• by Steve Smith  @popeyesm, January 5, 2012

Apple’s high-profile, high-priced and highly debated in-app ad program iAds has been without a clear leader since Andy Miller left the post in August. Bloomberg reports that Adobe VP of Media Solutions Todd Teresi has been recruited to run the iAds program. Teresi will report to Eddy Cue, who manages iTunes, including the App Store. Apple has not confirmed the appointment, but Adobe told Bloomberg that Teresi had left the company.

Teresi’s appointment is at best ironic, given Apple’s infamous refusal to run Adobe Flash in its apps and mobile Web browsers. Apple complained publicly that Adobe’s publishing platforms were troubled and inefficient. Steve Jobs championed HTML5 platforms instead.

Only at Adobe since May 2011, according to his LinkedIn profile, Teresi worked with advertisers and publishers on digital publishing and video solutions. In particular, he worked on the Adobe Digital Publishing suite that many branded media companies use to develop their tablet apps. From September 2008 to his joining Adobe, Teresi had been CRO at audience measurement service Quantcast. Prior to that, he was with Yahoo since 1999, culminating in his post as SVP overseeing the Yahoo Publisher Network.

Teresi takes over an iAds program that came into the market two years ago as a premium-priced super-rich media ad platform that the late Steve Jobs promised would bring TV-like spots to mobile. Since then, the format and Apple have struggled to maintain traction in the ad community, as many complain that the iAd suffers limited reach compared to other rich media solutions and comes at too high a price. Moreover, there have been many reports surrounding Apple micro-managing ad creative. Like Andy Miller before him, Teresi will likely be the main liaison between Apple and agencies and brands.

IDC reported in December that Apple’s share of the mobile ad revenue market has been in decline, slipping from 19% in 2010 to 15% last year. Meanwhile, Google leads the field with 24% of ad revenue -- followed by Millennial Media with 17%, according to IDC estimates of what the market researcher says was a $2.1 billion-dollar mobile ad market in 2011.