ON Partners Recruits Chief Digital Officer for Pizza Hut Digital Ventures
May 21, 2020 – Marc Gasperino, leader of the digital practice at ON Partners, recently placed Paul Morris as chief digital officer of Pizza Hut Digital Ventures, an in-house start-up of Pizza Hut looking to build the next generation pizza ordering and delivery platform. Mr. Morris brings extensive global expertise in digital transformation having led business strategy with a clear focus on the customer experience. He has led transformation of consumer propositions, marketing strategy, data and digital in retail, banking and healthcare, delivering significant commercial value working in diverse cultures and organization structures across Europe, Scandinavia and Asia-Pacific.
Recently, he served as group E-commerce and digital director of SpecSavers, where he added significant brand and commercial value, covering all aspects of SpecSavers digital transformation, and delivering its multichannel strategy across an international marketplace. Before that, Mr. Morris served in a variety of roles with Tesco including customer and brand experience director.
“Pizza Hut has also been stepping up for its global customer base during the pandemic, offering contact-free delivery, providing free pizzas for healthcare heroes, and hiring over 30,000 permanent positions,” said the search firm. “ON Partners is proud to collaborate with Pizza Hut, and we have celebrated their work during this pandemic in our ON Client Community Series.”
This is the second collaboration for Mr. Gasperino and ON Partners with Pizza Hut, having placed the company’s chief technology officer, Aditi Agarwal, in late 2019. Ms. Agarwal previously held that role with LiveStyled.
Pizza Hut, a subsidiary of Yum! Brands Inc., has more restaurant locations in the world than any other pizza company. Founded in 1958 in Wichita, KS, Pizza Hut operates over 18,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries.
Growing Search Firm
With a primary focus on technology, energy/clean tech, consumer, industrial and the life science sectors, ON Partners recruits C-suite, board directors and senior executive talent for public and private companies, as well as venture capital and private equity firms. In 2019, ON Partners was for the sixth consecutive year named to Inc. magazine’s Inc. 5000 ranking of the fastest-growing U.S. companies. Last year, the firm was named to the Inc. 5000 Hall of Fame. Founded in 2006, the firm’s consultants work from offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Menlo Park, Minneapolis, and San Francisco.
ON Partners is now ranked No. 17 on the Hunt Scanlon Media Top 50 Recruiter Ranking of search firms published earlier this month.
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As data becomes increasingly critical to corporate decision-making, the chief digital officer now reigns supreme. For recruiters, this has heightened the need for digital candidates with a much deeper grasp of the overall business environment and a greater repertoire of skills than ever before.
Mr. Gasperino joined ON Partners last year in New York. Throughout his executive search career, Mr. Gasperino has recruited C-level, board and critical digital lifecycle roles ranging from customer outreach and acquisition, product development and user experience and analytics for companies at various stages of their development, from early stage start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. His clients span the technology, media and entertainment, consumer, financial services, life sciences and industrial sectors.
Mr. Gasperino’s search career spans more than 20 years. He joined ON Partners from Korn Ferry, where he was a senior client partner and managing director of the firm’s digital practice. Previously, he served as managing partner of the global digital practice for CTPartners, and head of Northeast operations for corporate information systems.
“Marc has tremendous knowledge of the digital space, the way technology impacts new and transitioning markets and the talent those markets require,” said Tim Conti, co-founder and managing partner of ON Partners. “His ability to understand those needs and to recruit the best talent makes him an important addition to our team.”
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
