He reports to Keith Hawkins, managing director of marketing at Freeserve, and heads an eight-strong team responsible for the development of Freeserve's customer acquisition partners, especially commercial relationships and marketing activities.
At Orange, Beard was head of channel marketing and oversaw the development of the small-business channel.
Prior to joining Orange, he was at the Coca-Cola Company Europe for six years.
"Duncan's experience and skills benefit us at a time when we continue to expand and broaden our distribution and strengthen the relationships we have with our partner base. We're delighted to have him on board at Freeserve and, being part of the wider France Telecom group, we are fortunate to have been able to keep his talent in the family, so to speak," Hawkins said.
Freeserve also announced that it has extended an advertising deal with Teletext Holidays. The deal, negotiated by Katy Knight, agency sales manager at Freeserve, will continue until the end of September and will see banners, pop-ups, hot strips, rich media and a fixed button running across the Travel channel and Freeserve's Today page.
The deal was negotiated by media agency Mannning Gottlieb OMD after a series of test bookings on Freeserve over the last few months.
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