LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--YP℠, a leading local marketing solutions provider, today announced it has appointed Stu MacFarlane and Wendell Hicken to its executive team. MacFarlane has joined YP as the Executive Vice President of Consumer Platforms and Hicken steps into the role of Executive Vice President of Technology. These appointments reinforce YP’s continued digital transformation. The more than 100-year old company has always been a local search leader while continuously advancing; today it focuses on helping to connect local businesses with consumers wherever they are, across multiple platforms – mobile, digital and print.
“This year, we evolved our strategy in order to better focus on serving our two distinct audiences – consumers looking for local services, and the businesses that want to connect with these searchers,” said David Krantz, CEO of YP. “We’re proud to announce two new leaders with proven track records who will continue to drive the aggressive development efforts around our technology and consumer properties.”
Stu MacFarlane leads YP’s consumer product strategy and development.
As EVP of Consumer Platforms, MacFarlane is responsible for all aspects of YP’s consumer properties which reach more than 70 million users per month, including community building and innovations that drive additional value to consumers to help make informed decisions about local businesses, further developing YP’s mobile experience, and building out additional opportunities for consumers to connect more directly with businesses.
MacFarlane is an entrepreneur in local search and brings more than 15 years of experience in the industry to YP. Prior to YP, MacFarlane spent four years at Herbalife where he ran global mobile and web development efforts, following Herbalife’s acquisition of iChange, where he was CEO. MacFarlane founded both Insider Pages, a local search directory with consumer reviews that was later acquired by Citysearch, and MoxieGirl, a popular ecommerce and direct mail business. Additionally, MacFarlane served as Managing Director at Momentum Venture Management and Vice President of New Ventures at Idealab, where he invested in and advised early-stage technology companies.
Wendell Hicken leads YP’s technology, advertising and data platforms.
As EVP of Technology, Hicken oversees development of YP’s best-in-class advertising platforms, technology platforms, and enterprise data systems.
Hicken has spent more than seven years at YP; he joined the company in 2009 and as Chief Architect played an integral role helping to build out its ad delivery platform, as well as leading the development of YP’s next-generation enterprise platform. Prior to YP, he was CTO for an acoustic music recommendation startup and served as VP of Advanced R&D for Parasoft, working on software development tools, compilers, parallel processing and more.
About YP
YP is a leading local marketing solutions provider in the U.S. dedicated to helping local businesses and communities grow. YP’s flagship consumer brands include the popular YP℠ app and YP.com, which are used by more than 70 million visitors each month in the U.S. (Internal Data, May 2015). YP solutions include online presence, local search, display advertising, direct marketing and print directory advertising. YP solutions and services are backed by thousands of media consultants and customer service professionals in local markets across the U.S. with relationships spanning nearly half a million advertisers. For more information on YP, visit us at http://corporate.yp.com. Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YP on Twitter: https://twitter.com/yp.
