Execs & Accounts for July 21, 2004

Interactive marketing agency AKQA hired Kate Everett-Thorp as president of interactive advertising. In the role, she’ll oversee all the firm’s ad operations across. AKQA has offices in San Francisco, Washington D.C., London and Singapore.

Everett-Thorp founded pioneering digital agency Lot21, which was later sold to Carat Interactive. After the sale, she served stayed on with CI as chairman and chief marketing officer.

“Her experience as an innovator and advocate for interactive advertising will be a tremendous asset to AKQA as we expand our services and provide our clients with the highest level of creativity and service in the industry,” said Tom Bedecarre, chief executive officer of AKQA.

E-mail marketing firm ExactTarget has had a big year so far, signing 400 new customers and adding 40 staff. Eighty of the new customers were added during June, including Little Tikes, a maker of products for children; Blackboard, a D.C.-based software firm; and tour operator Vacation Express. Earlier this week, ExactTarget announced a venture capital investment of $10.5 million by Insight Partners.

ClubMom, a popular affiliate program and “Mom” membership organization, will use UnsubCentral’s email suppression service to ensure compliance with the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act.

UnsubCentral’s Affiliate Manager is a suppression service that seeks to ensure CAN-SPAM compliance for advertisers and list owners while protecting their data privacy. ClubMom will rely on its ability to integrate numerous commercial email channels to ensure consumers who unsubscribe to any one advertiser’s mailings are not later pitched by its many affiliates.

“As we researched the options for email suppression solutions, and surveyed our affiliates, UnsubCentral emerged as the clear choice that allowed us to safely continue our highly effective affiliate email marketing program,” said Shawn Collins, affiliate manager for ClubMom.

Broadband ad management player Lightningcast hired Rick Foster as COO and CFO and Mark Westling as VP of engineering. Foster was co-founder, president and COO of CyberCFO, a venture-backed strategic consulting company. He was also a senior tax associate with PricewaterhouseCoopers. Westling comes to Lightningcast from Leap Wireless.

24/7 Real Media signed two new clients to its Open AdStream Local ad serving platform. TheKnot.com, a wedding planning and information site, and Date.com, a dating site with approximately two million members, will use Open AdStream Local to manage their campaigns.