Veteran technology executive and entrepreneur Chris Wade, who has served as Chairman of the leading social media hub ShoZu Inc. since 2008, is assuming the additional role of ShoZu's CEO, succeeding Mark Bole.
"Mark has done a great job of leading ShoZu for almost 5 years and was instrumental in guiding the company to our new app store centric model, realizing early on that the Smartphone market was going to become a driver for consumer adoption of our service," said Chris Wade.
Wade, who has served on the Shozu board since 2002, is also a private investor in the London-based company. He also serves as Chairman of another startup in the mobility applications space - Mobile Acuity.
Wade formerly served as CEO of Cambridge Positioning Systems Limited for nine years and before that held senior leadership positions for 15 years at Canada's Nortel Networks. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in physics and chemistry from Leeds University.
Bole, who served as ShoZu CEO since October 2004, led the company from its earliest beginnings. His accomplishments at ShoZu include:
1. Creating and launching the multiple award-winning ShoZu service, which is now used by consumers in more than 130 countries across the world
2. Successfully negotiating deals with several global mobile device manufacturers to have ShoZu pre-installed on millions of handsets shipped each month.
3. Forging the commercial strategy and key relationships within the mobile, music and web 2.0 industries that grew the company from zero revenue to multi-million-dollar revenues annually.
4. Building the ShoZu brand, which is now widely recognized within the mobile industry and beyond.
5. Building and leading a strong, innovative team to extend ShoZu's intellectual property portfolio and to win multiple global industry awards, including those from the mobile industry, the advertising industry and the online media industry.
Wade, who resides in the UK, is based in ShoZu's London office.
About ShoZu
ShoZu is the leading provider of mobile social media services that connect mobile consumers with their online social networks, personal blogs, photo storage sites and other Web 2.0 properties from the handset. The company's patented technology provides fast, easy, one-click uploads of photos and video clips from the mobile to the Web, full-resolution photo and video delivery without compression, an emerging suite of services that push content to the phone, the ability to work in the background even if a connection is dropped, and other unique features that simplify and enhance the user experience, plus a mobile advertising service that provides non-intrusive and behaviorally targeted ad delivery. The company was founded in 2000 and has formed partnerships with some of the leading players in the mobile ecosystem, including Motorola and Samsung.