Mark Hobson joins Lycos Asia as VP of sales

Mark Hobson has been appointed vice president of sales, Lycos Asia. Hobson will be responsible for Lycos Asia’s entire sales functions encompassing advertising sales - both regional and international sales, sales operations and training as well as advertising communication services.

Born and educated in Australia, Hobson has spent more than 14 years working in Asia namely, Japan, Korea and Singapore. He has more than five years of senior strategic advertising experience and four years of experience in the Internet industry.

Before his appointment, Hobson was president of Focus One Media Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, the Asia Pacific operations of a Europe-based company which had developed a patented profile-driven direct messaging technology that could send full-screen Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and advertising messages to a consumer. Hobson developed the positioning, branding, sales strategies and materials, pricing and revenue models as well as private label branding strategies for Asia Pacific.

Prior to Focus One Media, Hobson was general manager of Mediaworks, the e-commerce and e-services arm of Pacific Internet (Singapore) which was the first Asian ISP to list on NASDAQ in January 1999. He was also a key member of the IPO team. Under his management, the annual turnover of the new start-up quickly grew to S$1 million within a year.

An advertising veteran, Hobson worked at leading advertising agencies such as McCann-Erickson in Korea and Japan and Batey Ads in Singapore from 1993 – 1997. He worked his way up from research to head major accounts such as Nestle FMCGs, Levi’s jeans and Singapore Airlines.

Hobson holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Western Australia and a Graduate Diploma of Arts in Japanese Language from Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia. He is now a permanent resident of Singapore.

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