Wednesday, 14 May 2008

Adconion Media Group grows North American Sales Team, adds new office in continued expansion

Senior Sales Positions Named, Chicago Office Opens with Plans for Presence in San Francisco
Adconion Media Group, the only independent global advertising network, today announced a series of hires by its North American sales team and the opening of a new office in Chicago as it continues to grow rapidly in North America.

Adconion is now the 10th largest network in the United States reaching nearly 118 million unique internet users in April, or 61.8 percent of the market, according to comScore. In Canada, Adconion is the 7th largest network reaching over 13 million unique users, or 54.5 percent of the market, in March.

The company’s new Chicago office, coupled with the expansion of its sales and sales support teams, will enable it to further expand its reach within North America and enhance its personalized client service to advertising agencies and marketers. Adconion plans to open an office in San Francisco in the coming weeks.

“We have hit the ground running full speed here in North America and continue to grow rapidly” said Keith Kaplan, Adconion’s President of North America. “Our sales team has an experienced core in place led by top performers from across the industry, which, in conjunction with the expansion of our sales support team, ensures we will continue to deliver best-in-class service tailored to each of our client’s objectives.”

As part of Adconion’s development in North America, Liz Schiff was appointed Vice President of East Coast Sales and Michael Parkes was named Director of East Coast Sales. Both are based in New York.

Kaplan added: “Robust long-term client relationships are of paramount importance to us, and we will continue to invest in our clients’ success – and the success of the brands they represent – by strategically expanding our team and our reach, matching Adconion’s growth worldwide.”

Schiff was previously a Senior Account Executive at MSN, where she helped launch the first search sales team and grew sales revenue by 800 percent over 2.5 years. Earlier she was Strategic Account Manager at MaxOnline, playing a critical role in successfully integrating multiple sales teams through several acquisitions.

Parkes joins Adconion from eType USA, where he was President of Sales and led the establishment of eType’s New York office, in addition to launching several ad networks in the U.S. Previously he was Group Sales Director at eType Europe, where he led the sales teams for the leading UK site representation firm eType and the performance network Accelerator-Media, which he also helped launch.

Kaplan, who has nearly 20 years of experience with advertising and ad networks, leads Adconion’s North American expansion. An ad network pioneer, he served as President of Sales and Marketing for L90, where he negotiated and oversaw a string of mergers and acquisitions including the acquisition of L90's largest competitor, DoubleClick Media Group. Later he led the re-branding and consolidation of four different ad networks, L90, DoubleClick Media, Sonar and Zonfire, which became MaxWorldwide.

Other new hires by the North American sales team include:

• Reeshma Esmail, Vice President of Sales based in Toronto. Esmail has nearly nine years of experience; prior to joining Adconion she was Director of Sales at Olive Canada Network and earlier Senior Sales Executive at Rydium.
• Phillip O’Leary, Sales Director based in New York. O’Leary joined Adconion from Vault Inc., where he was a Sales Executive.
• David Johnson, Sales Director based in Santa Monica. Johnson was previously Senior Sales Account Manager at Advertising.com.
• Tina Mooney, Sales Director based in Toronto. Mooney was most recently a National Account Executive at Careerbuilder.com, and earlier a Senior Sales Executive at Fairfax Digital in Australia.
• Michael Evans, Sales Director based in Toronto. Evans was previously an Account Executive at TorStar Digital.
• Alexis Berger, Account Manager based in Chicago. Berger was earlier at outdoor advertiser Titan Worldwide, where she focused on local and national business.