LOS ANGELES – the Rubicon Project, the digital advertising technology and data company, welcomes Ben Trenda, formerly VP of Global Partnerships at AOL, as Vice President of U.S. Demand and Eric Matza, former Vice President of Product Management at Experian, as Director of Product Marketing. Trenda will lead the company’s efforts building and growing relationships with ad networks and other third-party sales channel partners to ensure they have access to the most targeted premium inventory and audience segments. Matza will be responsible for bringing advertising technology and data products to market that target and meet the technology needs of Rubicon Project premium publisher clients and their sales channel partners.
“With more than 20 years of collective experience in the industry, Ben and Eric bring valuable business insight and intelligence in each of their respective areas. We are excited they’ve joined to lead teams that will continue to make the Rubicon Project able to innovate digital advertising and data technology for publishers that keeps digital media free for consumers and helps content flourish,” said Craig Roah, COO and Founder of the Rubicon Project.
“the Rubicon Project has long interested me because every deal can be a true win-win for customers and partners. The company does not sell directly to advertisers, so unlike other players in the digital advertising marketplace it doesn’t compete with its publisher clients or channel partners, and it doesn’t black box deals – all parties can safely and profitably get the transparency they want and need,” said Ben Trenda, Vice President of U.S. Demand at the Rubicon Project. “The company is adding so much value through its technology, data platform and access to such a high volume of premium inventory from around the world, that all parties involved benefit from the value that’s created, above and beyond what each party gets in the advertising ecosystem today.”
As Vice President, Global Partnerships at AOL, Trenda worked on agency partnerships, global programs and Latin America. Previous to AOL, Trenda led a West Coast sales team for the world’s largest ad network at Advertising.com. Before Advertising.com, Trenda held roles in the Strategic Alliances group at Yahoo and before that, in sales at Overture and GoTo. Prior to GoTo, Trenda worked in business development at several Bay Area startups.
“Initially I was attracted to the Rubicon Project because of its commitment to protecting publishers by creating real, measurable value within the Internet advertising ecosystem,” said Eric Matza, Director of Product Marketing at the Rubicon Project. “I joined the team because I saw how perfectly we marry this vision to robust technology that has been proven at scale, and the deep data assets that allow publishers to maintain control over their own data while leveraging a platform that allows them to build a better advertising business.”
Previous to the Rubicon Project, Matza leveraged Experian’s data assets and analytics to create new technology platforms for display ad targeting, online lead enhancement and scoring, and website optimization for clients, partners, and Experian Interactive businesses in the US and the UK. Prior to Experian, Matza managed targeting infrastructure for display advertising and email marketing at Yahoo!, and held marketing management roles at Q Interactive (formerly CoolSavings) and AdForce.
About the Rubicon Project
Headquartered in Los Angeles, the Rubicon Project launched in 2007 with a mission to automate the $65 billion global online advertising industry. The company’s Yield Management Optimization platform, REVV for publishers™, is engineered to accelerate revenue for premium Web publishers. Backed by $42 million in funding from Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, IDG Ventures and GE/NBC Universal’s Peacock Equity Fund, the Rubicon Project serves premium publishers like NBC Universal, Gannett and CareerBuilder; optimizing more than 45 billion ads each month and reaching 500 million unique Internet users. the Rubicon Project also helps ad sales channels around the world gain access to precise audience-segmented inventory, at broad scale.
