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Maxus’ Ricky Chanana joins Unruly as managing director

Maxus’ national head of investment, Ricky Chanana, has been appointed Unruly’s managing director for Australia and New Zealand, replacing Lance Traore.

It comes five months after Traore announced his departure to pursue other opportunities.

Chanana joins the News Corp-owned video ad company from Maxus, where he has worked in roles including digital director, national digital and trading director, with his most recent position being national head of investment.

In his new role, Chanana will aim to grow the company’s emotional intelligence ad tech solutions, including Unruly Custom Audiences.

He will report directly to Asia Pacific chief commercial officer, Phil Townend, who is based in Singapore.

Chanana said he was excited to join the Unruly team, given UnrulyX, Unruly EQ, and Unruly Custom Audiences were having a “huge impact” on the way advertisers and agencies thought about creative, audience segmentation and programmatic video.

“I’m really looking forward to leading an incredibly successful team here in ANZ, and helping the business and our rapidly-expanding client base deliver continued success,” Chanana said.

Townend described Chanana’s ideas as “infectious.”

“After a very thorough search, it became pretty obvious to us that Ricky was the standout candidate for this role.  He brings an incredible amount of experience, energy, drive and charisma to the Unruly and News Corp Australia family,” Townend said.

“His ideas are infectious, and I have no doubt he will be able to help us realise our collective ambition to be the number one premium video solution in the Australian market.

“He understands the needs of blue chip advertisers and their agencies, and can help drive a more human, data-driven and outcome-centric approach to creative and programmatic.”

Nicole Sheffield, Chief Digital Officer at News Corp Australia, added: “I am delighted that we have someone of Ricky’s experience and digital aptitude joining News Corp Australia’s digital executive team to lead our commercial video strategy and drive the next phase of growth and investment in Unruly in Australia.

“We are well placed to reframe the digital video opportunity in premium environments because we have the framework and importantly we have the data which allows us to constantly evolve and create new strategies for content creation and distribution.”

 

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