3

Here Are Meta's 19 Most Powerful Advertising Executives

 1 year ago
source link: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-facebook-advertising-execs-with-the-most-power-2019-6
Go to the source link to view the article. You can view the picture content, updated content and better typesetting reading experience. If the link is broken, please click the button below to view the snapshot at that time.
neoserver,ios ssh client
Premium Home Chevron iconIt indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Advertising

Here are the 19 most powerful execs in Meta's ads division.

Save Article IconA bookmark
Share iconAn curved arrow pointing right.
L-R: Nicola Mendelsohn, Justin Osofsky

Meta

  • Nicola Mendelsohn and Justin Osofsky are Meta's top ad execs after Marne Levine stepped down.
  • One of its top ad execs Nada Stirratt is confirmed to have stepped down.
  • Insider identified Meta's 19 top ad execs tasked with reviving its most crucial revenue stream.

One of Meta's top ad execs, Nada Stirratt, is confirmed to have left the company. Stirratt oversaw the company's relationships with companies that advertised in Canada, the US, and Latam.

She was not part of Meta's recent round of layoffs, when the company said it would cut 10,000 workers — its second round since November.

Stirratt however isn't the only high-profile ad exec to have exited Meta. In February, Meta's first-ever Chief Business Officer Marne Levine announced that she was leaving the company, as Meta's attempt to rebuild its ads business was showing signs of paying off, thanks to AI-powered improvements that have helped Meta's ads perform better.

But Meta still has a tough year ahead, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is looking to streamline the company and make it more efficient

With Levine gone, Nicola Mendelsohn and Justin Osofsky both took on expanded roles to lead the ads division. Both report to Meta COO Javier Olivan.

Here are the 19 most powerful and important advertising execs still at the company, listed alphabetically. Their roles span ad sales, strategy, marketing and product across Meta's portfolio.

Jennifer Atkins, VP of marketing science

Meta

Atkins arrived at Meta in June last year, having spent the previous 16 years working as a data-driven marketer for Wells Fargo. At Wells Fargo, Atkins headed up the bank's marketing technology division, leading a team of 600 people to support a bevy of marketing-related tasks, according to her LinkedIn profile. These included helping to manage marketing technologies and operations, and managing campaigns across channels as diverse as email, online, direct mail, leads from individual branches, and on ATMs.

Atkins is now bringing that knowledge and leadership experience to Meta, where she will lead a team that will help other advertisers and agencies make the best use of the data and analytics tools that Meta provides. 

Nicky Bell, VP and global head of Creative Shop

Facebook

Bell joined Facebook as the VP of its in-house creative strategy team Creative Shop in January 2021.

Reporting into Patrick Harris, she oversees creative strategists in 39 Facebook offices to help clients market themselves on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Oculus and WhatsApp.

Before Facebook, Bell spent most of her career on the agency side, including nearly 20 years at the creative agency Ogilvy & Mather, followed by Saatchi & Saatchi and R/GA.

Andrew Bocking, VP of ads

Bocking has been a Meta exec for just under a decade, according to his LinkedIn profile. Since August last year, he's been overseeing the teams that develop ad products.

Prior to his current role, Bocking served as VP of growth and helped build tools for consumers using Meta. He worked in product management for Meta's  Internet.org initiative that equipped hundreds of millions of people with internet services. Bocking also helped launch consumer products like Account Center, which helps people manage their settings across Meta's apps.

He previously worked at BlackBerry and headed up BlackBerry's messenger product.

Alvin Bowles, VP of global partnerships and engineering

LinkedIn

Bowles oversees Meta's relationships with adtech and creative companies. He works with third-party technology and tools that help advertisers run and measure campaigns and is part of Meta's global leadership team. One of his more recent mandates is to build out a partnership network as Meta works to bring its metaverse offering to life.

Bowles previously spearheaded publisher monetization tools for Audience Network, an ad network where publishers can run ads on their own or through third-party apps. Audience Network has been hit hard by Apple's App Tracking Transparency privacy change because it uses Apple's IDFA to target ads, an identifier that Apple is restricting.

Bowles is also a vocal proponent of diversity and received the Legend Award recognizing his work in this area from trade organization Adcolor last year.

Before joining Facebook in 2015, he worked in ad sales roles at BET, AOL, and Time Warner.

Dave Dugan, VP of global agency

Meta

For almost a decade, Dugan has held a crucial role at Meta: anchoring its relationships with heavy-spending global agencies. He recently had a ten-month stint where he focused on Meta's relationship with agency holding company WPP, advising on how best to take advantage of the company's ad products, according to a 2019 interview.

But as of July last year, Dugan's role has expanded. He now leads the unit within Meta that works with all global agency holding companies and consulting groups, according to his LinkedIn profile. Dugan knows it's important that Meta's ad tools are as accessible as possible, whether they're being used by the most sophisticated advertisers or by mom and pop shops with limited resources.

"We try to make the tools really simple, so that somebody without technical background can go in and set up a campaign," he said in the 2019 interview. "The second piece is we create online training, so somebody can on their own take a learning course and look at how to do marketing on Instagram and Facebook. And hopefully that's done in a way that someone with no technical, or even advertising background, can learn how to do ads."

Angie Gifford, VP, of global business group, EMEA

Meta

Gifford oversees Meta's business development initiatives in the EMEA region, a role she started in December 2021. She spent the two years before that leading Meta's business development in Central Europe, according to her LinkedIn profile. Gifford has an expansive purview in her current role.

She's touted Meta's work supporting small businesses in the EMEA region, focusing on how Meta can help consumers discover new products. She also played a big role in Meta's return to Cannes last year, where the social media giant showcased its recent big bets, including the metaverse and its short video offering Reels.

Gifford also is promoting how Meta's messaging product WhatsApp can be used by brands to improve the customer experience. Gifford hails from Germany, and she's previously helped companies like HP and Microsoft build their businesses in German-speaking countries. She is on the board of Atlantik-Brücke, a German-American non-profit founded in 1952 to deepen cooperation between Germany, Europe, and the US.

Patrick Harris, VP of global channels

Facebook

Last February, Meta promoted Harris to VP of global agency development to VP of global channels, reporting to Mendelsohn.

Harris has long been the gatekeeper between Meta and some of the world's most prominent ad holding companies, agencies, and consulting firms, smaller agencies and tech startups.

His team uses educational resources and tools to help agencies and advertisers test ad creative and measure campaigns.

In 2020, his team launched Rise, a program offering free educational resources and networking opportunities to ad agency employees who faced hardships due to the pandemic. 

The former Microsoft ad sales executive has been at Facebook for over a decade.

John Hegeman, VP of monetization

Meta

Hegeman last year moved into the vp of monetization role, in which he's responsible for both the company's advertising products as well as other paid features for businesses and regular users alike.

Meta recently introduced a paid monthly subscription for users to be verified on its Instagram and Facebook apps. Its other paid features include business messaging on WhatsApp and a service where creators can charge a subscription for fans to get exclusive access to content.

Hegeman said in a 2022 interview with The Verge that paid-for features are likely to become more significant to the company in the coming years. "On a five-year time horizon I do think it can really move the needle and make a pretty significant difference," he said.

Hegeman is a long-time, pre-IPO Meta employee, who joined the company in 2007 to lead its ads delivery team. He helped design some of Facebook's first auctions for self-service ad buying. He became the chief of its News Feed, now known as Feed, in 2018 before returning to ads as the product group lead in 2021. In that role, he was responsible for leading Meta's technical response to Apple's App Tracking Transparency privacy update, The Information reported

Hegeman's wife Susan Li currently serves as Meta's chief financial officer.

Ted Helwick, director of product management for Messenger Business

Facebook

Helwick is responsible for helping turn Messenger into an ad platform.

Meta has increasingly looked to Messenger to diversify its ad revenue in the past couple of years with formats that let advertisers chat with customers. Helwick's team developed a sales lead generation tool for advertisers called click-to-Messenger ads that links ads with chatbots, for example.

Brands have had mixed success with chatbots, but Facebook hopes its scale and targeting abilities can make them work for advertisers.

Helwick joined Meta in 2015 after working in growth and corporate development roles at PayPal and Intuit.

Michelle Klein VP of global business marketing

Meta

Klein is responsible for setting the strategy for Meta's brand and relationships with businesses, agencies, advertisers, and other key partners. She moved to her current role in December of 2021.

Alongside CMO Alex Schultz, Klein helped lead the company's rebranding from Facebook to Meta earlier in 2021. She also led the company's efforts to get business leaders enthused about the potential of Web3 and the metaverse.

Klein has been at Meta since 2014, when she joined as head of global marketing for agencies and partners.

A marketer by trade, Klein worked at Diageo for more than seven years, rising to become vp of global marketing innovation where she developed new spirits offerings. She has won industry awards including Cannes Lions and Effies, and she's also been recognized as an Adweek "Brand Genius" and one of the Ad Age "Women to Watch."

Dan Levy, VP of business messaging

The Economist Group/YouTube

Levy oversees product, engineering, and operations around the messaging products that help businesses on Meta communicate with Meta's users. Levy started at Meta in 2008 overseeing payments, then moved to small business, and later ran Meta's combined ads and business products team.

Many of the products he helps oversee today combine advertising with customer service.

"On our side, click-to-message ads are going well, and we recently launched the cloud API for WhatsApp so businesses can initiate conversations and message users directly, usually for marketing purposes," Levy said last September, in an interview with the industry trade publication AdExchanger.

Nicola Mendelsohn, head of Global Business Group

Meta

Mendelsohn leads Meta's Global Business Group.

With Levine stepping down, Mendelsohn will continue to head up that group, which manages Meta's relationships with big advertisers and agencies. Mendelsohn's purview will also expand — she will also spearhead global partnerships and engineering, bringing the product teams closer with the business team she previously oversaw.

Mendelsohn has extensive experience promoting Meta's business internationally. Previously, she was responsible for the Global Business Group's operations across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, where she got Facebook up-and-running in some of the region's fast-developing markets, such as Johannesburg in South Africa.

Mendelsohn began her advertising career in business development at ad agency BBH London and has more than 20 years' experience in advertising, marketing and technology, according to her LinkedIn profile

Mendelsohn was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2015 for her services to the creative industries. She also runs a cancer non-profit inspired by her experience battling follicular lymphoma, a rare form of blood cancer she's had since 2016.

She's also a non-executive director at spirits conglomerate Diageo.

Dan Neary, VP of global business group, APAC

Meta

Neary supervises Meta's business operations in the Asia Pacific region. Though he hails from the US, Neary first made his way to the APAC region nearly three decades ago, when he was a brand manager for Kellogg's and volunteered for a 10-month stint to help the cereal company rev up its business in South Korea.

"That 10 months turned into 30 years later, and I've spent the majority of my life in Asia," Neary said in a recent podcast.

Neary moved from cereal to technology, where he helped companies like eBay and Skype expand their businesses into emerging APAC markets. Neary is now pushing some of Meta's big initiatives in the region.

Besides promoting the metaverse, Neary is also touting Meta's commerce experience. Online purchasing and social media are much more intertwined in Asian countries than they are in Western countries, and Neary is trying to help Meta capitalize on that opportunity. He often talks about Meta's ability to provide "conversational commerce," which is where instant messaging is used throughout the transaction process, from finding products, buying them, and contacting customer support afterward.

Outside of his work duties, Neary advises tech startups and is a limited partner in several VC funds, according to a bio provided by Meta.

Goksu Nebol-Perlman, VP of business product marketing

Meta

Nebol-Perlman is responsible for explaining to advertisers changes to ad products and rolling out new ad products. Over the past few years, her work has included rebuilding Meta's measurement offerings to accurately represent sales from ads. Her team has also grouped all of Meta's automated ad products together so that advertisers can more readily use them.

Before joining Meta in 2016, she worked in product marketing roles at Microsoft and Skype. She holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and lives in London. Nebol-Perlman also leads many DEI initiatives at Meta.

Justin Osofsky, head of online sales, operations, and partnerships

Meta

Following Levine's departure, Meta appointed Osofsky to co-lead sales and partnerships, alongside Mendelsohn. Even before Levine left, Osofsky had a huge purview: he was COO of Instagram as well as VP of global operations at Facebook, helping both platforms grow business globally.

Osofsky's job will expand even more with Levine gone. Besides his previous duties, he is now tasked with also growing Meta's revenue from small- and medium-sized businesses. And he'll also oversee Meta's partnerships with content creators globally — and make sure that they can be discovered by Meta's users.

While all of these responsibilities seem very different from each other, Osofsky's demeanor makes him well-suited for the job. In a recent interview on the Smart Venture podcast, he noted how he's able to put himself in others' shoes and see situations from their perspective. He also said he's become increasingly aware of his own weaknesses, which means he can recognize talent and hire people who can do a better job than he can.

"I look to have leaders on the team that people really want to work for," he said on the podcast. "Because they're investing in them and helping them grow their own careers."

Will Platt-Higgins, VP of global client and category team

Facebook

Platt-Higgins leads a team that helps brand and agency execs transform their businesses for the digital world.

He has been in a leadership role at Meta for over a decade, and has overseen Meta's digital partnerships with some of the most prominent global brands and agencies like Amazon, L'Oréal, and P&G, guiding areas like their data and insight strategy, influencer strategy, ecommerce and cross-channel measurement.

Previously at Meta, he led partnerships between Meta's Global Client, Measurement and Creative Councils and ad industry bodies like the 4As, the WFA, and the IAB. 

Before joining Meta, Platt-Higgins spent nearly 15 years at agencies including Grey, where he led P&G's hair and air care business, and Saatchi & Saatchi, where he worked with Coca-Cola, General Mills, and many others.

Charles Porch, VP of global partnerships

Getty Images

Porch is a longtime exec who leads partnerships for Instagram as part of the app's executive team.

He helps Instagram's top creators grow and monetize their Instagram presence, helping launch tools that disclose sponsored posts and a three-day virtual event for creators to grow their followings. 

He's also helped roll out ad-revenue features like Reels and long-form IGTV shows for creators.

"The idea is, you come in, maybe you start as a Reels creator and you're a short-form comedian, and then all of a sudden you expand to Stories and you're showing the behind the scenes of your life," Porch previously told Insider. "And eventually, maybe you have these longer-form content drops. And then you are part of the IGTV ads-share program. And then, ideally, you build a big enough community that you've got your own brand and you have something to sell."

Alex Schultz, VP of analytics and chief marketing officer

Meta

Schultz was promoted to chief marketing officer when Facebook's first CMO Antonio Lucio stepped down in 2020.

Since joining the company in 2007, Schultz has risen within Meta's marketing organization, and now oversees consumer marketing to promote its brands, products and services. 

He also leads product analytics and internationalization for the company and has helped launch and expand some of its most recognizable products, including helping the core Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger apps each surpass a billion users.

Schultz earlier worked at eBay, giving him nearly two decades of experience in direct response marketing — a tactic Meta encourages marketers to use on its platform.

He reports to Javier Olivan, Meta's COO.

Samantha Stetson, VP of Client Council and global trade relations

Meta

While Meta is aggressively talking up a bunch of opportunities around Reels and the metaverse, advertisers are still mostly focused on more mundane things, like brand safety. Stetson has a key role in making sure Meta's advertisers trust the environment where their ads are showing up, and that their ads are being measured correctly.

Stetson has worked at Meta for more than a decade and has been part of Meta's "Client Council" since 2015, according to her LinkedIn. Stetson grew that council from one member to 15, according to her LinkedIn, and it now includes major marketing execs from P&G, Unilever, L'Oreal, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and Walmart, as well as the six major agency holding companies.

Stetson's work with the council, and with industry trade groups, has helped Meta improve its brand safety tools. For instance, in November, Meta overhauled its brand safety controls to give advertisers a better sense of the content their ads are appearing next to, according to Ad Age. In her off time, Stetson is a practitioner of Bikram Yoga and skiing, and she was once a competitive figure skater and competed in the US National Championships.


About Joyk


Aggregate valuable and interesting links.
Joyk means Joy of geeK