Former AOL, Experian Executives Join Rubicon Project

Digital advertising company Rubicon Project has landed a pair of Internet marketing vets in an effort to broaden its management team with experienced executives.
The LA-based company has hired Ben Trenda, formerly VP of Global Partnerships at AOL, as Vice President of U.S. Demand and Eric Matza, former Vice President of Product Management at Experian, as Director of Product Marketing.


Former Product Marketing and Brand Development Director at Rubicon Project, Marwan Soghaier, meanwhile has moved on to become the new VP of Marketing and Product at online and mobile marketing firm mobileStorm.

At Rubicon Project, Ben Trenda will be in charge of relationships with ad networks and other third-party sales channel partners to ensure they have access to targeted premium inventory and audience segments. He has quite a bit of experience under his belt: prior to AOL, Trenda led a West Coast sales team for Advertising.com, and before that he held roles in the Strategic Alliances group at Yahoo and before that, in sales at Overture and GoTo.
Two things are worth noting: this isn’t the first AOL exec to make the switch to Rubicon Project: the company recently appointed AOL / Platform A vet Oli Whitten to oversee and develop relationships with online advertising networks across Europe. AOL also partners with Rubicon Project in continental Europe.
Eric Matza, who also worked at Yahoo as manager of targeting infrastructure initiatives for display advertising and email marketing, will be responsible for bringing new advertising technology and data products developed by Rubicon Project to market.
The Rubicon Project launched its ‘network of ad networks’ in 2007, and envisions ‘automating the $65 billion global online advertising industry’. The company has raised $42 million in funding the likes of Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, IDG Ventures and GE/NBC Universal’s Peacock Equity Fund. Among its clients are big names like NBC Universal, Gannett and CareerBuilder, and the company claims to optimize more than 45 billion ads each month, reaching 500 million unique Internet users.
The company recently outlined its strategy going forward, and apparently its proposition is attractive enough to be able to recruit some serious talent.