NEW YORK – March 1, 2016 – xAd, the leading location platform that enables marketers to reach the right people based on the real places they visit every day, today announced John Costello, President, Global Marketing and Innovation at Dunkin’ Brands, and William “Bill” Zerella, CFO of Fitbit, have been appointed to its Board of Directors.
“With John and Bill, we have added substantial QSR and retail expertise to our board,” stated Dipanshu “D” Sharma, Founder and CEO at xAd. He continued, “Beyond their impressive professional accomplishments, we are thrilled to add two people who throughout their careers have made significant efforts to transform people’s lives, and who value our mission to create a world where location is harnessed for the greater good.”
Mr. Costello joined Dunkin’ Brands in 2009 and has had global responsibility for advertising, marketing, digital, mobile and social, product development and retail channel development for both Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins. Additionally, Costello serves as the global chair of the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and has been named one of the most influential people in marketing by Advertising Age, AdWeek, ExecuRank and others. William Zerella has served as CFO of Fitbit since June 2014. Prior to joining Fitbit, Zerella served as chief financial officer of Vocera Communications, Inc., a wireless healthcare communications company which he took public in 2012.
Location-based marketing has become a strategic imperative for retailers to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time and xAd’s insights have enabled marketers to use real-time and past location data to influence consumer behavior,” said John Costello, President of Global Marketing and Innovation at Dunkin’ Brands. “xAd is creating new tools and technologies which allow marketers to leverage physical world behaviors like we have been doing with digital behaviors for years and I am delighted to join the xAd Board to remain at the forefront of using location insights to deliver more relevant, personalized messages in an effective and efficient manner.”
“xAd is the leader in location marketing and like Fitbit, xAd realizes that it is about more than the data—it’s about helping people apply the data to meet their needs,” explained William “Bill” Zerella, when asked what drew him to join the xAd board. He continued, “The proliferation of mobile devices and rise of mobility has changed human behavior and xAd has an exciting role to play in this space.”
As xAd expands its location marketing capabilities in APAC, the company also added new high-profile advisors in China, namely; Alvin Foo of Airwave and Christine Xu of McDonald’s. These appointments come at a time of significant momentum for xAd. The close of 2015 marked the third consecutive year where the company has doubled its revenue while remaining profitable. xAd has over 300 people working in 14 offices offices across 10 countries.