Innovation scale-up continues its push into the enterprise market with new CMO and Sales Director hires
London, United Kingdom. 28 May 2021 – Innovation scale-up Wazoku has hired Ian Smyth as its new Marketing Director and Davy Nys as Sales Director, as it continues its growth into the enterprise market following the acquisition of US open innovation firm InnoCentive in 2020.
Smyth is a senior brand strategist and Marketing Director who has worked in the innovation sector over the past four years. Before that, he was Chief Brand Officer at Nuffield Health, where he led brand positioning and launched the first ever national brand campaign for the healthcare not-for-profit.
“I know the innovation space particularly well, and after doing some consulting for Wazoku, it felt like too good an opportunity to pass up,” said Ian Smyth, Marketing Director, Wazoku. “There is an amazing team in place, and the company has a purpose beyond profit – telling that story and the stories of our customer successes will be a priority. My main objective at Wazoku is to position the company’s unique market offering as a ‘must have’, as for too many organisations, innovation is seen as a ‘nice to have’. Innovation is central to the long-term performance of any business, addressing current issues and identifying future opportunities, and Wazoku can be central to that.”
Davy Nys has worked in senior global sales roles for many start-ups and scale-ups, including a number of companies in the Machine Learning and data analytics sectors. During his time at Business Intelligence scale-up Pentaho, he grew the sales team from zero to 60 people before Hitachi Data Systems acquired the company in 2015.
“Working in sales for me has always been about helping customers to address challenges, and Wazoku’s proposition goes to the core of this,” said Davy Nys. “The crowd’s potential has been highlighted in many ways in business, but its ability to drive innovation could be the most powerful of all. I’m aiming to align the Wazoku sales team to deliver innovation at scale to the enterprise market and build an enterprise-ready global sales team. There is a perfect storm for Wazoku currently, and I sense an opportunity to drive truly substantive change.”
Wazoku’s integrated Enterprise Innovation Platform includes Idea Management Software, an Open Innovation Marketplace and Innovation Consulting to provide 360-degree innovation at scale and all the tools an enterprise needs to power innovation. The company works with organisations such as the MoD, Shell, NASA, AstraZeneca and HSCS to help them find solutions to the most complex challenges.
“Davy has a track record that few can match when it comes to building enterprise-standard sales teams in scale-ups, and he is exactly the person we need at this stage of our growth,” said Simon Hill, CEO, Wazoku. “The same applies to Ian. He’s a senior CMO with an unrivalled understanding of the innovation space and a strategic focus that can take our marketing to the next level.”
“{{There is a real window of opportunity for Wazoku right now, with enterprises requiring innovative solutions to the complex challenges they are facing}}, now more than ever. Davy and Ian will play vital roles in helping us make the most of this opportunity,” added Hill.
Wazoku was recently featured on the 2021 UK’s Best Workplaces™ list published by Great Place to Work® UK on 29 April. Wazoku was among the 183 UK-based organisations recognised by its employees as an organisation that promotes a healthy workplace culture through trust, pride and camaraderie during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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For further information about Wazoku, visit https://www.wazoku.com
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