Global digital commerce specialist Astound Commerce announced today that it has appointed three new members to its global senior leadership team. Thomas Spellios has been appointed Chief Financial Officer, Matthew Barker has been hired as Chief People Officer and Maria (Maru) Velandia has been named Global Employer Brand Manager.
Astound Commerce has a 20-year history of delivering exceptional digital commerce experiences for global brands such as PUMA, L’Oréal, Under Armour, Boohoo, Halfords, and Crocs. This significant investment in Astound’s leadership team across the dimensions of finance, talent, and employer branding dramatically accelerates the company’s progress toward its North Star goals of building out its capabilities and network, expanding into new commercial markets, and ultimately becoming theglobal market leader in digital commerce and transformation.
As CFO, Thomas Spellios will define and drive the financial and operational management of the company globally. He will be tasked with the challenge of raising Astound’s prowess and performance while advancing the company. Thomas, who will be based in the US, has an expansive 25-plus-year history working at consultancies (Booz Allen & Hamilton, Deloitte, and Accenture) and technology companies (TTEC, Logica, Ericsson, and Teradata), as well as a number of private equity firms. He is a University of Massachusetts and University of Maryland graduate, with an MBA in international finance.
Based in London and responsible for leading Astound’s global people operations efforts for the ongoing evolution of the business, Matthew Barker will spearhead strategies to attract, retain, develop, and inspire top talent around the globe and create a world-class employee culture and environment. Matthew is a seasoned people operations executive with deep international, technology, and organizational transformation experience for companies including Asurion, Bwin.party Entertainment, British Telecom, Cisco Systems, and EDS, as well as the digital advertising platforms of Rakuten. Barker attended London South Bank University.
Maria (Maru) Velandia brings more than 10 years of digital marketing, recruitment marketing, and employer branding experience to Astound, with a proven track record of helping companies like Philips define their differentiating employer value proposition and communicate and market it to become a talent destination of choice. Based in Panama, Maru holds a masters in communications and advertising from Andrés Bello Catholic University.
Thomas and Matthew will report directly to Astound Global CEO Michael Kahn (MK), and Maru will report to Matthew.
“Astound Commerce has a singular goal of being the global leader in digital commerce solutions,” said MK. “As a company, we are committed to delivering maximum value every single day, and these critical new teammates will further fuel our pursuit of that mission. We are thrilled to welcome Thomas, Matthew, and Maru, esteemed leaders in their respective areas of expertise, to our global leadership team and look forward to watching them excel.”
About Astound Commerce:
At Astound Commerce, we live and breathe customer experience. We design engagements that forge lifelong brand loyalty. We generate and capture consumer demand and push technology to the edge of what it can do. With 20 years’ experience, 1,400 ecommerce specialists, more than 3,000 projects completed, and dozens of industry accolades, we excel at maximizing the brand and business value of every digital commerce touchpoint. Our strategic solutions work in service of visionary brands such as L’Oréal, Boohoo, Halfords, FLOR, TOMS, and Crocs.
Astound has earned Salesforce B2C Commerce Expert and Retail Industry Specialist status, reflecting the company’s ongoing commitment to excellence in the Salesforce ecosystem. To learn more, visit astoundcommerce.com.