[January 18, 2022]

Ascential Expands Its Digital Commerce Executive Leadership Team with the Hire of Two Industry Experts

Ascential plc (LSE: ASCL), the specialist information, analytics and eCommerce optimization company, today announced the appointments of two new executives to Ascential's Digital Commerce leadership team: Sharon Harris as SVP of Marketing, Digital Commerce and Mark Mannino as EVP of Digital Commerce. Both Harris and Mannino will serve to help Ascential accelerate awareness and adoption of the company's digital commerce optimization platforms both in the US and globally.

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Sharon Harris, SVP of Marketing, Digital Commerce, Ascential (Photo: Business Wire)

Harris brings over 20 years of marketing and digital media experience and will lead the global marketing team including company branding and positioning, product marketing, awareness and go-to-market initiatives.

Mannino brings extensive experience in advertising technology and ecommerce to the Ascential team, with twenty years in ad tech and over nine years of experience at Amazon, and will lead growth and operational execution of the Digital Commerce business.

"Both these appointments are part of our global plan to accelerate the growth of our Digital Commerce business," said Duncan Painter, Chief Executive Officer of Ascential. "Digital Commerce has a rare and significant growth opportunity and attracting exceptional talent is key to capturing this opportunity. Both Sharon and Mark bring expertise and experience to our team and I am delighted to welcome them to Ascential."

Prior to joining Ascential, Harris was the Global Chief Marketing Officer at Jellyfih, a digital partner to some of the world's leading brands including Uber, eBay, Disney, Spotify, Nestlé, Ford, Aviva and ASOS. At Jellyfish, she oversaw international marketing strategy across 30 offices. Previously, she served as VP, Alliance Relationships at Deloitte where she managed both the Google Cloud Alliance and the Google Marketing Platform Alliance, which comprised over 4,000 practitioners across 40 countries. Prior to Deloitte, Harris exceeded global mobile advertising business revenue targets at Microsoft, launching advertising on Microsoft Windows 8 Ads-in-Apps.

A passionate champion for diversity, equity and inclusion, Harris is the board chair for Seattle's Be Bold Now annual International Women's Day celebration, and is also the Vice Chair of IGNITE National, a nonpartisan organization that encourages young women to actively engage in the political process. Harris is a founding member of the Black Executive CMO Alliance (BECA). BECA provides an intimate, trusted, safe space for Black marketing C-suite executives to share, learn, elevate, and pay it forward in order to create opportunity, access, and equality for the current and next generation of Black marketing leaders.

"The migration of consumer purchase behaviour onto digital marketplaces has become an unstoppable force, and digital commerce is fast becoming the primary channel of consumer choice," said Harris. "Consumer brand companies now have no choice but to engage with digital marketplaces and this presents our Digital Commerce business with a rare and significant growth opportunity. I am excited to be part of the team that is going to capitalize on this."

Mannino joins Ascential after nine years with Amazon Advertising where he held numerous sales and product leadership positions helping grow Amazon to become the third largest advertising business in the world. He led Amazon's initial programmatic sales team before taking over as General Manager of the Amazon Advertising Platform and more than doubling that business over a two-year period. He then took over as General Manager of the Amazon DSP where he both owned the P&L as well as the roadmap for the DSP User Interface. He finished his Amazon tenure leading the US Sponsored Ads Account team where he grew the business by over 40% year over year.

Mannino enjoys growing businesses and acts as a mentor for both Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator and Techstars NYC Accelerator. He is also an Executive in Residence for Progress Partners, a Merchant Bank, and TZP Group, a private equity firm. Mannino is also dedicated to helping others to grow and develop, acting as a coach to many colleagues over the years and as a mentor for The Boyd Initiative, which helps young Black professionals discover careers in advertising and media.

"I'm looking forward to bringing my extensive experience in programmatic advertising and digital commerce to Ascential and helping the company in its next phase of growth," said Mannino. "While at Amazon, I was able to see the great work Ascential was doing for brands and am excited to join what I believe is the premier choice for any brand that wants to win in digital commerce."

About Ascential:

Ascential delivers specialist information, analytics and eCommerce optimization platforms to the world's leading consumer brands and their ecosystems. Our world-class businesses improve performance and solve problems for our customers by delivering immediately actionable information combined with visionary longer-term thinking across Digital Commerce, Product Design and Marketing. We also serve customers across Retail & Financial Services. With more than 2,000 employees across five continents, we combine local expertise with a global footprint for clients in over 120 countries. Ascential is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220118005241/en/

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