McDonald to Lead Marketing for New AT&T Ad Tech Unit

Telecoms giant AT&T has named Kirk McDonald as CMO of its (still unnamed) advertising and analytics company, announced in August and led by former GroupM North American CEO Brian Lesser.

The new business, due for take-off once the company has completed its acquisition of Time Warner Inc. will make use of the group's customer data and DirecTV programmatic assets to build 'an automated advertising platform that can do for premium video and TV advertising what the search and social media companies have done for digital advertising'.

McDonald will take overall charge of developing and implementing the new firm's marketing strategy. He brings more than 25 years of experience, and joins from ad tech company PubMatic, Inc., where he was responsible for go-to market functions worldwide. Before this, he was president of Digital at Time, Inc. He was included on Adweek's 2015 list of 50 'Vital Leaders in Tech, Media and Marketing' as well as its 2014 '12 Stars of Ad Tech'.

He reports to Lesser, who comments: 'Kirk brings invaluable experience in the media and advertising technology space. He is a transformational leader - one of many who will join AT&T as we invest in and build a new kind of advertising business'.

AT&T's customers comprise nearly 3.5 million companies around the world, and include TV customers in the U.S. and 11 Latin American countries. Web site: www.att.com .