Betfair lands Yahoo veteran to lead mobile
Exchange wastes no time in replacing outgoing head of mobile Charlie Palmer with Raj Vemulapalli, a Silicon Valley veteran credited with leading its Messenger instant chat product.
Betfair has appointed Raj Vemulapalli from Yahoo as vice president of mobile engineering just weeks after Charlie Palmer, its previous head of mobile stepped down.
Vemulapalli, who spent 11 years at Yahoo developing the internet business’s Messenger product and mobile messaging, voice and video and chat platforms, will be based jointly in London and San Francisco where he will also set up a new mobile centre of excellence in Silicon Valley.
The new role has been created in an attempt to grow the exchange’s mobile customer base and improve existing and develop new products and technology, the company said.
“Betfair is a technology company that invented the betting exchange a decade ago and is now reinventing mobile betting and gaming,” Vemulapalli said. “I am excited to be driving Betfair’s mobile strategy, products and platforms at a time when consumers are increasingly turning to mobile”.
Betfair was one of the first operators to have a betting application listed in the Apple App Store for both the iPhone and iPad, while the company recently announced a new revenue sharing initiative for third party developers who design mobile products through Betfair’s open API program.
Tony McAlister, Betfair’s chief technology officer, added: “Raj has a track record of delivering global products, building teams and has experience managing open API’s, a development route which is significant to our mobile strategy going forward”.
Betfair has seen a string of senior executives leave in the last two months including Robin Osmond the first CEO of its financial betting exchange start-up LMAX, Tim Phillips, former director of European and public affairs,
A spokesman for Betfair told eGaming Review it would announce a number of new hires to replace the executives that have left since the beginning of April.