Learfield IMG College, ThinkWhy, and More Make Leadership Moves

Across North Texas, companies are promoting and hiring people to take on leadership positions within their organizations. Dallas Innovates covers prominent personnel moves in Dallas-Fort Worth businesses and nonprofits—from the newest startups to well-established companies. Here are the people moves tied to innovation and technology in the region.

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Learfield IMG College promotes Gahagan to president and CEO

Cole Gahagan

Greg Brown

With the announcement of Greg Brown stepping down from his role as president and CEO of the Plano-headquartered company also came Cole Gahagan’s appointment to the same role.

Brown will begin serving as co-chairman of the board of directors and advisor to Learfield once the transition is complete, according to a statement. Brown has been with the company for 36 years and got his start with Learfield by selling sponsorships for the Iowa State Cyclone Radio Network. He was named president and CEO of the company in 2009.

Gahagan joined Learfield in January 2020 as its president of content, revenue and enterprise solutions. In that role, he led media and content teams as well as Learfield’s various businesses. Before joining the Learfield team, Gahagan previously held positions as Fanatics, Inc.’s chief commercial officer, Ticketmaster’s chief revenue officer, and Live Nation’s senior vice president of development and strategy.

Learfield IMG College’s omnichannel platform provides content and commerce solutions to create fan engagement opportunities with services including licensing and multimedia sponsorship management; publishing, audio, digital, and social media; and campus-wide business and sponsorship development.

ThinkWhy selects Denton as SVP of business intelligence and CIO

Jay Denton

Jay Denton will join the Dallas-headquartered software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform as its senior vice president of business intelligence and chief innovation officer.

Denton is expected to lead ThinkWhy’s areas of business intelligence and innovation, and also help “champion a culture of thought leadership,” according to a statement.

Denton was the SVP of business intelligence at Bell Partners before joining ThinkWhy. According to a statement, he has over 15 years of leadership experience at SaaS organizations.

ThinkWhy recently launched its first product LaborIQ, which provides labor economics and compensation-planning solutions. The company’s SaaS platform is meant to help companies navigate the labor market and uses U.S. labor market data to give employers insights into talent supply and demand, salaries by occupation, and benchmarks for individuals and teams.

TeamSupport selects Glover for VP of marketing and communications

Connie Glover

The Dallas-based company with business-to-business (B2B) focused customer support software solutions has added Connie Glover to its team.

Glover will assume the role of vice president of marketing and communications for TeamSupport. Through this position, Glover is expected “to ignite growth, demand generation and overall customer experience,” according to a statement.

Glover will be working alongside TeamSupport’s recently-appointed chief marketing officer Melissa Hendrick, who said in a statement, “To ensure we are hitting the right audience with the right message, it is critical we have someone like Connie on our team.”

Before joining TeamSupport, Glover was the principal owner of a boutique full-service marketing and P.R. firm called CMarie Marketing Studio. She has more than 25 years of experience in marketing and communications, including working with Yooz, a cloud-based accounts payable automation solution, according to a statement.

Symphony RetailAI names Lyons as head of CPG Enterprise Sales

Daniel Lyons

The AI-enabled marketing, merchandising, and supply chain solutions provider has selected Daniel Lyons to lead its engagements with CPG organizations.

Lyons has more than 20 years of experience in sales with 10 years concentrated on the consumer packaged goods market, according to a statement. Graeme Cooksley, Symphony RetailAI’s president, chief operating officer, and chief revenue officer, said in a statement that Lyons “has a strong blend of sales leadership and a deep understanding of data that delivers significant value to our new and existing CPG partners.”

Lyons was the EVP of sales for Atlas Technology before joining the Symphony RetailAI team and was the global account director for JDA Software prior to that.

The Dallas-based company’s CPG solutions are powered by AI and machine learning and give information to CPG teams based on real-time data analysis. Symphony RetailAI is owned by SymphonyAI Group, which is headquartered in Silicon Valley.

C-Hear hires Cavalier as VP of entertainment strategy

Gina Cavalier

The Dallas-based company focused on delivering digital footprint files containing both image and sound has chosen Gina Cavalier as its vice president of entertainment strategy.

Netflix, Disney, Fox, Universal, and HBO, are among the companies Cavalier has previously worked for and with. Prior to joining C-Hear, Cavalier was the VP of programming for The Alliance of Women in Media and has several writing projects currently in development.

Cavalier is expected to help C-Hear expand its brand through her new role and help it continue to improve the lives of others through C-Hear’s tech, according to a statement. C-Hear’s Codec software is expected to help the seven million visually impaired Americans “hear” images on the Internet.

C-Hear was created in 2015 and unveiled its Codec software at SXSW. At the time, C-Hear said its tech was called an internet disruptor “destined to change how consumers hear pictures and transfer data.”