Omaid Hiwaizi nets Blippar top job

Geometry Global UK chief strategy officer Omaid Hiwaizi – the direct marketing industry’s very own “Brains” – been hired by Blippar as its first president of global marketing.
Hiwaizi, who studied Maths at Cambridge University, will be responsible for expanding and transforming the marketing efforts of the image recognition and augmented reality app and building consumer adoption. He will initially focus on the UK and US, currently where Blippar has the largest bases.
He is not wasting any time in his new role, either, having already called a digital media agency pitch, with an ultimate goal of achieving 100 million users. This will be Blippar’s first formal media agency relationship with a significant initial media budget. Hiwaizi is running the pitch with the UK and US local leadership.
His appointment is one of three senior hires just made by Blippar and he joins Ariff Quli who has joined as chief commercial officer, North America and Xuejun Wang who has joined as vice president of infrastructure.
Hiwaizi started his career as a creative, designing i-D magazine. In 1995, he co-founded direct marketing agency Hubbard Hiwaizi McCann, as creative director.
He then took on the role of director of difference, before becoming planning director. Hiwaizi then co-founded interactive communications agency Crayon, which was formed from a merger with Hicklin Slade, but quit in 2008, to lead the planning department at Chemistry.
By 2011, he had switched to SapientNitro, spearheading marketing strategy, brand planning and digital strategy across a number of SapientNitro’s national and global clients. He has worked at Geometry Global since October 2013.
Hiwaizi said: “My appointment comes off the back of recent Series C investment, which has enabled Blippar to change the game in Image Recognition from just recognising brands to objects in the world (eventually all objects), and provide information and inspiration to fulfill people’s curiosity, in the moment.
“This means that there’s a requirement to significantly increase commitment to consumer marketing. Previously Blippar focused on tech and brand/agency marketing – leaving consumer marketing to the brands.”

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