Earlier today, the IAB announced that it was hiring Scott Cunningham as the Vice President of Technology and Ad Operations. Immediately prior to this, Scott was the SVP of Product Management here at Sovrn.
When the opportunity to join the IAB first came up way back in November of last year, Scott and I discussed the potential of his joining. It was a long process and I’m proud to see Scott take on this prestigious appointment. I know he will bring substantial working knowledge of both the challenges and opportunities publishers and advertising technology companies have in front of them.
The product team here at Sovrn is in a unique position in that they see the world through the lens of both the publisher and the marketer. We orient our business toward helping independent and influential publishers thrive. That means that we must understand and embrace the increasing sophistication of marketers and their agents in a way that best benefits our publisher partners. Our work around eradicating poor quality and fraudulent traffic is in many ways an example of doing our part to help get more money to publishers that truly deserve it. This is no easy task, and our product team handles these challenges expertly. I’m proud to see the validation of our work being embraced by the IAB’s choice of Scott to join their leadership team. I know that his contributions will be well informed by a complete view of the online advertising landscape.
As the CEO of a fast growing company, our roadmap is clear and our product priorities are broadly understood. Over the coming weeks we will deliver mobile and native solutions for publishers, continue our expansion into video, and of course deliver more advanced yield optimization and revenue growth options for display. We’re adding more demand partners, building our data visualization and management console, and starting to market-test custom segmentation offerings. Perhaps most exciting of all is that our publisher platform and marketplace remains on-track for a mid-summer launch into public beta.
As an organization we’re deeply involved with the IAB. I personally co-chair the Solutions Group focused on driving better and higher quality good traffic across the supply and demand of online advertising while eliminating the bad and fraudulent traffic. I’m looking forward to working across the table with Scott to make that happen.
–Walter Knapp, CEO, Sovrn Holdings, Inc.
