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SAN JOSE — Weber Shandwick has upped Bradford Williams to head of global technology, nearly one year after Tim Fry left the post.
Williams, who has been with Weber since 2012, has been head of technology for North America. During this time, he took on an interim stint as GM of the firm's San Francisco/Silicon Valley operation "restoring growth and profitability" to the market, according to his LinkedIn.
Under Williams, the technology practice has picked up momentum, winning clients like Qualcomm, VMware — and also — sister conflict shop Creation nabbed Ubisoft and Seagate. Williams reports to Weber president Gail Heimann.
Before joining Weber, Williams took on a three-month stint as Groupon's head of communications. His resume also includes the top comms posts at Verisign, Yahoo and eBay.
As part of his new role, Williams is looking to broaden technology clients beyond influencer relations into content creation and other opportunities that digital platforms allow.
"Technology traditionally hasn't been the first to take on digital," Williams noted. "In the aggregate, the technology sector is more reliant on earned media. We’re helping them to see the limitations in that...and take a broader view based on who a client or prospect is targeting."
Like many technology companies, Williams says his approach to building teams is bringing on smart people — rather than adhering to a rigid candidate profile. This has become especially important as — not only marketing services have diversified — but also as practice distinctions have blurred, especially for technology.
"There's a continuum now," Williams added. "You can't get hung up on practice distinctions and it's not uncommon to have two or three practices working together."
