AOL Elevates 2 Adap.tv Execs Within Platforms Unit, Gabriner To Lead ONE
- by Tyler Loechner @mp_tyler, April 1, 2014
AOL on Tuesday announced several leadership
appointments within its AOL Platforms unit. The appointments come less than a week after the company announced ONE, a combination of AOL’s existing ad tech stack into
one programmatic ad platform.
Two Adap.tv executives -- co-founder and CEO Amir Ashkenazi, and president Toby Gabriner -- have been tapped as execs within AOL Platforms. Gabriner has been named head of the ONE platform, while Ashkenazi has been named president of AOL Platforms.
“Amir will play a critical role in Platforms' strategy, as well as work with
Seth Demsey, Teg Grenager and Toby Gabriner on our ONE
platform and Ran Harnevo on the AOL On video strategy,” wrote Bob Lord, CEO of AOL Platforms, in a blog post announcing the hires.
AOL spent over $400 million to acquire Adap.tv last year, so it stands to
reason that the company would make good use of Adap.tv's technology and people.
However, putting an Adap.tv exec in charge of the ONE platform is telling in regards to where AOL is
focused. Gabriner has experience outside of online video -- he has previously worked at companies such as Carat Interactive and [x+1] -- but it appears AOL is making video a priority.
These guys are great...and it is refreshing to see AOL leverage them...it may be intuitive to promote and leverage acquired talent, but that seems to be the exception rather than the rule in practice: The 'AOL's of the world usually lose people like this after the deal closes, by not empowering them within the larger organization. Congrats to the Adapt team, and AOL.
Congratulations to you both!
The team that built Adap.tv is top notch. Empowering them to steer the platform ship is a very smart strategic move by AOL. Kudos to all!