Index Exchange is continuing its expansion into the U.S. with the opening of its first west coast office in San Francisco. The new office will help Index tap into the Silicon Valley ad tech hotbed, where many of the demand-side platforms that buy media on its exchanges are based.
“San Francisco is a major media market, and it’s vital for us to be there in the thick of it,” said Andrew Casale, CEO of the publisher technology platform, in a release. He added that since nearly half of Index’s strategic partners are based in the region — companies like Turn, The Trade Desk and Rocket Fuel — “we are long overdue for a point of presence in the area.”
The office will be co-led by two new senior hires: director of business development Lauren Irvin and regional director of publisher development Derek Houdyshell. Irvin was previously a programmatic strategist at Stubhub in the Bay area, and before that was an account executive at Centro, another ad tech provider. Houdyshell was previously a publisher-facing account executive at Index competitor PubMatic, and has also been senior director of publisher sales at Mode Media.
Irvin said in a statement that the new San Francisco team will be responsible for growing and maintaining existing relationships with programmatic buying partners in the Bay area, and growing its base of U.S. premium publisher clients.
Index, formerly Casale Media, has been expanding aggressively into the U.S. and Europe over the past year, opening a new office in London, U.K. and hiring a new VP to run its New York office.
