GWI Appoints Zillah Byng-Thorne and Carolyn Everson as Non-Executive Directors

London:

LONDON (UK), 4th April 2023 – GWI, the leading audience insights technology company, today announced that it has appointed Zillah Byng-Thorne and Carolyn Everson as Non-Executive Directors. The two new board members bring a wealth of experience from tech and media and from roles leading successful, high growth businesses.

Byng-Thorne has extensive experience in the technology sector, spanning digital media, e-commerce and online gaming and over 20 years in executive roles. She recently announced she is retiring from her position as Chief Executive of Future Plc, a global platform for specialist media. Her leadership role at Future started in 2014 and her near decade there saw the business transform. 

Prior to that, she was Chief Financial Officer and Interim Chief Executive of Trader Media Group (owner of Auto Trader), Commercial Director and Chief Financial Officer at Fitness First Limited, and served as a Non-Executive Director of Flutter Entertainment and THG Holdings Plc. She is currently a Non-Executive Chair of TrustPilot Group Plc and NCHL Plc.

Everson has over 28 years of experience in senior operating roles in consumer facing technology and media companies. She currently serves on the boards of The Coca Cola Company, The Walt Disney Company, Under Armour, Villanova University, the Humane Society of the United States and Columbia Medical School. 

Everson was most recently President of Instacart and before that, Vice President, Global Business Group at Facebook (Meta), where she led a team of over 4,000 people in over 55 countries and was responsible for over $60B in revenue. Prior to Facebook, Everson was the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Global Advertising Sales and Trade Marketing Teams. She also held roles at Viacom, Primedia, Walt Disney Imagineering and Accenture Consulting. 

CEO and Founder of GWI, Tom Smith, comments, “Over the last few years, GWI has scaled substantially, and made huge progress in our mission to give people clarity over their audience. To bring executives of the calibre of both Zillah and Carolyn is a huge testament to the opportunity ahead of us. They bring incredible knowledge, a deep understanding of our customers, and the need for the product that will help us on this journey.”

GWI is a much-needed alternative to traditional market research, an industry which has struggled to keep up with the evolving needs in a rapidly changing world and a challenging economic climate.

Companies today need a cost-effective, on-demand window into consumer behavior, both locally and globally. GWI builds technology that gives people insights into their audience in the moment they need it through its intuitive and simple SaaS platform. Customers include Google, Spotify, Twitter, EA, Red Bull, WPP, and Omnicom. 

Carolyn Everson comments, “Having seen first hand throughout my career the importance of consumer insights in driving marketing effectiveness, I am thrilled to join GWI, a leader in providing actionable insights to marketers globally”. Zillah Byng-Thorne adds “GWI is at a really exciting point in their growth with a solution that every business needs more than ever - a fast and rich understanding of what consumers need.” 

GWI is focused on further developing its SaaS platform, entering even more markets, adding more data from global consumers, and making the technology both easier to use and more accessible across organizations. 

UK-based Zillah and US-based Carolyn will take up their roles as of 1st April 2023.