In his new role Wittesaele will be responsible for leading Xaxis’ strategy and operations across the company’s 25 markets.

The 2017 Connies brings together the established UK Connected Consumer Awards from Mediatel and the internationally based Connected TV Awards from Videonet, now part of Mediatel Events.

Findings issued this week reveal there were 1,023 marcoms deals globally, rising from 979 in 2015 and 972 in 2014.

The inevitable Christmas slowdown saw most newspapers record minor declines or limited growth in December, with a few exceptions.

Hana Murgani has been appointed ahead of the launch later this year of the new published media audience metric.

Senior figures from News UK, Mindshare, Sociomantic, Bloomberg, Sky Media, REaD, Impact Radius, Exterion, Capture, Zenith and Jaywing reflect on the latest IPA Bellwether report.

The deal, which includes all UKTV inventory, including UKTV Play, secures Channel 4’s position as the UK’s second largest sales house.

Barclays’ Josko Grljevic begins the newly-created role in February.

Hear from the likes of Jenny Biggam, Tess Alps, Simon Daglish and Craig Tuck in our video interview predicting what 2017 could have in store for media and advertising.

Former IAB boss Phillipson joins the agency on 1 February 2017 on a part-time basis.