Ascential appoints Paul Harrison as chief operating officer
By Josh White
Date: Tuesday 29 Sep 2020
(Sharecast News) - Information, data and analytics company Ascential announced the appointment of Paul Harrison as an executive director on Tuesday, to serve in the role of chief operating officer from 11 January.
The FTSE 250 company said he would continue in his role as a non-executive director until that date.
It said that in the new role, Harrison would take responsibility for the company's people strategies, mergers and acquisitions, and other group functions including marketing, content and technology, reporting directly to chief executive officer Duncan Painter.
"Paul has offered tremendous support and guidance to the Ascential board in a non-executive capacity since our initial public offering in 2016, and is a proven business leader," said chairman Scott Forbes.
"As a board, we look forward to working with Paul in his new role as chief operating officer and executive director, and have no doubt that he will help deliver our long-term growth plans in coming years."
Ascential said Harrison has "significant experience" driving growth in innovative digital businesses, in senior financial and non-executive director roles over the past 20 years.
Most recently, he was chief financial officer of food delivery company Just Eat from 2016 to 2020.
Prior to that, he was CFO of data solutions provider WANDisco and business technology specialist Sage.
Harrison was also senior independent non-executive director of recruitment firm Hays for the last five years of his tenure from 2007 to 2017, and joined the board of Ascential in 2016 as non-executive director and chair of the audit committee.
In his early career, he qualified as a chartered accountant working for Baker Tilly and then PricewaterhouseCoopers.
"I am excited to be joining the highly talented executive team at Ascential," said Paul Harrison on his appointment.
"My four years on the board have seen the business transform at extraordinary pace to become an essential partner to leading, global consumer product groups as they seek to optimise their e-commerce strategies and performance.
"I greatly look forward to joining the team as an executive and to helping the business to fulfil its enormous potential."
At 0858 BST, shares in Ascential were down 2.28% at 290.8p.
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