Mobile Marketing Association global CEO and president Mike Wehrs will give up his post at the helm of the trade association at the end of this year.
Wehrs’ departure comes just a bit short of one year after he stepped into the leadership role, following the departure of long-time MMA president and CEO Laura Marriott. MMA Global chairman Federico Pisani will serve as interim CEO until a replacement can be found. Wehrs will retain an affiliation with the group for the first six months of 2010, serving as special advisor to the MMA global executive committee to help aid the transition.
No information was available on where Wehrs is headed, but in a release announcing the resignation, Pisani alluded to Wehrs’ “return to the commercial sector” after his stint as head of the non-profit MMA.
Before stepping into the CEO role, Wehrs headed the mobile business division for Nuance Communications, a speech-recognition platform provider.
The MMA announcement downplayed the brevity of Wehrs’ stay but credited him with guiding the association successfully through some tough marketing times.
“Mike’s leadership has been beneficial not only to the MMA but to the industry itself,” Pisani said. “Having benefited from Mike’s leadership, the MMA has transformed over the past year and is finishing 2009 in a great position.”
Among Wehrs’ accomplishments, according to the statement, were an increase in paid membership, the rollout of a mobile marketing certification program, and an agreement last March with the four leading U.S. carriers standardizing best practices for consumer mobile marketing around the MMA’s guidelines.
The association’s board will now mount a search for a new CEO and president. Pisani was quoted in press reports as saying that all four global regions of the MMA (Asia Pacific; Europe, Middle East & Africa; North America and South America) would be represented on the search committee, and that the next executive to head the group might come from outside the U.S.
Pisani, who heads Brazilian telecom provider Hanzo, ruled himself out as the next CEO, according to reports.
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