Razorfish hires Zell to build out CRM

Razorfish appointed John Zell VP of customer relationship technology solutions on February 1 as part of the agency's effort to increase its CRM presence.

The former SVP and chief technology officer of integrated marketing services at Protocol reports to David Baker, VP of CRM solutions at the agency.

“Bringing someone, like John, who has the experience building hundreds of data solutions, helps us develop an integrated data solution that helps us truly react and market,” Baker said.

Zell also previously worked on CRM technology at Harte-Hanks, where he built data and business intelligence platforms as VP of marketing services. Baker added that the newly created position, announced February 3, is part of Razorfish's effort to increase its CRM footprint.

“While we haven't been known as a pure-play CRM agency, there are so many elements of CRM that we do, like building data solutions, multichannel programs and [providing] insight,” he explained.

Holding company Publicis bought Razorfish last August for $530 million. Microsoft was the agency's previous owner.