4 March 2024
Blackbird plc (the "Company")
Director changes
Blackbird appoints Anne de Kerckhove to the
Board
John Honeycutt steps down from the
Board
4 March, London - Blackbird plc
(AIM: BIRD), the developer and seller of the market-leading cloud
video platform, Blackbird,
is pleased to announce that Anne de Kerckhove will join the
Company's Board on 6 March 2024 as the Senior Independent
Non-Executive Director and Audit Committee Chair.
Additionally, John Honeycutt, Independent Non-Executive Director,
will be stepping down on the same date.
Anne is an experienced international
executive with a wealth of relevant experience in technology, B2B
and B2C SaaS, Media and Entertainment, e-commerce, marketplaces and
digital transformation, and in helping businesses scale. She also
has extensive Non-Executive Director experience of publicly quoted
and private companies, including at: i) AIM-quoted Eagle Eye
Solutions Group plc, where she chairs the Board; ii) 888 Holdings
plc, where she is a Senior Independent Director and Chair of the
Nominations and ESG committees and is a member of the Remuneration
committee; iii) 7Digital Group Limited; and iv) Metail
Limited.
After working as a banker in Canada
and then a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group in
London, Anne focused her career on technology and innovation. Until
January 2023, Anne de Kerckhove was the CEO of Freespee, a company
in the customer experience orchestration space. Before that, Anne
held several Managing Director roles in fast growing companies such
as Videology, an online advertising technology platform and
Inspired Gaming Group.
Anne is an angel investor, mentor
and Limited Partner in over 20 early-stage start-ups and
entrepreneurial funds including CRE, Daphni, Andela, Flutterwave and Carlili. She is
actively involved in promoting women, both on boards and within the
technology industry, and is a speaker at business conferences and
events. She is also a guest lecturer at INSEAD. Anne holds a
Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University and an MBA from
INSEAD.
In addition, the Company announces
that John Honeycutt, independent Non-Executive Director is standing
down from the Board on 6 March 2024 in order to focus on his
expanding International client base. The Board would like to
thank John for his valuable contributions over the last four years
and to wish him well with his future endeavours.
Andrew
Bentley, Chairman of the
Company, said: "We are delighted that Anne is joining the Board where we know
she will make a great contribution. Anne has a wealth of relevant
and valuable experience we very much look forward to working with
her particularly as we move into this next chapter of product
development in the creator economy.
"I would also like to thank John for
his support and the great insights he has provided us with over the
last four years."
Ian
McDonough,
CEO of the Company, said:
"To have someone of Anne's leadership and
strategic calibre join us as a Senior Independent Non-Executive
Director at this time will help myself, the Board and the executive
team enormously. Her wealth of knowledge and successful experiences
in B2C and B2B SaaS businesses will be of immense value as we
launch our new direct to creator platform, elevate.io, as well as
operating our award-winning professional platform,
Blackbird."
Anne de Kerckhove
said: "I am delighted to join the
Blackbird plc board. The Company has an impressive track record of
video creation and editing with some of the biggest brands in media
and entertainment and at many of the world's most important
sporting events. Now, the launch of elevate.io, aimed at the creator economy, brings
a significant and exciting
new growth market to the business. I am looking
forward to working with Andrew, Ian, my fellow board members, and
the executive team to drive the business forward."
As required under Schedule Two,
paragraph (g) of the AIM Rules for Companies, further disclosures
on Anne de Kerckhove are as follows:
Anne Isabelle Pierre Noemie de
Kerckhove dit van der varent, aged 51, holds or has held the
following directorships and/or partnerships in the past five
years:
Current directorships and/or partnerships:
· UK-888
Holdings
· Eagle Eye
Solutions Plc
Past directorships and/or partnerships:
· Kaisa
Technologies Ltd (previously known as Freespee Ltd)
· Metail
Limited
· DNA
Bridge Limited
· 7Digital
Group Limited
· Freespee
AB (France)
· Kaisa
Technologies AB (Sweden) (formerly known as Freespee AB)
There is no further information on
Anne de Kerckhove required to be disclosed under Schedule Two,
paragraph (g) of the AIM Rules for Companies.
Contacts:
Blackbird
plc
Tel: +44 (0)20 8879 7245
Ian McDonough, Chief Executive Officer
Stephen White, Chief Operating and Financial
Officer
Allenby Capital
Limited (Nominated Adviser and
Broker)
Tel: +44 (0)20 3328 5656 Nick Naylor / Piers Shimwell (Corporate
Finance)
Amrit Nahal / Guy McDougall (Equity Sales and
Corporate Broking) About Blackbird
plc
Blackbird plc operates in the
fast-growing SaaS and cloud video market. It has created
BlackbirdⓇ, the
world's most advanced suite of cloud-native computing applications
for video all underpinned by its lightning fast codec. Blackbird
plc's patented technology allows for frame accurate navigation,
playback, viewing and editing in the cloud.
BlackbirdⓇ enables
multiple applications, which are used by rights holders,
broadcasters, sports and news video specialists, live events and
content owners, post production houses, other mass market digital
video channels and corporations.
Since it is cloud-native,
BlackbirdⓇ removes
the need for costly, high-end workstations and can be used from
almost anywhere on almost any device. It also allows full
visibility on multi- location digital content, improves time to
market for live content such as video clips and highlights for
digital distribution, and ultimately results in much more effective
monetisation. Blackbird plc is a licensor of its core video
technology under its 'Powered by Blackbird' licensing model.
Enabling video companies to accelerate their path to true cloud
business models, licensees benefit from power and carbon
reductions, cost and time savings, less hardware and bandwidth
requirements and easy scalability. elevate.io, built using
Blackbird core technology, is the company's new creator SaaS
product, a browser based end-to-end content creation tool aimed at
the Creator Economy.
www.blackbird.video
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www.twitter.com/blackbirdcloud
www.facebook.com/blackbirdplc
www.youtube.com/c/blackbirdcloud