XLMedia confirms double senior appointment
Affiliate marketing services provider XLMedia has appointed Iain Balchin as its new group chief financial officer and also brought in Sarah Clark as chief transformation officer.
Balchin will join XLMedia from payments optimisation specialist Ixaris Group, where he had also been serving as group CFO, responsible for restructuring the finance function of the business.
Prior to his time with Ixaris, Balchin had a spell at WorldRemit, a money-transfer business, where he was responsible for restructuring the finance division and preparing for future investment.
Balchin also held a number of group CFO roles with the likes of WIZINK Bank and Ascot Lloyd Financial Services, as well as senior finance positions with St James Place Wealth Management and Chartis Insurance – AIG Group.
XLMedia in September of last year announced that Yehuda Dahan had stepped down as its CFO with immediate effect. The provider did not disclose the reasons behind the departure.
Meanwhile, XLMedia has also confirmed that Clark will take on the role of chief transformation officer. Clark joins XLMedia from Loot Crate Inc, where she held the role of general manager of Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Prior to this, Clark worked for PayPal, serving as head of global strategy, before moving to the general manager role, where she held full responsibility for 110 markets and annual transaction volumes of almost $10bn.
“I am delighted to welcome Iain and Sarah to XLMedia, both of whom bring significant expertise in their respective fields to the Group,” XLMedia chief executive Stuart Simms said.
“The recruitment of Sarah and Iain will significantly strengthen our senior leadership team and we look forward to working with them as we continue to transform our core business in order to capitalise on opportunities across our industry.”
The double appointment comes after XLMedia this week announced that it is to accelerate a number of its planned strategic initiatives in response to concerns over Google's changes to its search algorithm.
Last month, XLMedia revealed the move led to a “significant decrease in traffic” on certain websites, which it said in turn is likely to have an impact on its revenue. Google rolled out its new search algorithm update on 13 January.
XLMedia said a total of 107 of its websites had been impacted since the initial announcement last month, with 84 of these being tier-three or four sites and the other 23 being tier-one and two premium sites.