Former Skype Strategy Boss Lands At Mobile Player Urban Airship

Urban Airship confirmed Dean's hire Friday. Launched in May 2009 and based in Portland, Ore., Urban Airship's platform powers mobile application functions such as push notification, in-app purchasing and subscription management. Some of its better-known clients include Dictionary.com, Groupon, Warner Bros., Yahoo and The Weather Channel.

Urban Airship received $15.1 million in Series C funding in November from an investor group that included Salesforce.com and Verizon.

Dean will lead Urban Airship's sales and business development efforts, according to a statement from Urban Airship. His hiring follows that of Brent Hieggelke, a social media marketing specialist who became Urban Airship's CMO in December.

"Urban Airship has the opportunity to take the leadership position in a new and important category of products critical to companies that are now interacting with customers on mobile devices," Dean said in a statement. "The team is a blend of the very best technical, marketing and creative talent I've seen in a long time and I'm excited to be part of it."

At Skype, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2011, Dean was chief strategy officer and head of consumer markets business development. He had a key role in the design of Skype's fledgling business and channel partner programs.

Dean was among several Skype executives ousted in a major management shake-up at the VoIP provider last summer.

Before Skype, Dean had business development and strategy roles with FaceTime Communications, Texada Capital, Epoch Partners and other companies, and advised Apple, Adobe, IBM and Oracle as a consultant at Regis McKenna.