Outbrain expands leadership team with new CMO Paul Knegten
Recommendation platform for the open web, Outbrain has appointed Paul Knegten to the newly-created position of chief marketing officer, expanding the organisation’s global marketing efforts, following the company’s recent IPO.
Knegten will lead Outbrain’s global marketing initiatives and will be instrumental in promoting Outbrain’s global brand. He will oversee the global and regional planning, development and execution of Outbrain’s strategic and product marketing programs and campaigns.
With a deep background in advertising technology, Knegten has made a name for himself across brand leaders such as Comcast, Yahoo!, MediaMath and more. Prior to joining Outbrain, Knegten was CMO of Beeswax, which was acquired in 2021 by Comcast’s FreeWheel.
Following the acquisition of Beeswax, Knegten joined CTV platform FreeWheel as a senior marketing executive. Knegten brings his experience in this hyper growth sector of ad tech to Outbrain following its acquisition of video intelligence AG, a contextual video platform in the CTV space.
David Kostman, Co-CEO of Outbrain noted, “Paul is a talented, experienced and impressive addition to our executive team and the ideal person to drive our brand and global marketing. As Outbrain is on the verge of its annual 2022 advertising innovation conference, ‘Unveil’, Paul is joining the company at an exciting time.
“Paul’s extensive and proven track record in our markets will be invaluable as we continue to grow as a leading recommendation platform for the open web across platforms.”
Knegten said, “I have been watching Outbrain since its founding with admiration and am beyond excited to join this amazing team and build upon Outbrain’s unparalleled technology and product leadership.
“We’re at an exciting moment in an ad industry projected to cross $1 trillion by 2025, especially as the industry becomes less dependent on cookies and moves even more toward platforms like Outbrain that deliver value through context and better user experience.”
The global ad industry now stands at $766 billion and is expected to hit $1 trillion by 2025.
Digital advertising dominated traditional ads this year, accounting for roughly 64.4% of total global advertising in 2021, up from 60.5% in 2020 and 52.1% in 2019.
Unveil 2022 is a digital innovation roadshow which will run for a single day on March 17 for APAC.
Have your say