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Meet our new aimm Board Members – Spring 2023

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

We’re pleased to announce our successful candidates for this years aimm Board

This years Board Elections closed at the beginning of March and we are very pleased that all the Board members who had reached their term re-applied for their seats to continue the great work they have been doing for the last couple of years, and we are very happy to have them stay on.

This year we are also joined by a new Board member from Cymba and we very much looking forward to working with Steve over the next two years.

You can find out more about our Board, and their manifestos on our Board page of our website: https://aimm.co/about/who-we-are/aimm-executive-board/

Announcement of the new aimm Board of 2023, with an image showing the pictures of all our Board Members with the opportunity to learn more about them.

The Board exists to ensure that the association’s members interests are being upheld. The aimm Board is also expected to contribute towards the success of aimm, to act as a conduit to increase membership, prevent loss of membership, participate in initiatives and working groups and share their individual expertise into aimm, to help the Executive and members to gain benefit from their expertise.

aimm welcomes new Board members

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

This year we said goodbye to a couple of Board members, who moved onto to new opportunities. They had been a part of aimm for many years and have during their time on the Board, been a great support and have helped shape our direction, so thanks to them for all their help.

Although it was sad to see them go we are pleased to welcome our new Board members who have stepped up to replace them, and look forward to working with them over the next couple of years.  Both our new Board members are from the companies who had already been part of the Board, so provides a nice continuity.

Please welcome our new Board members:

 

Denzil Tapsell-Gunner – Kaleyra

As Head of Legal, Denzil oversees the European regulatory compliance for Kaleyra, a global Communications Platform as a Service company. This includes mobile payment industry compliance in several European countries where Kaleyra operates as an intermediary provider. In that role,

Denzil has broad experience of working with the regulatory bodies and all members of the value chain to ensure that industry and business needs are met without compromising on the need to operate compliantly.

As a qualified solicitor, Denzil has many years experience both advising to, and then working in technology industries, including dealing with the Codes of Conduct for numerous regulatory bodies. He joined the mobile payment and messaging industry in 2017.

 

Victoria Hull – Dynamic Mobile Billing

Victoria is Head of Business Development and has over twenty years of experience in a business-to-business sales environment working with major UK brands. The past decade she has been focussed on telecoms, mobile technology and payments in the UK, Caribbean, Ireland, Australia and South and East Africa.

Prior to this Victoria worked at a large London firm reselling Sun Microsystems, Hewlett Packard and IBM technology delivering large scale server room projects to insurance and communication sectors, followed by a number of years at a publishing and media company. She also enjoyed two and half years in the Territorial Army, spending many a weekend training in the field as part of the Royal Artillery. Victoria is also a trustee of the charity East Anglian Driveability that support the elderly and disabled to drive.

More recently, Victoria has been instrumental in the creation of a new company, Debit My Mobile, concentrating on ticketing in transport and parking sectors.

 

We will be starting the new Board election process in January with calls for new Board members to join us in April, so if you are a Gold Member you are eligible to become an aimm Board member. If you are interested in becoming a Board member make sure to keep your eyes open for Election announcements.

 

Millennials and Next Gen are driving a message-focused future

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

By Nick Millward, Vice President Europe at mGage and Board member of aimm

 In recent years, smartphones have become the standard and with 95% of smartphones being used daily, coupled with the innovative capabilities and growing impact on our lives, it is a trend that businesses across all sectors need to pay attention to. In turn, Over-the-Top (OTT) applications, or ‘social messaging apps’ such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and SMS text messaging have enabled brands to start conversations with consumers more directly and personally than ever before. However, the format and content that brands share with consumers is crucial to the success of the customer engagement.

As technology advances, smartphones continue to evolve and customer attitudes shift, brands need to consider methods that provide not only rich and engaging content via messaging but conversational commerce as a way to interact with consumers. With more than half of 25-34 year olds and 18-24 year olds favouring a messaging service or chatbot over picking up the phone to contact a business, it is evident that brands are facing a growing demand amongst the younger generation for rich conversational messaging that is not set to subside.

Despite the new technologies entering the market, text-based SMS is a communication channel that is highly unlikely to ever be replaced. This is because text messaging is still widely used and remains the preferred platform for brands to communicate with their consumers for critical applications like one-time passwords, reminders and balance updates. However,for brands to get the most out of their communication tactics they need to listen to what their consumers want. Sadly, more than half of consumers say they find marketing messages boring and would much prefer messages that are well targeted and well designed, using images and video content to bring the messages to life. This is where Rich Communications Services (RCS), the latest development in the evolution of mobile messaging, can really hold its own.

With the capability to provide a richer experience for users and the ability to encompass multimedia that incorporate offers and coupons, brands are able to open up their communication channels to consumers and offer alternatives that are personal to them. Consumers today, particularly among the younger generation, are more willing to engage via messaging that is interactive and delivers a much rich media experience. This is good news for brands wishing to expand their consumer experience.

Our latest whitepaper unearthed some interesting statistics with perhaps the most telling being that consumers of all ages wants brands to do better – to bring engaging and exciting offers and content to them in an easily-accessible format that makes them confident to buy more.   The best way to do this is to utilise rich content messaging and multimedia for marketing communications to attract the attention of consumers. RCS also brings a more conversational and interactive messaging experience in line with the demand by the younger generation to text a brand rather than pick up the phone. Utilising chatbot elements and the functionality of suggested actions and responses, brands are able to direct their consumers to the information they require more quickly and easily than trying to navigate through a clunky Interactive Voice Response (IVR).

With technology continually advancing and customer attitudes shifting towards more message-focused platforms, brands worldwide have access to innovative solutions that have the capability to transform the way that they communicate with consumers. Driven by the demands of millennials and next-gen, brands need to consider solutions that are in line with the expectations of future generations and adjust their communication strategies to meet these, if not they could see a huge impact on the success of the business.

As the adoption of more interactive and rich media messaging platforms become more prevalent, brands will be able to communicate directly with their consumers, target likely prospects more effectively, gain better campaign analytics and offer unparalleled customer service through instant responses and notifications to ensure that they give the consumers of the future the communications that they not only want but come to expect.

DOWNLOAD WHITEPAPER HERE

Announcing our 2020 Board

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

We are pleased to welcome our new aimm Board!

Following the call for nominations during the month of February we received 5 nominations for the vacancies which had 6 spaces available. As such there will be no necessity to go to a vote.

We are pleased to announce that our nominated members are duly elected to the Board. We would ask that you join us in congratulating them.

The aimm Board now comprises of :

Candidates:

Abi Hillman – ITV

Jonny Brown – sb7

Kevin Dawson – DMB

Nick Millward – mGage

Oliver Cooke – IMImobile

Learn more about our 2020 candidates.

They will be joining our existing Board:

Neil Johnson  – aimm Chair

Toby Padgham – aimm Executive Director

Joanna Cox – aimm General Manager

Rob Weisz – Fonix (Vice Chair)

Eric Feltin – Safari Mobile (Vice Chair)

Alan Partington – Telecom2

Caroline Press – Three

Chris Newell – Donr

Claire Taylor – Telefonica

Joel Stern – Global (co-opt)

Kerry Howard – BBC Children in Need (co-opt)

Alex Haffner – Fladgate LLP (co-opt)

Our new Board members will officially start their roles on the 1st April and will be at our next Board meeting, and we look forward to working with them.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank James Macfarlane at PM Connect for all his hard work and support during his time on the Board, and who has now stepped down due to other commitments.

Kind regards

aimm Executive Team