DOUGLAS, Isle Of Man, August 16, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

- Latest Appointment Rounds Out New Senior Leadership Team Built Over the Last 12 Months

PokerStars today announced that Alex Payne has joined the entertainment and technology company as Chief Marketing Officer responsible for all aspects of consumer marketing across the business. Payne will lead all central and regional marketing organizations at PokerStars and be based in the Isle of Man. Payne was hired following an eight-month international search conducted by a leading executive search firm.  

Payne will be responsible for the company's brand and advertising, TV programming productions and media buying, online marketing including paid search, organic search, social media, regional customer relationship management and acquisition, conversion and retention campaigns for online and live poker players.

"I'm delighted to be joining PokerStars," Payne said. "I am joining an outstanding business, which is the clear leader in its category and has enormous potential ahead of it. Moreover, it's a product in which I have a huge personal passion."

Payne joins PokerStars from Microsoft, where he has spent the last 11 years. During this time he has held a wide variety of national, regional and global marketing roles including new product development, strategy & planning and product marketing. Most recently Payne held the position of Sales & Marketing Director for Bing in the UK, where he kick-started the UK search business, building a new team and adopting a new growth strategy that included innovative advertising and the use of celebrities. Over the past year the business has seen double-digit revenue growth, helping Bing to win market share directly from its key competitors.

Other key achievements at Microsoft include creating a US industry standard for online ads with Yahoo! and AOL, launching Windows 7 in Europe, making it the fastest-selling OS ever, and holding market share on Internet Explorer following the European Commission's ruling that all Windows users be offered a choice of competitive browsers.

Prior to Microsoft, Payne, who holds an MBA from INSEAD, spent ten years in advertising agencies, including OgilvyOne (formerly Ogilvy & Mather Direct) and EHS Brann (formerly Evans Hunt Scott).

About PokerStars

PokerStars operates PokerStars.com, the world's most popular online poker site, and serves the world's largest poker community with more than 48 million registered members. It's the first choice of the world's top players, with more daily tournaments than anywhere else, and with the best security online. More hands have been dealt on PokerStars.com than any other site; that's over 65 billion hands and more than 410 million tournaments played.

PokerStars.com operates worldwide under license from the Isle of Man government. Recent additions to the PokerStars family include PokerStars.fr, which operates in France under the French government license, as well as PokerStars.it, which operates in Italy under the Italian government license, and PokerStars.ee, which operates in Estonia under the Estonian government license.

PokerStars.com stages some of the biggest online poker tournaments in the world, including the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) and the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP), and is the official sponsor of some of the biggest live poker tournaments in the world, including the European Poker Tour (EPT), the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) and the UK & Ireland Poker Tour (UKIPT).

PokerStars.com is also home to a team of sponsored players known as Team PokerStars Pro. This elite group of players travel the world competing in international tournaments. For a complete list, visit the Team PokerStars.com Pro home page.

Contact: Mark Stuart - mark_stuart@pokerstars.com - +44(0)20-73193051

SOURCE PokerStars