Maven has announced that Andrew Q. Kraft, a digital media veteran who most recently led strategic supply, demand, and other commercial partnerships at AppNexus, has joined the company as Chief Strategy and Revenue Officer. He has held senior roles at virtually every level of the digital media ecosystem, and his leadership at AppNexus helped position the company for a $1.7 billion sale to AT&T.
Digital media veteran and senior executive from AppNexus to lead revenue and strategic partnerships following successful triple merger between Say Media, HubPages, and Maven, emerging as a 100-million user, premium digital media property on a single infrastructure.
Kraft’s experience fits seamlessly with Maven’s end-to-end digital business platform for independent publishers.
As Maven’s Chief Revenue Officer, Kraft will leverage his prior experience leading AppNexus’ global programmatic ad sales team, representing top publishers such as Microsoft and LinkedIn and previously leading Collective’s ad network. And as Chief Strategy Officer, Kraft will leverage his deep understanding of the publisher business, born of his years building the extensive membership base for the Internet Advertising Bureau as head of revenue and member services.
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“We believe there is no executive in the industry more prepared to lead our ambitious growth vision, offering a complete digital home for independent publishers who now, more than ever, need big scale, professional, fair leadership and technical competence,” said Maven CEO and founder James Heckman.
“This much premium scale on a single tech platform certainly offers a unique opportunity, but the primary reason I’m joining Maven is their brilliant, pioneering team and vision,” said Kraft. “Nowhere, at this still-early stage, have I seen such an accomplished group of veteran technology leaders – proven major media engineers and product pioneers – all in one place to drive our mission of supporting the creation of quality content by the top independent media properties. ”
“We could not be more excited to have an executive of Andrew’s caliber to launch our newly unified scale to the marketplace,” said Maven President Josh Jacobs.
Josh added, “Andrew’s experience, relationships, technical knowledge, and entrepreneurial drive will help us harvest the value and efficiency we now offer publishers and brands.”
AppNexus founder Brian O’Kelly shared his unique perspective on Maven’s new CSO. “Andrew was an integral part of AppNexus’ success over the years in a multitude of roles,” he said.
Brian added, “His integrity, kindness, and energy were inspirational to me and every other AppNexian. I’m excited to see him join the Maven leadership team and look forward to seeing him make a huge impact.”
Educated at MIT, Mr. Kraft joins Maven’s very senior, product-focused leadership criteria, which includes digital technology innovators such as CTO/Co-founder Ben Joldersma (Google, Yahoo!, Myspace, 5to1, MSN, Rivals, Scout); Co-founder Bill Sornsin (MSFT, Rivals, Scout); President Josh Jacobs (Accuen/Omnicom, Yahoo!); COO Paul Edmondson (MSFT, Hewlett Packard, Mongo Music, Hub Pages); Ben Trott (TypePad, SixApart, Say) and Founder/CEO James Heckman, the product architect of the first large-scale social network and “blogging” platform (Rivals.com), as well as Scout, 5to1/YAM and NFL Exclusive.
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Maven last week announced the final closure of the merger unifying HubPages, Say Media, and Maven, now generating over $30 million annualized revenue run rate, and as forecasted, adjusted EBITDAS positive with a combined 100 million monthly users accessing premium, professional content.
Currently, Maven is a collections of mavens from individual thought-leaders to world-leading independent publishers, operating on a shared digital publishing, advertising, and distribution platform, unified under a single media brand.
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