Rex founded Marketing Evolution in 2000 to build on the cross-channel measurement and audience insight techniques he started as Wired’s research director in the 1990’sMore
26. Manu Mathew – raising the Visual IQ of ads
Manu was co-founder and CEO of Visual IQ, a leader in the field of multi-touch attribution (MTA) and marketing insights, sold to Nielsen in 2017More
25. Jeremy Ring – We Were Yahoo!
Jeremy Ring was the first in-house sales person at Yahoo and started its East Coast operation around the time of its massive IPOMore
24. Tolman Geffs – banking on ad tech and media
Tolman is a long-time ad tech and media investment banker and advisor who was CEO of Internet Broadcasting during the dot-com boom and bustMore
23. David Shen – inside Yahoo!’s ad revolution
David was employee #17 at Yahoo! and a friend of founders Jerry Yang and David Filo at Stanford, and he guided the ad UX from grainy banners to the homepage takeoverMore
22. Michael Provenzano – issuing an Invite (Media) to Google
Michael was co-founder of Invite Media, one of the first DSPs, sold to Google in 2010 and the basis for its DV360 platform; and the co-founder and CEO of Vistar, a DOOH solution providerMore
21. Mark Zagorski – eXelate, Telaria & DoubleVerify
Mark is the CEO of DoubleVerify and a seasoned ad tech CEO having headed up eXelate and TelariaMore
20. Ari Lewine – going native with TripleLift
Ari is co-founder with Eric Berry and Shaun Zacharia of TripleLift, a native ad platform that sold a majority stake to Vista Equity for a reported $1.4B in 2021More
19. Scott McCorkle – hitting the ExactTarget at MetaCX
Scott McCorkle was a long-time leader and technical visionary at ExactTarget, a pioneering ESP and mar-tech hub that was acquired by Salesforce in 2012More
18. Kevin Ryan – up and down and up with DoubleClick
Ryan was an early DoubleClick leader and president during the tumultuous years of the boom and bust, ultimately shepherding its sale to PE in 2005More
17. Steven Comfort – HotWired into the first online ads
Comfort witnessed the birth of ads on the internet as a media buyer and later seller at Hotwired and Wired in SF in the mid-1990sMore
16. David Carlick – untold story of Poppe Tyson and DoubleClick
Carlick was a B2B ad pioneer in Silicon Valley and worked for Poppe Tyson and the legendary Fergus O’Dalley, who came up with the name DoubleClickMore
15. Dave Moore – the epic of 24/7
David Moore is the CEO of Britepool, an advertising identity management and resolution company developing an alternative ID for publishers. An affable Midwestern dealmaker, he moved east to join a TV ad sales rep company and then CNN at the dawn of the cable TV revolution. He recalls going on sales calls with an exuberant…More
14. Lou Montulli – building browsers, cookies and more
Lou was an engineer on the launch team at Netscape in the 1990s and helped build the cookie, animated GIFs and the web as we know itMore
13. Dave Morgan – keeping it Real(Media), TACODA and Simulmedia
After practicing law the intrepid Morgan pitched a VC in an elevator and went on to found ad server and network Real Media, TACODA and SimulmediaMore
12. Kevin O’Connor – on co-founding DoubleClick and more
Kevin O’Connor is the co-founder with Dwight Merriman of DoubleClick in 1995 and was its CEO until 2001 when he left to become a VC and entrepreneurMore
11. Auren Hoffman – building a LiveRamp to the info highway
Auren is a serial entrepreneur best known for co-founding middleware giant LiveRamp which was spun out of his people-data company Rapleaf in 2012More
10. Chris O’Hara – getting to the Krux of DMPs and ad data
Chris is a marketer and author with a colorful career spanning Traffiq, Bionic Ads, Nielsen, early DMP nPario and Krux, which was acquired by Salesforce in 2016More
9. Beth Wallace – you’ve got AOL’s ad-tech advocate
Wallace grounded herself in direct marketing at Meredith and joined AOL in 2001 to apply the principles of DM to the new world of online acquisitionMore
8. Ratko Vidakovic – the SiteScout becomes an AdProf
Ratko worked in IT and ran a website for Toyota fans which sparked an idea for a self-serve ad server and DSP that became SiteScout – he is now at AdProfsMore