One week after completing its $2.3 billion acquisition of ad tech company Conversant on behalf of its Epsilon subsidiary, Alliance Data Systems has made some C-level org changes.
Epsilon President Andy Frawley has become Epsilon’s CEO, reporting to Bryan Kennedy, the former Epsilon CEO who has been placed in charge of a joint Conversant-Epsilon unit. His title? That’s right. CEO of Epsilon/Conversant.
Conversant CEO John Giuliani will remain.
“I wouldn’t say this has always been planned,” Frawley told AdExchanger. “When we announced the acquisition of Conversant, we started talking about the best way to operate the combined companies. It became clear we needed to divide and conquer a little more.”
As such, Kennedy will focus on integrating Conversant more closely with Epsilon and driving cross sales. Integration and exposing mutual clients to joint Conversant-Epsilon solutions are the immediate priority.
As always, integration is a heady task. Conversant – formerly known as the ad network ValueClick – had been working to integrate its disparate technologies even before it was acquired by Alliance Data. Now, Alliance Data must help finish that task, then integrate the Conversant technologies and services with Epsilon’s technologies and services.
In the meantime, Frawley is responsible for all operations, sales, client services and delivery within Epsilon, an expansion from his former duties as Epsilon’s president.
“As president, my duties were around sales, client services and marketing,” he said. “Now I have all the delivery groups: our agency groups and all of our technology delivery.”
Epsilon, he said, is continuing down the path it had been on, expanding its digital offerings like the Harmony email platform it released last year as well as its partnerships with other marketing tech providers including Adobe and Oracle.
“We’re very focused on the next generation of content, and how we can be proficient across all digital channels,” he said.
It remains to be seen whether this new C-level structure will continue after Conversant is fully integrated.
Frawley noted that Alliance Data has only owned Conversant for a week.
“Initially we’re going to be focused on growing businesses independently and also looking at new and innovative solutions we can offer the combined customer base,” he said. “As to how the organizations will be integrated, that’s longer-term and we haven’t figured that out right now.”
