Former AOL and ADTECH executive Dirk Freytag to drive further international expansion

BERLIN, – 9th July 2012, Rubicon Project, the advertising technology company, is further expanding its European operations with the appointment of Dirk Freytag.  The former CEO of ADTECH and SVP at AOL Inc. will drive adoption of REVV, Rubicon Project’s real-time trading platform, amongst premium online publishers in the DACH regions.  

REVV empowers publishers to ensure each of their online advertising impressions are sold through the best channel, including real-time bidding (RTB), for the highest price possible, whilst protecting their brand, accessing insight and maintaining control.  REVV enables premium web publishers to maximise their online yield by connecting with over 70,000 buyers – via all the major trading desks, demand-side platforms (DSP) and hundreds of online advertising networks – and sell ad inventory in real time.  The REVV Real Time Trading platform receives 1 trillion bids and powers 120 billion ad trades around the world each month.

Freytag brings fourteen years of senior sales and operations experience to Rubicon Project.  He was responsible for the business turnaround of ad serving platform ADTECH making it profitable and establishing fourteen offices around the world including San Francisco, Copenhagen and Mumbai.  Following ADTECH’s acquisition by AOL Advertising he moved to New York and ensured the integration of ADTECH around the world.  Reporting into the President of AOL Advertising, he also took on responsibility for strategy and product management for all advertising technologies in AOL with 400 employees in the USA, India and Ireland.  Working on a consultancy basis, Freytag will increase the adoption and usage of the REVV real-time trading platform in Europe, manage the German operations and grow the local team.  He will report into Jay Stevens, VP and General Manager, International at the Rubicon Project.

"No one else has as much domain expertise in the ad tech world, deep market knowledge, and the level of relationships and trust of major German publishers and sales houses as Dirk Freytag," says Jay Stevens VP and General Manager, International at the Rubicon Project.  "His expertise in analysing organisations’ critical business requirements, identifying opportunities, improving service levels and increasing revenues will bring our German operations up to speed with those in the UK, France and APAC, where we have been selected time and again as the monetisation partner for publishers looking to incorporate the efficiencies of automated trading that REVV affords.”

Dirk Freytag, Country Manager, Germany, Rubicon Project, adds, “Real-time trading has reached the tipping point in the German speaking world and I could not resist the opportunity to propel Rubicon Project to the next level of its European growth.  Premium publishers will relish the tools in Rubicon’s REVV platform that enable them to make more money from their online advertising whilst maintaining control and brand safety.  REVV provides the precise combination of technology, data and access to inventory demand that will empower more European publishers to thrive.”

Based in Berlin, Freytag will grow Rubicon Project’s operations across German speaking countries working with the advertising technology company on a part-time basis for a fixed period, whilst maintaining his interests and investments in local businesses.

About the Rubicon Project
the Rubicon Project launched in 2007 with a mission to automate buying and selling across the $80 billion global online advertising industry.  REVV, the company’s real-time trading platform, has executed nearly two trillion trades for more than 450 of the largest properties on the Internet.  REVV helps comScore 500 publishers like Time Inc., Guardian News & Media and CareerBuilder make more money by optimizing their ad revenue, eliminating unnecessary ad operations costs, protecting and growing their direct sales channel and ensuring their sites’ visitors are safe. Today, REVV analyzes more than 1 trillion bids resulting in more than 100 billion successful and protected trades each month from more than 70,000 advertisers using 700 buying channels (ad networks, exchanges and DSPs.)  Ad buyers turn to REVV for single point real-time access to the #1 network reach of users (650 million uniques as ranked by Quantcast) across premium inventory and audiences.  Headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in New York, Seattle, London, Paris, Hamburg and Sydney, the company is backed by $60 million in funding from Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, IDG Ventures Asia, Comcast Ventures and News Corporation.