APAC Appointments and AI Partnerships for Meltwater

San Francisco-based social media, consumer and sales intelligence group Meltwater has boosted its footprint in Asia Pacific with three senior appointments, and has also published details of innovation partnerships with Microsoft and AI-driven threat intelligence company CYFIRMA.

Meltwater has 2,300 employees in 50 offices across six continents, and analyses around 1 billion pieces of online content each day to help marcoms professionals make informed decisions. Its Enterprise Intelligence Suite uses AI, natural language processing, computer vision and inference models to provide a unified view of datasets across media, user-generated content, influencer metrics, business intelligence and first-party data. In May, it launched a program called ExpertsWithInsights, allowing clients and others to share their expertise in a community of thought leaders, intended as 'a hub for industry insights in the PR, communications and marketing fields'.

Josh Drasta joins as the Enterprise Sales Area Director for Meltwater APAC, bringing over a decade of experience in sales and partnerships from companies including Digimind, Google and Isentia. He was also employed by Linkfluence, which was acquired by Meltwater in 2021.

Alexandra Feig is appointed as Head of Talent for APAC, and will focus on 'designing and executing innovative recruitment processes, strategies and best practices'. She was previously in charge of Zendesk's APAC talent acquisition efforts, having earlier held similar roles at Indeed and EssenceMediacom.

Chris Hackney becomes the firm's CPO, and brings more than 25 years of experience in the technology sector, from executive positions at Cision and Trendkite, as well as Mercury Healthcare and AI Guardian. In his new role he leads the strategic direction, expansion and operation of Meltwater's product portfolio.

The firm's consumer intelligence solution was used to deliver detailed insights into the Paris 2024 Olympics, gauging how sports brands resonated with audiences and how the performance of selected athletes drove their visibility. The Group has also been working with Microsoft to develop a tailored AI 'Copilot' - aiming to reinvent the way communications and marketing professionals interact with data - and has partnered with AI-driven threat intelligence and digital risk protection specialist CYFIRMA on a solution integrating Meltwater's AI-powered media and social intelligence suite with CYFIRMA's external threat landscape management platform DeCIFYR.

David Hickey, Executive Director Asia Pacific at Meltwater, comments: 'We have seen significant growth this past year in key markets like the Philippines, Australia, China, and Japan and AI continues to present a tremendous opportunity for Meltwater in the APAC region. Our early investment in AI has led to the development of the latest generative AI capabilities, enabling our customers to unlock the full potential of online data without the need for technical expertise. We look forward to building on this momentum and rolling out more innovations that provide greater value, empowering organisations of all sizes to make better data-driven business decisions'.

Web site: www.meltwatrer.com .