Hope Williams joins Podean as local MD following major global acquisition
Hope Williams
Specialist marketplace agency Podean has appointed Hope Williams as its new managing director for Australia and New Zealand, Mumbrella can reveal.
Podean was founded by Mark Power and launched in Australia in 2019. It offers the “full spectrum” of Amazon marketplace marketing services, including strategy, retail, creative, innovation, media, and analytics.
Williams’ appointment comes after Podean announced its acquisition of fellow marketplace management firm Commerce Canal last month, bringing together their global solutions. The integrated offering, spanning all major marketplaces including Amazon, Walmart, Costco, Target, Instacart, and Mercado Libre, is designed to drive accelerated growth and sales for clients.
The combined entity will have more than 200 team members across 17 countries on 5 continents, supporting over 200 brands and licensees globally. Clients include Mattel, Danone, Wella, De’Longhi, Revolution Beauty, Colgate-Palmolive, Luxottica, Spectrum Brands, Shure, OluKai, Steve Madden, AB InBev, Skechers, and Fruit of the Loom.
Along with Commerce Canal’s founder Ryan Craver, Power will transition into a new role and be a key board member within the larger platform. He will focus on growth of relationships, talent, and clients. Craver will focus on the strategy and analytics disciplines within the business. New hire Williams reports into Podean’s Travis Johnson, who remains as CEO.
Of the acquisition, Johnson told Mumbrella: “What Commerce Canal adds is really deep expertise in retail operations. That is one key area which will really enhance what we already have. And the second area was around Purvey.AI, which is their platform that brings in all of the e-commerce data from multiple platforms.
“They’ve spent million of dollars on this platform, and buying that when all of our industry is looking for AI-powered tech to give insights to brands was very attractive.”
As the new MD of Australia and New Zealand, Williams will be responsible for the management of Podean’s team and the growth within the region.
She joins from a holdco world, most recently as head of commerce, ANZ, at IPG Mediabrands’ tech driven performance marketing agency Kinesso. There, she led the design and scaling of commerce solutions that integrated retail media, marketplaces, DTC, and programmatic innovation.
She has also held various commercial, digital, growth, and client service roles at UM Worldwide, Matterkind, and PHD.
Williams has also been on IAB Australia’s Retail Media Council since 2023, and is an advisory panel member for the upcoming Remade conference, where she will also moderate a session.
She told Mumbrella her interest in the role was twofold: “It’s the people and culture, as well as the expertise and business that’s been built.”
“Travis and Mark are both incredibly smart and the culture at Podean is very aligned to how I like to work and the guys are just amazing so that was a huge draw card,” she said. “And then obviously the global business they’ve built, having that powered by another acquisition is super exciting, as is the opportunity to supercharge that in Australia.
“I guess I’m also just obsessed with retail and commerce and marketplaces, so this role, I honestly couldn’t think of any other place I’d want to work.”
The biggest growth opportunities locally, according to Johnson, are around content optimisation and A/B testing.
“Not enough effort has been put into content optimisation,” he told Mumbrella. “So that’s something that we’re really focused on and we believe will make a huge difference in the local market.”
He said other priorities include retail operations and catalogue management, as well as analytics and “pulling everything into one place” — like through the Purvey.AI platform, and social commerce.
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