Medialab Group has hired Steve Venes, TV Director at John Ayling & Associates (JAA), as Broadcast Director to drive its continued growth in its TV planning and buying division.

Venes joins Medialab, the Data Driven Media planning and buying agency, after serving 22 years at JAA where he worked alongside clients including Barnardo’s, Noble Foods, Plan UK, Christian Aid, Save the Children and Macmillan. Regarded as one of the most experienced and knowledgeable TV buyers in the industry, he will be Medialab’s Broadcast Director and a key part in its growth as a full service, multi-channel planning and buying solution.

Marcus Orme, CEO at Medialab, commented “This is a fantastic appointment for us. Bringing on board someone with Steve’s expertise and knowledge will be invaluable. We realise the importance of TV in providing a fully rounded media proposition to our clients and this will enable us to provide exactly what our clients want. Combining our data driven approach [which focuses on insight, analytics and measurement] with Steve’s skills as a media buyer will provide a huge benefit for our clients and their customer acquisition strategy. He is the perfect fit for us and we can’t wait to get started”.

The appointment comes after a record year in 2016 for Medialab which saw a 50% growth in revenue.