Jellyfish snares Dentsu Merkle pair for global leadership roles

Jellyfish has hired Merkle pair Thomas Byrne and Adam Guilfoyle to sales leadership roles.

Byrne, who was executive vice-president of EMEA agency services at the Dentsu agency, has been appointed executive VP of sales and partnerships.

Guilfoyle, Merkle’s head of agency sales, has joined Jellyfish as VP of sales and partnerships.

The Merkle pair have been credited with helping the Dentsu agency build its EMEA presence and join Jellyfish at a time of growth.

Jellyfish, which is backed by French investment group Fimalac, has been on an M&A spree in recent times, including buying Seelk, Splash, Quill, Webedia Brand Services and Data Runs Deep. It has also expanded globally in new markets, including Australia.

The agency is one of a handful of sales partner specialists in Google marketing services, alongside Brainlabs, Croud’s Serpico and Merkle.

Earlier this year Jellyfish hired Adam&Eve/DDB’s executive strategy director Tom Roach to lead brand planning in a year of rapid growth geographically and through strategic acquisitions.

“Tom and Adam have been involved in digital marketing since the early days and have developed a wealth of knowledge, experience and client relationships in that time. It speaks volumes about what we’ve built and continue to build at Jellyfish that we are drawing top talent from the networks,” Jellyfish CEO Rob Pierre said.

Pierre recently explained Jellyfish’s expansion strategy and plans to rip up traditional management structure in the Campaign podcast.