Weve, the mobile marketing and payments venture set up by Vodafone UK, EE and O2 UK, is seeking a new CEO just over a year after appointing David Sear as its permanent chief executive.
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David Sear, CEO of Weve |
"We can confirm that our CEO, David Sear, has accepted a new role and will be leaving Weve in due course," a Weve spokesperson told FierceWireless:Europe.
The spokesperson added that Sear will continue to lead Weve through what is still a transitional phase for the company, and said further details about the new CEO as well as Sear's new role will be revealed later this summer.
Sear, who took over the role of CEO at Weve from Nancy Cruickshank in February 2013, has extensive experience in the payments industry and certainly made his mark at Weve during his short tenure.
In February this year he warned that mobile payments "are a bit of a mess", and said that unless the mobile payments industry recognises that it has to partner fully with banks and retailers, "we'll be waiting for another 10 years for adoption of mobile payments at scale".
In May this year, Weve posted a loss of around £25 million (€31 million/$42.6 million) in its first financial year, but said revenue grew steadily in 2013 with new services set to boost business further this year. The company reported revenue of £13 million for the year to December 31, 2013, and received almost £38 million from its owners to cover its launch costs last year.
Last year's revenue was generated from the company's mobile messaging business alone; its display advertising and wallet ventures are still in beta phase.
Established as Project Oscar by its three mobile network partners, Weve has now built what it describes as the UK's only platform for mobile messaging and display advertising powered by first-party data at scale.
In February, Weve partnered with MasterCard to accelerate the development of what it described as the UK's "most comprehensive contactless mobile payments system".
For more:
- see this article from The Drum
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