Native advertising platform Polar has hired former Google European business development lead Tom Jenen to spearhead its global expansion.
For the past four years, Jenen has led Google’s marketplace development efforts in Northern Europe. He joined the company through its acquisition of Admeld, which provided many of the key components for the DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Jenen was responsible for establishing Admeld’s presence in the U.K., Germany, Netherlands and 13 other countries in the EMEA region.
As Polar’s new president, international, he’ll fill the same role at the Toronto startup, introducing its sponsored content publishing platform to new publisher clients in the U.K. and Europe, and growing its business with publishers it already works with in the region including The Telegraph, Scripps Network, The Economist and Time U.K.
“Tom’s joining the team lets us instantly tap into a vast knowledge of the U.K. and Europe’s digital publishing industry,” said Polar CEO Kunal Gupta in a statement. “Tom knows exactly what our potential customers need in a platform, and what our current customers need to bring their content revenue initiatives to scale.”
Polar’s products help publishers create, manage and promote custom branded content, as well as optimize revenue from native formats like in-feed ads, recommended content widgets and branded video. In North America, it’s used by publishers like The Globe and Mail, Postmedia and The Washington Post to more efficiently monetize and measure custom content.
With Jenen on board, the company hopes to grow its European portfolio to represent 50% of its total business.
