Internal Executive Appointments of Digital Media Industry Vets Further Advance Company Growth
LOS ANGELES – the Rubicon Project, the advertising technology company, welcomes three seasoned business leaders to its fast-growing global team. New additions include Nick Hulse as Chief Revenue Officer, Bill Harries as Vice President of Sales Operations and Bill McHargue as Vice President of North American Sales. Supporting the company’s momentum, Hulse, Harries and McHargue will join the current sales leadership team to ensure the Rubicon Project’s continued success on behalf of Web publishers and their advertisers.
“We’re focused on building a scalable global business. To do this, we need the right team in place,” said Frank Addante, CEO and Founder of the Rubicon Project. “We already have many of the best-respected minds in the digital media industry leading our efforts, but needed to add depth with executives who have taken fast-growing businesses and scaled them globally with great success. With their combined years of extensive experience doing just that, and doing it very well, I’m confident that Nick Hulse, Bill Harries and Bill McHargue, alongside the rest of our leadership team, will ensure the Rubicon Project continues to lead the digital advertising ecosystem with innovation and vision, driving both our business and the industry forward.”
Nick Hulse will lead the customer-facing teams during an exciting time of publisher adoption and platform innovation. He comes to the Rubicon Project from iPass, a market leader in the SaaS mobility space where he managed a team of more than 100 sales and customer support professionals in 11 countries and was responsible for $170MM in annual revenue. A native of the United Kingdom, Hulse has spent the last 20 years leading both domestic and international sales for US-based technology and telecommunications companies. His winning track record is marked not only by significant sales achievements but also leadership through successful liquidity events including Frontbridge’s acquisition by Microsoft and Tumbleweed’s acquisition by Axway.
“I am delighted to be joining the Rubicon Project team. I come to this role with a deep appreciation of the work that the team has done to evolve the company into a market leader and I’m truly excited to be part of an organization that has a very promising future,” said Hulse. “I will be focused on enhancing an already customer-centric organization with a strategy for increased support, service and innovation for our premium publishers, enabling them to grow their businesses as a result of using the REVV platform.”
Bill Harries will be responsible for sales operations, including sales enablement, systems and processes, and training for the teams responsible for adoption of the REVV yield optimization platform and ongoing growth of the REVV Marketplace, the world’s largest display advertising marketplace. Harries brings 26 years of experience in sales and sales operations in the information technology space. He most recently held the position as director of field enablement for Oracle.
Bill McHargue’s 16-year long sales background launched at the pioneering auto-buying and information publisher Autoweb.com. As National Sales Director, he built Autoweb’s sales and account management team, helping the company grow to $20M in annual revenues and going public with a market cap of $1.2B. Previous to the Rubicon Project, McHargue ran North America sales at StrongMail, where he oversaw 92% of the company’s new direct sales revenue. McHargue will be charged with driving the adoption of the Rubicon Project’s yield optimization platform for premium web publishers in the U.S. and Canada.
In addition to these new hires, internal promotions will give greater responsibility to long-time publisher and digital media industry leaders who have been critical in the growth of the Rubicon Project to date. These include the appointment of company founder, Craig Roah, to the role of President; Josh Wexler, who will continue to oversee publisher success in both North America and EMEA, to Senior Vice President, Market Development; and Seizo Welch, who joined the company in 2008 from Experian Interactive, to Senior Vice President of Finance.
“Josh and Seizo’s experience, knowledge and success in this space have been instrumental in developing a baseline of innovation and rapid growth for our business. Craig’s market vision and strong leadership skills have been the driving force behind how we define our company, team culture and product,” said Addante. “Craig’s commitment to building a strong and successful organization will continue to be one of the key drivers in our success. And now, with a full team in place, our management team will be best enabled to focus on taking our company to great heights.”
About the Rubicon Project
the Rubicon Project, the world leader in Yield Optimization technology, launched in 2007 with a mission to automate buying and selling across the $65 billion global online advertising industry. Powered by data-driven algorithms and pricing intelligence data, REVV, the company’s yield optimization platform, has optimized more than 1,200,000,000,000 (one point two trillion) ad transactions for more than 350 of the largest properties on the Internet and processed 500 billion RTB transactions in Q4 2010. REVV helps premium Web publishers like NBC Universal, Time Inc., Gannett and CareerBuilder make more money by optimizing their ad space, eliminate unnecessary ad operations costs and protect their brands. The platform powers the REVV Marketplace, the world’s largest premium display advertising marketplace. More than 600 ad networks, exchanges and DSPs access premium inventory and audiences through the REVV Marketplace and its unparalleled reach of more than 550 million unique users. Headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in New York, Seattle, London, Paris, Hamburg and Sydney, the company is backed by $60 million in funding from Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, IDG Ventures Asia, GE/NBC Universal’s Peacock Equity Fund and News Corporation.
