LinkShare hires ex-CNN marketing director

The world’s largest affiliate network, LinkShare, has named Mark Haviland as its new Chief Commercial Officer. Haviland was previously Marketing Director at CNN International, where he sought to drive audience growth across the company’s EMEA region. Now based in the UK with LinkShare, he’ll be tasked with spearheading global business growth.

Having also worked in London, Tokyo and Paris for the Walt Disney Company, LinkShare must be hoping that Haviland’s global experience will stand him in good stead to sign new advertisers and publishers to the LinkShare UK Network. The company’s Managing Director, Liane Dietrich, revealed to us that these international connections were one of the biggest factors in bringing Mark to the company: “Mark has an international perspective and understanding of consumer behaviour that will be invaluable as we grow LinkShare’s business globally.”

Affiliates now mean big business

The appointment confirms that top industry brass are starting to take the affiliate space seriously. It’s no longer the dark art that many perceived it to be years ago: it now means business – and big business, for that matter. The importance of the fact that a position at LinkShare was a draw for a high-ranking executive at CNN and Disney isn’t lost on Dietrich, who is keen to see what such experience will bring to the company. “As performance marketing evolves to gain further reach into all aspects of online publishers, and increasingly targets users in new and varied ways, bringing this new perspective to LinkShare is exciting,” she said.