BrightWave Marketing, a digital agency focused on email marketing, has hired Jay Jhun to become its first director of strategic services, said company CEO Simms Jenkins.
Jhun will be responsible for leading email audits and consulting projects for the company’s strategy clients, as well as working as a thought leader on mobile- and email-related projects, Jenkins said. BrightWave recruited Jhun, Jenkins said, because he is one of the leading experts on mobile email marketing. Jhun had most recently worked for Engauge, where he was director of email services. He held that position for two years.
“We know our clients will be craving that input in the next couple of quarters,” he said, referring to Jhun’s mobile email experience. “It’s a huge win for our team.”
Bright Wave didn’t use a recruiter to find Jhun, Jenkins said. “We’ve worked with his firm on quite a few common client projects and have gotten to know him,” he said. “It was just good timing in terms of him making a move and us ready to pounce.”
Jhun will report to Brent Rosengren, VP of client services at BrightWave, Jenkins said. He will also work closely with Ryan Tuttle, the company’s COO, and Jenkins himself.
As part of the same group of hires, Addie Rodriguez and Andrew Carlsen have been named campaign managers at Bright Wave. Rodriguez was most recently at BKV, while Carsen used to manage email programs for both HalfOffDepot.com and AirTran Airways. Jenkins said he plans to continue to expand BrightWave’s email marketing team.
“Because we’re so specialized, we have to be able to staff accordingly,” he said. “We’re going to continue to aggressively go after the best email minds out there.”
Email marketing firms and list brokers have been enhancing their products by optimizing mobile email. Earlier today, Lighthouse List debuted a product segmenting consumers by device profile. Email has recently faced declining engagement, forcing marketers to find ways to improve their email marketing initiatives.
