This event is by invitation only.
Senior executives from across the ecosystem – publisher CEOs, CROs, CTOs, and Heads of Product, as well as senior agency and brand executives—will gather at the IAB Ad Blocking & User Experience Summit. It is the only thought leadership forum that fosters peer-to-peer education and debate, so together we can develop actionable solutions to help the entire industry create better, LEANer user experiences.
In addition, IAB will release relevant research and intelligence on the tools, standards, and best practices that the industry is using right now.
Topics covered will include:
This event is closed to the press and by invitation only.
Michael Bendell is currently Vice President, Ad Technology at SheKnows Media (via BlogHer). Michael has a diverse background in web development, project management, and ad operations servicing multiple industries including Healthcare, Banking, and Pharma. He also helped cofound DomainGo Inc, a data mining company that focused on mining data from the Internet. More recently, he has been in charge of managing ad networks from an ad technology, yield, and operations perspective previously holding positions at Comedy Central, FederatedMedia and BlogHer.
Samar is Founder & CEO of C3Research, an advanced marketing research company based in Orlando and New York. Samar has deep experience in enabling brand, business, and customer service transformation across the media and entertainment, financial services, healthcare, and consumer retail industries. Prior to founding C3Research in 2002, he was an award winning marketing professor teaching MBA courses on marketing strategy and Ph.D. seminars on Consumer Behavior. Samar obtained his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and his Ph.D. in Marketing from the University of Arizona.
Mark Frost is the founder and Managing Partner of Strategic Ink, a boutique strategy consulting firm. He is the co-author of Wargaming for Leaders, Strategic Decision-Making from the Battlefield to the Boardroom, a Wall Street Journal Business Best Seller. His innovative work in wargaming has been profiled in numerous business publications, including Business Week, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. Prior to founding Strategic Ink, Mark led business wargaming at Booz Allen Hamilton for more than 25 years, pioneering the transfer of military wargaming techniques to assist in developing strategy and managing change for major corporations worldwide. He served 12 years in the US Navy as a Naval Flight Officer, and is a graduate of the US Naval Academy and Naval Postgraduate School.
Alanna is Head of Advertising Technology at ConsenSys, a blockchain company focused on the adoption of decentralized networks and economies. She is also the CEO of the Digital Asset Trade Association (DATA), an advocacy group formed in Davos in 2018 for Distributed Ledger Technology. DATA helps to shape public policy issues to support the growth of digital assets, digital identity, smart-contracts and digital currencies and worked extensively in Wyoming and Colorado on blockchain and cryptocurrency legislation. Prior to DATA, Alanna was Global CRO at MetaX where she oversaw product creation, strategy, and go-to-market including the adChain and adToken dApps on Ethereum and the first Token Curated Registry on the Ethereum Mainnet. Before she entered the blockchain sphere, Alanna ran global advertising standards General Manager of the IAB Tech Lab. Alanna had senior roles at Accuen/Omnicom Media Group, Condé Nast and at Admeld (acquired by Google) where she helped grow Real Time Bidding from an idea into an advertising industry mainstay.
Jonah Goodhart is the CEO and Co-Founder of Moat, a New York based Analytics company focused on driving success for brand marketers and premium publishers. Moat is at the forefront of helping shift digital advertising away from impressions and clicks and toward new models of attention. Jonah was the Founding Investor and Board Member of Right Media (acquired by Yahoo!), Founding Partner of WGI Group, and Co-Founder of Billions.org. Jonah was also a member of Mayor Bloomberg’s Council on Technology and Innovation.
Jed Hartman is Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) of The Washington Post. Named to the position in December 2014, Hartman oversees the print and digital advertising teams, the conferences business and targeted products, which include Capital Business, Capital Insight, Express, El Tiempo Latino, WP Magazine, and all special sections. He is also responsible for leading The Post’s advertising innovations and development of custom ad solutions.
Previously, Hartman was the Worldwide Group Publisher of Time Inc.’s News and Business titles. In this position, he oversaw global ad sales and marketing for Time, Time.com, Fortune, Fortune.com, Fortune Conferences and Money and Money.com.
Hartman played a major role in the 2014 re-launch of Time.com, Fortune.com and Money.com, which included a number of innovations in ad units, viewability, and native advertising. He also expanded Fortune’s conference business by bringing in record sponsorship dollars and helping to expand events internationally. Hartman was named Publisher of the Year in 2014 by MIN. Under Hartman’s leadership, Fortune was also named #6 on the 2012 Advertising Age A-List and to the 2012 Adweek Hot List.
Previously, he was Worldwide Publisher of Fortune, Fortune.com, Money and CNNMoney.com. Prior to joining Time Inc., Hartman served as publisher of The Week and TheWeek.com from November 2007 to April 2010. Under his leadership, The Week was one of only a few media properties to achieve extraordinary advertising growth in 2009 and was included in both the Ad Age A-List and the Mediaweek Hot List that year. Hartman also oversaw the sales and marketing for both the launch and re-launch of TheWeek.com and led the site to profitability in its first year.
Prior to The Week, Hartman spent nine years at Time Inc. He began as an account manager for FORTUNE and was promoted to Sales Director for the FORTUNE/Money Group in 2001, where he managed the New York sales team until 2007.
Hartman sits on the Executive Committee of the DCN and on the Board of Directors of the IAB.
Hartman earned a B.A. in Government, with a double minor in Art and Music, at St. Lawrence University. He lives with his wife and daughter in Greenwich, CT.
Mark Howard is Chief Revenue Officer at Forbes Media. In this role, he is responsible for the U.S. and European digital and print sales organization, marketing and advertising solutions. Previously, he was SVP of Digital Advertising Strategy.
Mr. Howard also held the position of SVP and VP of Digital Advertising Sales for Forbes Media, overseeing the global sales team in its online sales efforts as well leading the Western Region team in its integrated sales efforts. He was also charged with developing the corporate digital sales strategy, which included new product development, the creation and development of audience segmentation programs and strategic planning.
Mr. Howard joined Forbes Media as a Regional Sales Manager in 2002. During his time at Forbes, he has also served as West Coast Digital Sales Director and Western Region Director of Integrated Sales.
Prior to joining Forbes Media, Mr. Howard held sales positions at Inc. and Fast Company magazines, as well as E-Trade Financial. He began his career as a media planner at Anderson & Lembke. He is a graduate of the University of Arizona with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Marketing. He resides in New York City.
John Montgomery is Group’s Executive Vice President of Brand Safety. He was appointed to this role in August, 2016 to ensure that GroupM client’s brands are protected from risks in the digital supply chain, like fraud and piracy and to ensure that the digital components of their plans are effective in every region.
John has broad experience within WPP from running Media in Ogilvy South Afrca (and ultimately leading the agency in Cape Town) running the Ogilvy Group in the Netherlands to leading the Interactive media practice for Mindshare and Ogilvy and in 2015 was appointed as the Chairman of GroupM Connect North America.
John is seen as one of the digital innovators in the field and speaks regularly on issues such as Audience buying, Brand safety, Digital Inventory Quality and Privacy. He has represented the advertising industry to the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee and the White House and is on the Internet Steering Committee for the WEF. John sits on various boards in an advisory role and speaks regularly on matters of trust and risk in the digital supply chain.
John now leads a team of 7 brand safety specialist in the Americas, Europe, South East Asia and China where the team has developed strategies in each region to limit financial, legal and reputational risk for our clients.
In 2013, John was nominated by Adweek as one of the 12 smartest people in media and won a Media All-Star Award from Media Post and in 2018, was acknowledged amongst the “100 people who make advertising great” by the 4A’s in the US.
David has over 40 years of experience finding new ways of making technologies work for marketers – from the early ad networks to search engine marketing, behavioral targeting and big data. David serves as Chief Executive Officer of BritePool, an emerging company focused on “identity” management in an era of regulation and data resolution. He founded and led 24/7 Media’s (now Xaxis) growth from start-up to a leader in digital marketing and ad technology. David is an ex officio member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) Board of Directors and Executive Committee. He served as IAB’s Chairman from 2009 to 2011 and has been an active member since 2002. David is Vice-Chairman of the Advertising Educational Foundation, serves on the board of Throtle and is an Advisor to Lucidity and Aqilliz, both a blockchain startups in the digital advertising industry.
He is married with two children, Chris and Alexis, and has two grandchildren. He is a triathlete and has completed over 50 races including an Ironman, run 20 marathons and swam the English Channel in a relay with 3 other swimmers. He is hiding in Florida until the coronavirus goes away.
As Chief Revenue Officer, Dave Morris is responsible for driving the revenue strategy for CBS Interactive. This includes the management of advertising programs across the company, as well as overseeing a go-to-market sales strategy that supports the company’s revenue plan. As CRO, Morris works closely with his counterparts at CBS TV to develop exciting cross platform opportunities for CBS’ customers.
In addition, Morris is a board member and Vice Chairman at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).
Morris joined CNET Networks in 2007 as Senior Vice President of Network Sales, where he was responsible for overseeing the company’s corporate sales accounts. CNET Networks was acquired by CBS Corporation in June 2008.
A veteran of Time Inc., Morris has more than 20 years of marketing, sales, and publishing experience. Prior to CNET Networks, Morris was President and Publisher of Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, where he led the publication and website to record profits and audience numbers.
Prior to Entertainment Weekly, Morris was Publisher of Sports Illustrated. As Publisher, he also directed the advertising sales for the magazine’s bonus editorial sections (including SI Golf Plus), SI’s custom publishing arm, Sports Illustrated Presents, as well as its home on the Internet, SI.com. Before becoming a Time Inc. veteran, he was a sales representative for Parents magazine and a media planner at SSC&B.
Randall Rothenberg is the Executive Chair of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the trade association for digital media and marketing in the United States. Among the IAB’s 750 member companies are such major platforms as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Snap; the nation’s most important ad-supported media companies, including The New York Times, Walt Disney Co., NBC Universal, ViacomCBS, Hearst Magazines, Spotify, Verizon Media, Hulu, Warner Media, LinkedIn, and Meredith; incumbent and disruptor brands, including Coca-Cola, Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Hubble Contacts, ThirdLove, General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, and Citigroup; and scores of technology and data companies, among them Mediamath, LiveRamp, Quantcast, and Pubmatic.
With these members and its 47 affiliate associations on every inhabited continent, the IAB and its sister technology-standards group, the IAB Tech Lab, serve as the digital marketing industry’s public policy and lobbying organization, market and consumer research center, training and development base, and hub for the development of standards and best practices.
Mr. Rothenberg joined the IAB in January 2007 as President and Chief Executive Officer, and led the organization until becoming Executive Chair in September 2020. During his tenure, the organization became one of the largest and most influential media and marketing trade bodies in the world, helping to develop technical standards, self-regulation, government regulation, market and consumer research, and professional development programs to protect consumer privacy, foster brand and media revenue growth, improve data security, and reduce supply chain friction in the digital marketing industry.
Prior to his IAB role, Mr. Rothenberg was the Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Director of Intellectual Capital at Booz Allen Hamilton, the international strategy and technology consulting firm, where he oversaw business development, knowledge management, and thought leadership activities, and directed the award-winning quarterly business magazine strategy+business, Strategy+Business Books, www.strategy-business.com, and other electronic and print publications for senior business executives.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Rothenberg spent six years at The New York Times, where he was the technology editor and politics editor of the Sunday magazine, the daily advertising columnist, and a media and marketing reporter. For 10 years, he was a marketing and media columnist for Advertising Age. Mr. Rothenberg has written for a score of major national magazines, among them Esquire, GQ, The Nation, The New York Times Magazine, and New York Magazine. He is the author of four books, including Where the Suckers Moon: An Advertising Story (Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), a critically-acclaimed chronicle of the birth, evolution, and death of a single advertising campaign.
Mr. Rothenberg, an avid nature, urban, and portrait photographer, serves on the Board of Directors of the International Center of Photography and the Board of Overseers of the Columbia Journalism Review. He received an undergraduate degree in Classics from Princeton and lives in New York City.
Mike Smith is Senior Vice President of Revenue Platforms and Operations, Hearst Magazines Digital Media as well as Senior Vice President Advertising Platforms of Hearst’s Core Audience. Smith joined Hearst in July 2013 and is responsible for all digital media revenue platforms, including the company’s programmatic sales engineering efforts through the Hearst Audience Exchange as well as advertising operations, and digital ad product development.
Prior to Hearst, Smith held a number of positions with Forbes, most recently as the President of Forbes.com and Chief Digital Officer of Forbes Media, where he oversaw the company’s technology departments, including IT systems, multi-platform development and digital strategy. He was also responsible for audience sales via auctions including trading desks, advertising operations, data and analytics, and yield management.
Before joining Forbes.com as Chief Technology Officer, Smith was Vice President and Chief Information Officer at TheStreet.com, where he directed technology efforts, including application development, network engineering, website operations, global technology initiatives and business support systems and prior to that, was Director of Information Technology at HBO.
Smith holds a network-technology related patent and is the author of the new book, TARGETED: How Technology Is Revolutionizing Advertising And The Way Companies Reach Consumers (AMACOM / 2014).
Smith graduated from the New Jersey Institute of Technology with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and has been a member of the Board of Visitors of NJIT’s Albert Dorman Honors College for 14 years, as well as the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Education Law Center, a member of the School Consultative Board of Union Catholic High School and a member of The Union League Club.
Smith graduated from the New Jersey Institute of Technology with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and has been a member of the Board of Visitors of NJIT’s Albert Dorman Honors College for 14 years, as well as the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Education Law Center, a member of the School Consultative Board of Union Catholic High School and a member of The Union League Club.
Sir Mark Thompson is Chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide where he oversees all aspects of the business in the U.S. and around the world. He also serves as the editor-in-chief of CNN.
In addition to his work at CNN, Mark is the Chairman of Ancestry; Deputy Chair of the Royal Shakespeare Company and Co-Chair of the International Fund for Public Interest Media, a new global fund to support journalists around the world.
Mark stepped down as President and CEO of The New York Times Company in the summer of 2020 after an eight-year tenure (2012-20) during which he led the transformation of the 170-year-old news brand into a digital powerhouse. Digital subscribers jumped to nearly 6 million, up from half a million when he joined. NYTCo stock quintupled in value during his period as CEO.
Sir Mark’s appointment at The New York Times Company followed an eight-year term (2004-12) as Director General (Editor-in-Chief and Chief Executive) of the BBC. As well as guiding the BBC’s coverage of the global financial crisis and the 2012 London Olympic Games, he is credited with major advances in the BBC’s digital offering and digital audience reach, including the successful launch of the BBC’s iPlayer, one of the world’s first streaming services from a major broadcaster (2007).
He joined the BBC from Channel 4 where he was Chief Executive from 2002 to 2004. Before Channel 4 he held a series of senior posts at the BBC including Editor of The Nine O’clock News and Panorama, Controller of BBC Two and Director of Television.
His book, “Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong with the Language of Politics?” was published in the UK and US in September 2016. He was educated at Stonyhurst College and Merton College Oxford. He is an honorary fellow of Merton College Oxford and a member of the American Philosophical Society.
Mark is married and has three children and is based in New York City.
He was knighted for services to Media in King Charles III’s Birthday Honours in June 2023.