• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, August 4, 2009

Tremor Media co-founder and chief operating officer Andrew Reis and co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer Jesse Chenard have left the company in a management shake-up at the video ad network. Mark Pinney, Tremor's chief financial officer, will assume an expanded operational role as part of a restructuring within the company.

According to a company-wide memo sent by Tremor CEO Jason Glickman on Monday, the changes are aimed at reorganizing "several areas of the company with a new structure...to further capitalize on the significant traction we are gaining in the market place."

It also states Reis and Chenard are leaving to pursue new startup opportunities and will continue to serve as advisors to Tremor. In an interview Tuesday, Glickman confirmed the authenticity of the memo and said the departures were the result of a mutual decision between the company and the two former executives.

"This is part of the natural evolution of the company," said Glickman, also a Tremor co-founder. "We set the course of the company to go after TV ad dollars and we're now starting to see that happen so this positions us for the next phase of seeing these big budgets start to move over."

Tremor serves in-stream and in-banner video ads across a network of 1,500 mid-tier and premium sites including WWE.com and WSJ.com. According to comScore's AdFocus ranking of online ad networks in June, the Tremor network had a potential reach of 141.7 million, or 73% of U.S. online online audience.

Glickman said the last two quarters have been the best revenue-wise for the company and that overall revenue had doubled in the last year, though he declined to provide actual figures for privately-held Tremor.

Online video advertising, still an emerging segment, hasn't been hit as hard as other online ad categories during the recession but growth has slowed. Earlier this year, eMarketer revised its estimate for online video ad spending growth in 2009 from 45% to 43.5%, or $1.1 billion. Forrester Research projects 2009 spending lower, at $870 million.

Data released last month by rival video ad network BrightRoll showed the average cost of a pre-roll ad unit is up 3.1% vs. the first quarter of 2009. But second quarter prices for pre-roll video ads are still down 10.4% from the year-ago period.

At Tremor, much of ex-COO Reis's responsibilities will fall to Pinney, who joined the company last year after serving as head of business planning at AOL's Platform A and as CFO at behavioral targeting firm Tacoda. "He will be responsible for the building, delivery, and optimization of our network, with the Operations and Network Development departments reporting directly to him in addition to his current direct reports," according to the Tremor memo.

"Our ability to efficiently manage supply and demand, while achieving our margin goals and premium publisher priorities will require significant collaboration, structure, and discipline between these groups," wrote Glickman.

With Pinney effectively taking over the COO role, Glickman said the company also doesn't plan to fill the chief strategy officer position vacated by Chenard. In the memo, the CEO himself said he planned to take on a greater role himself in the technology and product development efforts, with both those departments reporting directly to him.

The document also details other lower-level management changes geared toward streamlining Tremor's operations. Glickman indicated, however, that he doesn't plan any staff cutbacks at the approximately 100-employee company in relation to the management and organizational changes.

It will also continue to maintain the European branches it opened last year in the UK and Germany. "We're equally bullish with what Europe has to offer," said Glickman. In February, Tremor announced closing a third-round financing of $18 million led by Meritech Capital Partners to help fuel its international expansion. To date, it has raised a total of just over $40 million in venture capital.