• Thu. Mar 28th, 2024

North East Connected

Hopping Across The North East From Hub To Hub

Ex-Googler heads to Teesside in high profile move to spearhead industry-leading data technology

The burgeoning digital ecosystem in Teesside has welcomed former Google industry head Pete Danks, who has relocated to the North East with global one-to-one marketing specialist, Clicksco Group.

Danks, who was a London-based divisional CEO for the firm and its CMO, has made the journey North to head up Clicksco’s UK tech base, where he is leading the roll out of a world-first audience management platform.

Named Carbon, the innovative product uses data from over 1 billion-plus customer profiles, in a tool that allows advertisers, agencies and publishers to boost profit through better personalization.

Danks will manage a 30-plus team of digital consultants, developers and data scientists at Clicksco’s dynamic Middlesbrough office, which is in the heart of the region’s technology hub following a move in 2016 to the Cleveland Business Centre.

He said: “It’s a hugely exciting time for Clicksco, launching what is truly a world-leading platform and all of that development is coming out of our Teesside base.

“Our business benefits hugely from being in a thriving and engaged digital environment and I’m thrilled to make the move from London to be involved on the ground, and access the local talent that can help build upon Clicksco’s success.”

Since taking up his Teesside role in April, Danks has made organisational changes to create virtual teams to focus on specific parts of the business strategy, and introduced group and individual objectives to guide performance.

“Innovation drives everything we do”, he added, “and my aim is to encourage a people-centric culture and stimulate creativity, helping our highly skilled team members work together seamlessly, with an eye on the bigger picture at all times.”

That bigger picture is to pioneer the Carbon tool, positioning it as a must-have for advertisers and publishers. He explains: “Everyone has data, and maybe even growth in unique users, page views and audiences, but very few businesses are consistently turning that activity into profit without just adding more advertising. Carbon allows them to do so because it offers value at multiple stages of the marketing mix, which is crucial given the rise in new technologies and evolving platforms and devices, which result in a fragmented customer experience.”

Hailing from Cambridge, Danks has an impressive career history spanning 15 years, holding marketing, digital and new business roles with brands including Yahoo, Kelkoo, MOO.COM and Firebox. A specialist in ad-tech for the ecommerce sector, at Google he managed a portfolio of large UK retail and ecommerce business clients including Clicksco, before being appointed the company’s chief marketing officer in 2015.

He has made a home in Norton, near Stockton, with his wife and two children.