The former Bebo president has left Shine after just a few months to join Facebook as a vice-president of sales and business development
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Joanna Shields, who has joined Facebook months after signing up for digital content venture with Elisabeth Murdoch. Photograph: Linda Nylind |
Shields, who was the architect of Bebo's $850m sale to AOL in 2008, is to take the newly created role of vice-president of sales and business development for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Shields, who left AOL in May last year, announced in September that she was launching a digital media content venture with Elisabeth Murdoch's Shine Group. Shields, who blazed a trail in online drama with Bebo's ground-breaking online TV series, KateModern, also had a seat on Shine's advisory board.
"With its culture of authentic identity, Facebook is redefining marketing and transforming how businesses and consumers interact," said Shields. "It is a privilege to help lead this kind of change for Facebook in EMEA. I can't think of a more important and interesting professional challenge."
The shake-up at Facebook will see Blake Chandlee, who left Yahoo UK in 2007 to join up as the first official hire for the London office, has been promoted to vice-president of sales for emerging markets. He will focus on Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America.
"Continuing to deepen our global sales capabilities is important for Facebook, and a reflection of the growing demand we are seeing from advertisers around the world," said Mike Murphy, vice president of global sales. "Joanna Shields brings tremendous experience to the company and will help us continue to expand the success we have seen with advertisers and partners in Europe. Blake Chandlee, who has been instrumental in building our efforts in Europe to date, will take on the new role of driving our sales strategy in Asia Pacific, Latin America and other growth regions, as we look to grow our global support of the marketing community."
The digital media venture, ShineVu, will continue to run and will now report into Murdoch. Shields will retain the role of non-executive chairman. The pair will not now be giving the joint keynote speech at next month's Mipcom event.
"I want to take this opportunity though to reiterate my commitment to our outstanding team at ShineVu," said Murdoch in an internal email to staff. "I will not rest until we make the multiplatform Shine Group a reality. I would go as far as to describe what we must become as a 'multicultural' creative company as it applies to TV and digital worlds."
source : http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/01/joanna-shields-murdoch-facebook-shine