Jeremy Kaplan, Neil Ford, Mark Ensley and Peter Wallace bring their proven sales success and valuable industry experience to GumGum’s partnerships with leading publishers and brands
SANTA MONICA, Calif. – GumGum, the leading computer vision platform for marketers, announced the expansion of the company’s global sales organization with four critical hires including three Vice Presidents and a Commercial Director to lead its North American and U.K. sales teams. Jeremy Kaplan joins as Vice President of East Coast Sales, Neil Ford as Vice President of Central U.S. and Canada, Mark Ensley as Vice President of Automotive and Peter Wallace as Commercial Director for EMEA. All four industry leaders bring extensive backgrounds and a profound understanding of advertising, strategy and activations, as well as the ability to help GumGum’s clients manage the increasingly complex ad tech ecosystem.
.@GumGum Expands Global Sales Organization, Hires Four Digital Advertising Industry Leaders
“As GumGum’s growth outpaces its market and competitors, we are afforded the opportunity to attract and hire seasoned advertising professionals. These hires are vital as we work to succeed in our mission of delivering material growth to our partners: agencies, publishers, and brands,” said Phil Schraeder, President and COO, GumGum. “Our partners trust us to not only deliver market-leading technology, but also the industry insights and strategy required to keep them ahead of their competition each day. To exceed those expectations, it takes bringing together the brightest minds around the world that look critically at the advertising ecosystem, explore unique solutions to our clients goals, and see opportunity in challenges. With today’s hires we’ve deepened that bench considerably.”
Jeremy Kaplan joins GumGum as Vice President of East Coast Sales and will be based in New York City. Previously, Kaplan was the Senior Sales Director at Undertone and led the company’s New York and Tri-state area sales team. During his five years at Undertone, he helped the company double its revenue and navigate its acquisition by Perion in December 2015. Jeremy has an extensive background in creating customized partnerships with many of the largest brands in the advertising industry; experience that he will apply to the unique advertising goals of GumGum’s advertisers and the opportunities presented via its premium publisher network.
Neil Ford has been in the digital advertising space for 17 years with expertise in programmatic, mobile, social and video solutions. Prior to joining GumGum as Vice President of Central U.S. and Canada, Ford was a vice president at RadiumOne, where in five years he grew the sales and client services team by 190 percent and revenue by 156 percent. Ford proved to be an effective sales leader with strong brand relations across the retail, automotive, insurance and CPG industries, and has developed industry-leading sales teams at USA Today and Live Nation. Ford’s experience will help take GumGum’s current success in the Central U.S. and Canadian markets to the next level, and his expertise in programmatic will ensure GumGum brings to market solutions across new formats, applications of AI, and channels that are easy for clients to understand, adopt, and benefit from immediately.
Mark Ensley brings over 16 years of digital advertising experience to his new role at GumGum leading the automotive sales team. His past experience in the automotive industry includes roles at The Enthusiast Network representing brands including Motor Trend and Intellichoice; Jumpstart Automotive Media working on Ford and FCA; and Global Team Blue, formerly JWT, where he held an Associate Media Director role working on Ford’s digital business. Earlier in his career, Ensley served as a digital buyer at General Motors MediaWorks where he was responsible for key in-market partnerships with Kelley Blue Book and Edmunds. Deeply and uniquely experienced in the automotive industry, Ensley’s addition to the team arms GumGum with a value add for both advertisers and publishers that have a foot in this extremely valuable category.
Peter Wallace joins GumGum as the new Commercial Director for the company’s EMEA team. He brings significant experience from his most recent role at Eyeota, a global leader in audience data, where he helped grow revenue by four times for two consecutive years. Prior to his role at Eyeota, Wallace was the head of digital for Total Media, where he managed a team of digital specialists and increased digital spend to over 40 percent of billings. With a background in media buying as well as a deep understanding of the opportunity that comprehensive data presents for brands in today’s fast changing advertising market, Wallace brings unique value adds to GumGum’s EMEA-based advertisers and the growing publisher network in the region as well.
GumGum most recently raised $26M in financing in May 2015 and has since tripled its headcount. The company also recently promoted COO / CFO, Phil Schraeder, to the position of President and COO marking the company’s continued maturation as a leader in both computer vision and artificial intelligence’s emerging applications in the advertising industry. Today’s hires are a significant extension of the company’s commitment to hiring the brightest minds in the advertising industry across geographies and verticals to help its clients outperform their goals, and stay well ahead of the competition in how they target and connect with audiences across visually-driven content and consumption trends.
About GumGum
GumGum is a leading computer vision company with a mission to unlock the value of every online image for marketers. Its patented image-recognition technology delivers highly visible advertising campaigns to more than 400 million users as they view pictures and content across more than 2,000 premium publishers.
Founded in 2007, GumGum invented the in-image advertising category and is used by the majority of Fortune 100 companies. GumGum ads consistently achieve an 81% viewability rate and deliver 10 times better engagement than traditional display options, while still prioritizing high-quality inventory, brand safety, and user experience. The company also offers GumGum Visual Intelligence, a real-time visual listening platform that helps brands identify and activate online pictures relevant to them, as well as engage their top influencers on social media.
