Chairman Adds Additional Duties Succeeding Mark Bole
LONDON -- June 12, 2009 --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.
