Professional Journey
Updated: October 2025
Elevator: I build revenue and profit-generating partnerships and products at the intersection of advertising, technology, and media. Over 20+ years from cold-calling Fortune 100 executives to leading strategic exits in ad tech. I thrive in ambiguous markets where the playbook hasn't been written yet.
Overview
For over 20 years, I've worked at the crossroads of digital advertising, technology, and media. I've built my career by spotting trends early, creating meaningful partnerships, and developing practical solutions that drive revenue and profitability for startups and scale-ups. My experience spans from launching new advertising products to guiding companies through market transitions and successful exits.
Early Career & Entrepreneurial Beginnings (2000-2003)
While studying at Indiana University, I helped a friend launch a campus magazine where we featured star athlete Antwaan Randle El on our first cover and secured local business advertising. After graduating in 2000 during the dot-com boom, I took an unconventional path, joining a small sports marketing company instead of an investment bank, as many of my peers chose.
This decision taught me fundamental sales skills as I cold-called Fortune 100 executives to sell hospitality packages for major sporting events. I expanded beyond being a sales representative and worked closely with the founder to help build their digital presence, including a new website and their first demand generation campaign. I also operationalized their sales motion and developed new media partnerships for the business. My first job out of college taught me that I enjoy activities that build and grow companies, rather than the monotony of a narrowly defined role.
I then joined a three-person team led by a creative entrepreneur (who later founded Crumbs Bakery), where we developed products like Jolly Rancher lip balm that went from idea to store shelves in just months. This experience showed me that small teams with limited resources can still create successful products. With the entrepreneurial bug still inside of me, I took some shots at launching my own ventures, including a grilled cheese restaurant concept and a text messaging platform for local businesses. Though neither succeeded, they taught me valuable lessons: start small instead of perfect, execution matters more than planning, and sometimes being too early in a market is the same as being wrong.
Growing Up in Digital Advertising (2003-2010)
I entered digital advertising in 2003 when online marketing was still a new territory. After seeing firsthand how effective digital ads could be, I managed email marketing programs and eventually co-founded a small marketing company.
Seeking greater stability, I joined Publishers Clearing House to drive digital business growth. With a $10M annual budget, I created new partnerships with AOL and Microsoft and hired specialized agencies to improve their online advertising. My results led to a promotion where I helped launch new digital products, including one of the first gaming apps on Facebook that awarded users with real prizes, a Twitter application that offered instant-win opportunities, and a white-label platform that, for the first time in the company's history, enabled other companies to use PCH's contest and prize capabilities.
Building Video Advertising Infrastructure (2010-2014)
The connections I made at PCH opened doors to the startup world. I joined AdoTube as their first business hire, where I developed a nascent video ad technology market, helping publishers monetize their video inventory with non-interruptive, interactive ad formats. The company was acquired by a global advertising network, Exponential Interactive, just 15 months after I joined. My first successful exit and first experience with the world of M&A.
I wanted to continue to make a positive dent in the AdTech industry and still wanted to be building at a startup, so I decided to leave the company after the integration was complete. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to join another video tech startup with a more ambitious vision, Innovid, as their first business development hire. I drove publisher adoption of their video ad creative formats and ad infrastructure to enable the emerging Connected Television wave. One of my memorable achievements was helping create the first interactive video ad on Roku in partnership with Sony Crackle, before Roku even had an advertising system in place. We expanded this innovation to major media companies, including AOL, NBC, Fox, and Viacom.
Scaling Native Advertising & Leading to Exit (2014-2023)
After scaling Innovid's most profitable business segment, strategy shifts within the company led me to join Bidtellect as their first formal business development hire. I was initially hired to develop a publisher ecosystem for another nascent digital ad channel, native advertising. I quickly advanced to take on a more strategic role, which included securing a multi-million-dollar exclusive partnership with CBS Interactive to become their exclusive native advertising partner across all of their digital properties. This deal put our company on the map and helped gain credibility with the agency and advertiser community, which accelerated our go-to-market efforts.
Strategic Evolutions
Seeing changes in the industry, I recommended shifting our strategy from building out our own publisher network and direct advertiser sales to focus exclusively on the demand side. This decision leveraged our strengths and gave us access to significantly more inventory without the overhead of maintaining direct relationships and sucking up our limited engineering resources. This strategy also enabled me to convince our largest competitors to convert into our biggest partners.
As advertisers demanded more control and transparency, I guided the development and oversaw our self-service business and built out our enterprise-level DSP for customers to be hands-on keyboard on our platform. This enabled us to secure our first major agency holding company, and eventually the business grew to represent half of our total revenue.
Driving Profitability & Innovation
As the industry moved toward improved transparency, pressure mounted on our media margins. To drive profitability, I developed a program to build additive features into our platform, a mix of unique offerings and strategic partnerships. This included alternatives to cookie-based targeting, first-to-market contextual advertising products, sustainability features, and new B2B solutions. This became the company's most profitable program, enabling us to become a self-sustaining business while accelerating growth.
Corporate Development & Exit
My success in building and scaling the business led me to take on corporate development responsibilities. As further industry consolidation on the demand side put pressure on our business, I recognized we needed either an exit path or a strategic partner to scale to the next level. After navigating a market boom and bust with multiple starts and stops, our efforts culminated in a successful exit to Simpli.fi, a significant player in our space, in 2023. A challenging time to exit, but our persistence and professionalism throughout the deal process helped us get it done.
Advising & Exploring the AI Shift (2023-2024)
After staying on as a strategic advisor to help with the Simpli.fi integration, I took time to consult and advise several companies. This included cultivating relationships with the investor community and advising startups on M&A activity. This exposure to more companies and industry categories provided me with a clear understanding of where our industry was heading, particularly as AI began to fundamentally reshape everything.
Leading AI Transformation in AdTech (2024-2025)
After wrapping up a few independent consulting engagements, I was recruited to join Qortex to lead their strategic transformation from an undifferentiated media solution to an AI-first marketing intelligence platform. I was excited to have another opportunity to build in a shifting market, and was confident in the impact AI was going to have across every industry and company. As the sole commercial lead, I developed the corporate strategy and go-to-market approach, secured and scaled the company's first AI-driven data partnership, and worked directly in the trenches building the business.
Immersing myself in AI technology, I vibe-coded a production-ready AI prototype that analyzes video content to generate content-driven audience and media placement insights for media planning and activation. This prototype enabled pilot partnerships with major brands and agencies to help us validate market demand. Ultimately, the business was way ahead of its product and engineering capabilities, which has led the business to wind down. I wrote about some of the challenges of the business, but the experience gave me direct exposure to both the business and technical challenges of scaling AI applications in advertising. I am even more enthusiastic about the implications of AI and the impact it is going to have on our industry, and I'm excited to be part of building for the next generation of AdTech.
At the Forefront of AI Reshaping Advertising (2025 & Beyond)
The advertising industry is at an inflection point. AI is fundamentally changing how we understand audiences, create content, plan media, and measure effectiveness. The companies that will win aren't just bolting AI onto existing workflows; they're reimagining the entire value chain and tech stacks.
My career has been defined by recognizing platform shifts early: from offline to digital, from display to video, and from ad network to programmatic. Now, as AI eats AdTech as we know it, I'm looking for my next full-time opportunity to be at the forefront of this paradigm shift.
I'm seeking full-time roles in commercial strategy, partnerships, product development, or business development, ideally at an AI-first startup building AI-powered advertising or marketing solutions. If you're reimagining how brands connect with audiences for the next era of AdTech, let's talk.