New Leader for IAB Technology Lab

Dennis Buchheim has been promoted to SVP and General Manager of the IAB's Tech Lab industry standards body, succeeding Alanna Gombert.

Buchheim (pictured) was until now Senior Vice President, Data and Ad Effectiveness, IAB, and General Manager of the IAB Data Center of Excellence, and will be based at the IAB West Coast office in San Francisco. He has worked in digital advertising since 2002, and joined IAB from Yahoo, where he was Vice President of Product Management covering programmatic and premium advertising, targeting, measurement and insights, and trust and safety. Before this he worked at Microsoft, initially on distribution of advertising and web search products, and later in various advertising roles culminating in overall leadership of program management for display advertising.

Earlier he worked in advertising roles at Inktomi and Yahoo/Overture partners, and in software development for Apple, Oracle and start-up Actioneer. He also co-founded and led product management and marketing at web content management firm iHarvest, later acquired by Interwoven. He is a graduate of Brown University, with BA degrees in computer science and business economics.

Gombert joined the Lab in February 2016 as its Deputy Director and was named General Manager four months later. In her spell as leader, she led development of ads.txt, a tool to prevent the sale of counterfeit and unauthorized impressions in programmatic transactions; the building of the new IAB Standard Ad Unit Portfolio; and updates to industry standards including VAST, OpenRTB, and MRAID. The Lab also released a number of technical standards and guidelines covering mobile, video, podcasts, dynamic content, and header bidding.

Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of IAB says Buchheim is 'the ideal candidate to advance the critical Tech Lab initiatives launched by Alanna and to lead the creation of new global technical solutions that will promote a transparent, safe, and efficient digital marketing supply chain'. Buchheim himself comments: 'Technical solutions will be vital in sustaining the health of the digital marketing landscape, whether focusing on improving user experience or rooting out ad fraud. I look forward to working alongside the IAB Tech Lab's membership from around the world... to build consensus around tech that will drive the future of digital advertising'.

Web site: www.iab.net/techlab .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.