Outbrain unveils new senior leadership roster

New York, USA – Outbrain Inc., a recommendation platform for the open web, today announced key promotions to scale global operations, drive innovation, and expand Outbrain’s offerings for brands, advertisers, and publishers. These appointments follow Alexander Erlmeier’s promotion to chief revenue officer in October 2022. 

“Evolving customer habits and emerging technologies continue to necessitate agility and resiliency among technology and advertising organisations,” said Erlmeier. “With an expanded and unified leadership team, Outbrain is [well-positioned] to scale alongside the evolving industry. Together with our teams across the globe, our newly appointed senior leadership team will work to build deeper audience engagement to maximise brand impact for our advertisers and to help publishers diversify revenue streams.”

The leadership appointments include:

• Ayal Steiner as executive vice president of brand solutions who will be overseeing the development of innovative solutions for brands and agencies looking to drive measurable outcomes and deeper engagement with audiences.
• Stephanie Himoff as executive vice president of global publishers who will be leading strategic publisher initiatives on a global scale.
• Sarah Baird as senior vice president of revenue operations who will be leading revenue operations and enablement functions to provide strategies designed to support clients at scale.
• Craig Hughes as senior vice president of corporate development and strategy and as general manager of video who is tasked to drive Outbrain’s video strategy and business globally, and manage strategic initiatives and partnerships to deepen Outbrain’s industry presence.
• Klaus Ludemann as senior vice president of programmatic and partnerships who is tasked to manage programmatic partnerships and adoption in service of advertisers and publishers.
• Guy Yagur as senior vice president for global performance and growth revenue who will be leading a newly centralised global hub focused on supporting and scaling performance-based and DIY customers.

“We are moving with full force and are taking important steps to align our business model to best fit the evolving needs of brands, advertisers and publishers while seizing new opportunities for revenue and product growth,” said David Kostman, Co-CEO of Outbrain. “These appointments are an essential part of our plan to scale our business effectively and efficiently and enable Outbrain to integrate emerging technologies aimed at advancing the industry and driving value for our customers.”

Just recently, Outbrain announced the appointment of Amrita de la Peña, former general manager for APAC at Sprout Social and head of global brands for JAPAC at Twitter, to serve as managing director for the APAC.