Andrew Nibley was recently appointed CEO of Yieldex. From last week’s release, “Prior to joining Yieldex, Nibley was Chairman and CEO of WPP’s advertising and digital marketing agency Marsteller. He has also served as CEO at several digital media companies owned by media giants Vivendi, Bertelsmann and Reuters, including co-founding Reuters New Media.” Read more. The Company added that it had more than quadrupled its revenue and doubled its customer base in 2010.
Nibley discussed his new role and a few of his plans for Yieldex.
AdExchanger.com: Why did you decide to take the CEO role? Given your PR experience, might we expect more from Yieldex in that area?
AN: I decided to come take the job at Yieldex because I had met Tom Shields and immediately took a liking to him and was impressed by his thinking and his strategy for the digital advertising industry. As I got to know everyone else at Yieldex, I became totally convinced that this was a company in the right market at the right time. Yieldex has been deliberately quiet for the past few years as it has built a solid technical platform, a well-respected product and a blue-chip list of clients. Now is the right time, I think, for the company to emerge a little more into the spotlight. And yes, with my background in journalism, advertising, public relations and marketing, I think it is safe to assume that Yieldex will be taking a more public posture going forward.
How will Tom Shields role and responsibilities within Yieldex evolve with your appointment?
I consider Tom an equal partner. And because each of us brings different skill sets to the table and because we work so closely together and feed off of each other’s ideas, our union actually creates a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. Tom is arguably the father of the ad server and has been in the digital advertising industry from the start. So who better to lead our technical and product development into the future? I have been a CEO in five different media industries and in the digital space since the early 90s myself. I have considerable experience in general management, sales and marketing, so it makes a lot of sense for me to focus on those areas. Together I think we are going to make a pretty spectacular team.
In an article on PaidContent, you said that Yieldex needs “to be more of a sales and marketing organization.” Can you explain why and how you will effect this strategy?
Up to this point in time, Yieldex has been doing what it should have been doing — flying under the radar, developing hard-to-replicate technology, and delivering a solid product that is unmatched in the marketplace. It has also been building a proven track record of accomplishment with its customer base, dramatically increasing CPMs and digital advertising revenue for its clients. During this process, Yieldex was very much a technology-driven company. It will continue to be just that, a cutting edge software firm that is always innovating and creating. But Yieldex, in my opinion, is also ready for prime time, ready to be shown to a much broader audience. To accomplish that, we will need to focus more and more on developing a sales and marketing culture — something I have done at other companies many times before — that can quickly bring all of the company’s great technological ideas and products to market in a timely fashion. That’s why I came here, to work with Tom to make all this happen.
By John Ebbert
