Former Google Lead of Advertising Platforms to take regional helm
Los Angeles – August 26, 2009 - the Rubicon Project is further expanding its global presence by opening an office in Sydney, Australia to encourage adoption of the internet advertising infrastructure throughout the Asia Pacific region. Kaylie Smith, formerly Head of Platform Japan + Asia Pacific at Google, has been appointed Managing Director for the Asia Pacific office. Reporting to Jay Stevens, VP and GM International, Smith will be responsible for managing the overall Australian and Asian operations for the company and directing a team to grow the business from online publishers and advertising networks.
Smith brings an extensive background of internet expertise from companies including DoubleClick, Red Sherrif and Pearson gathered in Australasia, the U.S. and Europe. At Google, Smith worked closely with publishers and agencies to deliver growth of the Google platform and media business across Asia Pacific and Japan. Prior to that, Smith held a number of key roles at DoubleClick including Managing Director, Asia Pacific and Japan, Vice President of Global Sales, located in New York and San Francisco. She worked with strategic clients such as AOL, eBay and Cisco.
Founded in Los Angeles in 2007, the Rubicon Project opened its first international office in London in June 2009 to support publishers in the UK – helping them optimize and monetize advertising inventory.
Now online publishers and advertising networks in Asia Pacific can benefit from the Rubicon Project’s Ad Network Optimization (ANO), which is powered by patent-pending SmartMatch™ technology. This uses billions of pieces of proprietary market data to match each online publisher advertising impression to the best money-making opportunities from online advertising networks.
Jay Stevens explains, “Web publishers in the Asia Pacific region are seeing enormous growth and engaging huge audiences. Kaylie brings a global view of the Internet industry with local expertise that will deliver publishers more efficiencies from their online advertising networks, improve their channel management practices and increase the revenue they make from online advertising sales.”
Kaylie Smith adds, “The Rubicon Project uses innovative technology to help increase yields for publishers and online advertising networks so it offers the perfect opportunity for me to combine my technology and media experience and online advertising contacts in the region. In addition to being able to support locally-based publishers in Australia and Asia Pacific, we’ll also be enabling our U.S. and U.K. publishers to better monetize their international traffic.” Smith continues, “I’m excited about building and growing the business and was attracted by the entrepreneurial and focussed approach of the team.”
About the Rubicon Project
Based in Los Angeles, the Rubicon Project launched in 2007 and set on a mission to automate the $65 billion global online advertising industry. Responding to one of the largest problems plaguing website publishers today – monetizing ad space that goes unsold (as much as 70 – 80 percent) across a fast-growing number of global ad networks – the Rubicon Project pioneered the category of Ad Network Optimization (ANO). Backed by $33 million in funding from Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, and IDG Ventures, the Rubicon Project developed its patent-pending Smart Matching™ technology, which uses billions of pieces of proprietary market data to match each publisher ad impression to the best money-making opportunities from ad networks.
The company serves more than 1500 premium customers (publishers like Gannett, CareerBuilder, Washington Post/Newsweek Interactive and YellowPages.com) by optimizing more than 45 billion ads each month across hundreds of demand sources. Reaching more than 500 million unique Internet users, the Rubicon Project is one of the largest sources of ad inventory and reach on the Internet and the preferred source of targeted, audience-segmented inventory for ad networks and other resellers, many exclusive, around the world. The unique combination of demand optimization and SmartMatch™ technology drives revenue lift ranging from 30-300% for the Rubicon Project’s customers.
