Strategic hire fuels momentum in the region with addition of Gavin Stirrat as VP Europe, partner services
LONDON and LOS ANGELES – OpenX, the world’s leading independent advertising technology provider, announced significant growth and momentum in its EU business as the company enters into its 10th year of operation. Following the announcement of ten straight years of growth for the business globally, OpenX announced milestones in Europe as well, with net revenue in the region posting strong gains in 2017 and surging to 33 percent year over year growth in Q4, and mobile revenue growing 74 percent during that same time period. The company also added 95 new publisher partners across Europe, including The Telegraph, Autotrader, and Dennis Publishing, and appointed industry veteran Gavin Stirrat, as vice president of Europe, partner services, to support continued growth.
Since its founding ten years ago, OpenX has successfully navigated the evolution of the programmatic ecosystem, growing successively each year into what is today the world’s largest independent advertising exchange. With a long-standing commitment to quality and dedicated investment in technology and product for key growth areas, such as mobile, OpenX is well positioned to continue its current success into 2018. Earlier this year, OpenX demonstrated this commitment to partners by announcing that it was the first exchange to be fully compliant with its publisher obligations under GDPR, several months ahead of the deadline.
“International growth has always been key to our success at OpenX as we continue to build the technology and solutions that our partners need to take control of their business,” said Jason Fairchild, co-founder, OpenX. “The results we’ve seen across Europe, and our entire business, can be directly attributed to two things, our longstanding commitment to prioritizing quality, including our repeated decisions to invest in quality measures that often require us to turn away short-term revenue opportunities, and our focus on bringing aboard smart and talented minds, like Gavin’s, to push our business forward.”
Gavin brings more than 20 years of experience in digital advertising to his role at OpenX. He will be responsible for pre- and post-sales operations for supply partners across Europe, with a focus on organic growth.
“Spending nearly two decades of my career in digital advertising, it’s exciting to be joining a company like OpenX at this point in time,” said Gavin Stirrat. “Digital advertising is in the midst of a massive transformation, and OpenX’s history of prioritizing quality and innovating for the future highlight two promising characteristics that aren’t easily found in every advertising technology company. As the industry continues its shift, consolidating around high-quality players that have proven to provide value to partners at every part of the supply chain, I’m thrilled to be joining OpenX because of their leadership in driving positive change in our industry, from the wild west early days towards total quality and trust.”
Prior to OpenX, Gavin was the managing director of the DSP business at Voluum, where he worked closely with the engineering teams developing the platform, then launching the company’s commercial presence in London. He has also held leadership positions at StrikeAd, leading the international, product and operations teams until the acquisition by Sizmek, and Millennial Media, where he set up the company’s first international office in 2010 and oversaw the business grow to over 60 people across 3 countries and through an IPO.
About OpenX
OpenX powers highly relevant advertising at global scale, delivering quality and value to brands, publishers and consumers across every type of connected screen and ad format. The company’s leading technology aggregates, curates and values consumer interest in real time on one of the world’s largest and highest quality ad exchanges to ensure marketers reach exactly the audience they want. OpenX serves more than 30,000 of the world’s most recognized brands, more than 1,200 websites and more than 2,000 premium mobile apps.
