• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, June 1, 2011

Nearly one month into his new job, eXelate SVP of Analytics Kevin is putting together a plan to embed analytics into eXelate services. To do that he will need to hire a staff and build out an infrastructure. The next step will be to turn the plan into a product roadmap. "It was a great opportunity to build out a strong analytics group for a company sitting on a mass of amazing data," he said. "As an analyst, data is my thing."

Data is king, at least for companies like eXelate that builds online audience segments for ad targeting services. Without knowing how and when to use the data it's worthless, he said. Build out the product roadmap and the data will determine what the services can do and what it lacks. Analytics processes succeed or fail in the initial steps, he said.

As for the data, the best answers come from analytics because it forces the findings to ask more questions. "You end up with why-is-that-the-case, and why-is-that-so scenarios that get you right back into the data, which asks more questions," he said.

Lyons joins eXelate from x+1, a demand side platform (DSP) leveraging statistical modeling to bypass traditional online marketing techniques, where he served as vice president of analytics and business intelligence.

Lyons isn't the only new hire. David Lundell joins eXelate as vice president of product management. Lundell takes responsibility for driving the product roadmap and innovation strategy for eXelate's DataLinX platform. Prior to joining the company he served as the vice president of product management at Kantar Media, a WPP Group company, and producer for Yahoo and CMP Media.