Unruly Trio Bow Out

The three founders of London-based video ad distribution and tracking platform Unruly are stepping down from their roles, two years on from its acquisition by Rupert Murdoch's media group News Corp.

Unruly has tracked 'trillions' of video views using a proprietary measurement platform and analytics dashboard. Its Unruly Pulse tool analyses emotional response to video ads, and the resulting trends, providing marketers with comparative data-driven insight into the cultural, seasonal and demographic drivers of video engagement, and comparing brand metrics with those of their competitors. Just two weeks ago it launched a new targeting capability based on likely emotional engagement, for advertisers across South East Asia. News Corp paid an initial £56m for the company, with potential for £56m more in future performance-related payments.

CEO Sarah Wood, Chief Strategy Officer Scott Button and CTO Matt Cooke (pictured) will become advisors on Unruly's board from next year, although Wood will stay in the CEO role until March 2018 while a replacement 'programmatic superstar ' is sought. Meanwhile SVP Software Development Steve Hayes will become CTO; business developer VP Ken Suh steps up to COO; and EVP Louise Tullin to CMO.

In an email sent to staff, Wood said 'As you can imagine, after 12 exhilarating years of building a global business and challenging the norms of adtech at every step, we are looking forward to handing the baton to our highly experienced and talented Exec team... Over the last 2 years, we've generated exponential growth in programmatic video revenues and we've built a first-class global leadership team to take the company forward'.

Web site: www.unrulymedia.com .

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