years the business had been bought by St Ives in a deal worth £12m.
In 2014, Evans hatched the plan to get the data business working more closely with sister St Ives business Amaze and Amaze One was launched in January 2015 to take on the likes of Lida and Partners Andrews Aldridge in the so-called “customer engagement” space.
Since then he has had two jobs, working across both Occam and Amaze One.
Prior to joining Occam, Evans was head of database solutions sales at Callcredit and has also worked at the Database Group and the Response Team.
It is not yet known who will succeed Evans at Amaze One, although Janet Snedden, the agency’s strategy director who was handed the additional role of deputy managing director of the business in August 2015, would appear to be well placed to take over the role. Occam’s plans are also unknown.
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