Verve Hires Dr. Mark Ollila as General Manager and Chief of Staff to Drive Continued Innovation in Mobile Location Advertising

NEW YORK, Jan. 4, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Verve Mobile, the leader in location-based mobile advertising, today announced the appointment of Dr. Mark Ollila to the position of general manager and chief of staff of Verve's innovation and new products group. In this role, Ollila will work closely with Verve's president and chief innovation officer, Tom Kenney, to grow the company's world-class innovation team focused on advancing the evolution of mobile location advertising.

Prior to this, Ollila was at Nokia where he held a variety of senior roles, including leading the smart devices long term roadmap and innovation portfolio. He played an integral role in the development and roll-out of Nokia's services, ranging from games, app stores, photo and video sharing and new publisher intake tools, with global reach in the hundreds of millions of handsets. Ollila was also a core member of the deal team between Nokia and Microsoft in the strategic agreement in 2011 managing product requirements. During Ollila's tenure, he delivered many first-of-their-kind, industry-winning services and solutions, and, most recently, was responsible for complementary products in connected devices.

"Having built and scaled complex media technology platforms with strong connected experiences, Mark has deep, blended knoledge of the market and a proven track record driving revenue, capturing mindshare and deepening consumer engagement," said Tom Kenney, Verve's president and chief innovation officer. "His global experience focused on frontier technology, media and mobile technology and entertainment experiences will empower Verve to accelerate innovation and introduce emerging revenue opportunities for brands and advertisers."

One of the industry's foremost leaders in mobile media and technology, Ollila is a member of Southern California's startup incubator EvoNexus's selection committee and an expert in residence at UC Irvine's Institute for Applied Innovation. He also serves as an advisor to multiple companies in entertainment, games and new technology, and previously served on the advisory board of the Game Developers Conference (Mobile) and was a board member of EMEA's Mobile Entertainment Forum.

"The opportunity to join and lead the innovation group at such a cutting-edge company is exciting," said Ollila. "Verve is well-positioned to identify, invent and build new advertising opportunities during this time of technological change and I look forward to guiding the company's innovation pipeline and further defining long-term technology roadmaps with an eye towards commercialization, differentiation and profitability."

Ollila holds an executive MBA from the London Business School and a Ph.D in computer science from the Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Australia. He is based in Carlsbad, CA.

ABOUT VERVE

Verve Mobile is a location-based mobile platform that enables marketers to engage active consumers near and within points of purchase. The company's proprietary location intelligence, technology, data science, premium inventory and reporting capabilities help marketers to identify, reach and engage audiences in real-time. With the industry's most sophisticated closed-loop attribution model, Verve's robust product suite connects real-world consumer behavior with point of sale conversion to help marketers precisely verify the consumer path to purchase.

Headquartered in New York City, Verve has offices in Washington, D.C., Chicago, San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, Eastern Europe, India and Southeast Asia. For more information, visit www.vervemobile.com and follow us on Twitter @VerveMobile.

CONTACT: Amanda Fayer, [email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160103/318750

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SOURCE Verve Mobile

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