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Meet The 32 Most Powerful Women In Mobile Advertising
Men tend to dominate the mobile advertising world. Last year, only one woman made our list of the most powerful people in mobile advertising.
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So we asked readers and companies to nominate who they thought are the most influential women in the business. We also asked that they nominate at least one other competitor to ensure the list wasn't self-serving. We also consulted with Erin "Mack" McKelvey, CEO of SalientMG, whose knowledge of the mobile ad business far exceeds our own.
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The final rankings are based on the size of shops run by these women, as well as their revenue numbers. The rankings favor companies that disclose revenues or spending.
This is, by no means, a complete list of all the influential women in the mobile advertising business. It is, however, a representation of some of the most powerful women out there, who are running big businesses with large client bases and sizeable revenues to report.
If you're interested in previous lists, here's a look at last year's list for comparison.
In one year, Berger opened Kargo's midwest branch, hiring a total of 10 people, and led her team to over $10 million in sales. Kargo works with over 150 clients, and according to LinkedIn, has an employee headcount between 51-200. We're told the company is approaching $50 million in revenue.
Kargo is a mobile ad platform that serves advertisers and publishers, and labels itself the "leading mobile publisher platform."
Before Kargo, Berger was the director of sales for video ad platform BrightRoll. She also worked as a sales director for Adconion Media Group.
Ho joined xAd, a location-based mobile ad company, in 2011. She was promoted in 2013 from VP of marketing to SVP. She also sits on the board for the Mobile Marketing Association.
xAd just announced it brought in $50 million in funding and recently told us the company is profitable and on track to more than double its revenue from last year.
One of the most-nominated women for this year's list, Bager heads up the IAB's Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence, an industry trade organization and lobby group. As a group that helps set the direction of the changing and developing mobile industry, big mobile and digital players turn to the IAB and Bager for guidance.
Bager has led the creation of mobile advertising and marketing standards for a relatively young industry, including her most recent work on HTML5 standards, making HTML5 the industry's standard format.
AdColony, which has 100 employees, was acquired by Opera Software earlier this year for $350 million. Opera (which owns the Opera Mediaworks mobile ad business) booked $100 million in revenue in Q2 2014.
AdColony is a mobile video ad network that launched in 2011. Moriarty joined the company in 2012. Before AdColony she was a publicity assistant and coordinator at Fox and director of communication at true[X], a digital ad company.
Marriott started as NeoMedia's CMO before rising to president and CEO. Prior to joining NeoMedia she ran her own mobile consultancy and helped other companies set up their own mobile plans.
NeoMedia specializes in QR codes and mobile barcodes. Its clients include Wendy's, Vodafone, and Nokia.
She's currently on the Advisory Board for Women in Wireless and served as the president of the Mobile Marketing Association from 2005-2009.
Shen cofounded Beijing-based mobile ad network PapayaMobile in 2008. Since then, the company has grown to roughly 150 employees.
Shen and PapayaMobile recently launched AppFlood, a product designed to connect China and the West through in-app ads. Prior to PapayaMobile, Shen worked for the Google mobile team for five years.
Little joined Turn, a demand-side platform and data management company, in 2008 as VP of business development. She leads business strategy for Turn's data marketplace.
The company's revenue was recently estimated to be about $500 million, and it has just over 400 employees. It's also been rumored that the company is likely heading towards an IPO in the near future. Turn has offices in New York, San Francisco, Amsterdam, London, Tokyo, and 14 others.
Lum founded Adelphic Mobile, an ad targeting company, in 2010 and she has worked in mobile advertising for ten years. The company has raised $12 million in funding to date and has fewer than 50 employees.
In the past year Adelphic Mobile partnered with Horizon Media, an agency that handles $4.5 billion in adspend. In December, Adelphic was issued a patent for a technology that allows it to identify a user or a group of users even if they have switched from one device to another.
Sivaramakrishnan founded Drawbridge, a cross-device ad targeting company, in 2012. Over the past three years, the company has brought in $20.5 million in funding. We estimate the company could do $40 million in revenue this year. Earlier this year, the company announced the expansion of its technology to include video ads.
Under Sivaramakrishnan, Drawbridge was able to tempt Polly Lieberman, a woman with more than 15 years of experience who has also claimed a spot on Business Insider's previous "Most Powerful Women In Mobile Advertising" lists, away from Celtra to become Drawbridge's VP of sales.
Katie Jansen came to AppLovin after founding Igniting Solutions, a small, California-based marketing agency and also worked at PlayFirst as the company's VP of marketing.
After three years, mobile company AppLovin says its "on pace" to do $100 million in revenue this year. Under Jansen's leadership the company has expanded from 12 employees to 70. AppLovin has offices in Palo Alto, San Francisco, and New York.
Buchman moved to Tremor Video very recently to take over partnerships with publishers for the supply side platform. Buchman comes from OpenX where she was vp of publisher solutions. Prior to that she was at Mojiva, a mobile ad network, where she was vp of business development. She has also worked at AOL, Yahoo!, and Lijit.
OpenX's revenue was recently estimated to be about $135 million. Buchman is now bringing her mobile expertise to Tremor Video, where she will help publishers across screens and devices. Some of her clients will include Viacom, Warner Bros., and A+E Networks. Tremor just reported its Q2 2014 revenue at $44 million.
As RKG's vp of paid search, Schnorr managed $230 million in paid search spend ($55 million of that total was dedicated to mobile advertising). RKG, a search and digital marketing agency, was founded in 2003 and Schnorr joined the company 2007. She started as a search marketing account analyst and eventually rose to director of paid search and finally vp.
She oversees a team of nearly 80 analysts and works with about 150 clients. The company was recently named one of the fastest growing companies in the U.S. by Inc. In 2013, the company's revenue was reported at $22.3 million, up from $5.8 million in 2010.
Luegers was previously director/mobile and emerging media at Pandora but she switched to LinkedIn in September 2013. LinkedIn reported Q2 revenue of $534 million.
We're not sure exactly what Luegers' plans are for LinkedIn, but it is interesting that she joined at a time when the company is pursuing a multi-app strategy.
Luegers is a refugee from the agency world. She previously worked on the media buying side at DraftFCB, OMD and MediaEdge.
Perell was previously the CEO of Adconion Direct, a cross channel digital ad company, which was recently acquired by Sing-Tel owned Amobee for $235 million. Before that she was the CEO and founder of Frontline Direct, a performance advertising company.
We're told she drove more than $1 billion in ad spending across mobile, social, display, and video while at Adconion.
Amobee now has nearly 600 employees globally and focuses on digital advertising technology, with both analytics and data management tools.
Frisbie joined InMobi in 2008 and headed the North America division. Prior to that she was vp of category and sales intelligence at Yahoo. She's also a member of the IAB's Mobile Marketing Center For Excellence board.
InMobi is a mobile ad network and claims to be the largest independent ad network out there. It's not hard to believe, with the company's head count currently sitting at about 850. We recently estimated that the company's annual revenues were about $372 million.
This year InMobi partnered with Rubicon Project to launch InMobi Exchange, a programmatic buying and selling platform for native ads that will live on mobile devices.
As the vp of mobile and digital strategy at Walmart, Bergh is in charge of "entertainment strategies" for one of the largest retailers in the U.S. Walmart is one of the top 25 biggest ad spenders in the U.S., with a budget of roughly $690 million.
She joined Walmart in 2006, starting as a photo business manager for Walmart.com. Since 2006 she has risen to director of mobile and digital strategy, senior director, and finally vp of mobile and digital. Before Walmart, Bergh worked at Gap, Inc.
Novak started at Rubicon Project as svp of global advertising solutions. Prior to that she worked at Microsoft for nearly 15 years spending the last nine years as head of global marketing. Novak also worked at ad agency Grey early on in her career.
Rubicon Project, a buying and selling platform, reported $28.3 million in revenue for the second quarter after its IPO debuted earlier in the year. Rubicon Project recently partnered with the mobile ad network InMobi to launch a big mobile ad exchange out of India. The exchange works with both native banner and in-stream ads.
The mobile side of Opera Mediaworks reported revenue of $51.1 million for Q2, an 83% increase year-over-year.
Opera Mediaworks acquired AdColony, a mobile video ad platform, this year for $350 million.
Founded in 2013, the company now has about 300 employees.
Starcom MediaVest Group is a leading media buying company owned by the holding company Publicis Groupe. Kienast heads up mobility for Starcom Worldwide. Her main client is Procter & Gamble, which spends $9.2 billion on advertising per year.
Tobin has been with Rovio for two years and is responsible for the company's global, digital advertising strategy. Prior to this role she worked at Millennial Media as vp of entertainment.
Rovio, best-known for creating the Angry Birds games, reported its revenue hit $200 million in 2013. It's one of the largest mobile entertainment companies in the world.
At Ford, Habucke is in charge of leading digital marketing strategies for Ford and SYNC technology. In 2013 the company spent roughly $4.4 billion on advertising, including radio, print, TV, online, and mobile.
Ford will be one of the few brands pioneering Spotify's mobile video ads, Sponsored Sessions.
Mangan oversees all consumer product development for OpenTable, including all mobile solutions. She joined OpenTable in 2005. Prior to that she was working at Ticketmaster and Citysearch.
In the past two months OpenTable has rolled out a mobile payment feature for the OpenTable app, announced it would be a participating member of Apple's new Apple Pay feature, and partnered up with Uber so users can reserve a car to a specific restaurant.
OpenTable reported revenues of $54 million in Q2 2014.
Prior to AOL Advertising Nardini was a senior director at Microsoft, vp/head of marketing solutions for AOL, and vp of packaging at Yahoo! She has been with AOL Advertising for just over one year and is in charge of all marketing operations.
The company's second quarter earnings show AOL's bet on programmatic advertising is paying off. Ad revenue hit $451.7 million, up 20% from the previous year.
Recently AOL has rolled out a number of mobile advertising products, including its most recent full-page mobile ad units titled Road Devil Interstitial for Mobile under its Devil Ad Suite.
Flurry, a mobile ad company with access to mobile app data, was recently acquired by Yahoo for a reported "hundreds of millions," possibly upwards of $300 million. The company raised $62.5 million in funding before the acquisition. It reported $100 million in revenue prior to the deal. The company said 17,000 companies were using its analytics and could see app activity from 1.4 billion devices each month.
While Yahoo didn't have stellar second quarter earnings, search and mobile ad revenue did grow, with search hitting $428 million and other ad revenue hitting about $220 million. Yahoo has also recently rolled out some mobile-specific platforms for advertisers through Yahoo Gemini, including native ads designed specifically for mobile devices.
Earlier this year Vevo, the premium music video platform, announced a partnership with Mirriad, a company specializing in native, in-video advertising. The deal lets Vevo serve native ads into music videos across desktop, mobile, and tablets.
Before joining Vevo, Lee worked at Showtime, AOL, and AT&T where she was a key leader of AT&T's mobile ad team, Adworks. Now she works for a company recently projected to make $350 million in revenue this year. Vevo is also one of YouTube's most viewed channels and half of YouTube's viewers are tuning in via mobile.
Prior to joining Amazon in 2008, Utzschneider was general manager of sales for ten years at Microsoft for 10 years. At Amazon she heads up global ad sales. eMarketer recently projected that Amazon would rake in $1 billion in ad revenue this year.
Amazon recently purchased Twitch, a live video game streaming site, for $970 million in cash. It has been reported that the company is looking to build out its own ad network to compete with ad giant Google, and hopes to leverage its massive amount of customer data to create targeted ads online and on mobile.
Amazon also jumped into the smartphone game this year, announcing the Fire Phone in June, another opportunity for the company to take step into the mobile ad game.
This year Bauer Marshall was responsible for the launch of PrecisionID, a platform for advertisers to securely connect with audiences through smartphones without revealing a potential customer's identity.
Bauer Marshall launched Verizon's Precision Market Insights division in 2012. It partners with BlueKai, Brightroll, and Turn to improve the targeting of mobile advertising.
Last year, Verizon spent $1.19 billion on media.
At Pandora, Clemens is in charge of global expansion and business strategy. Before coming to Pandora she worked at Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Greylock Partners.
Pandora reported that $167.5 million of its $218.9 million in Q2 revenue came from mobile, up 50% from the previous year.
At Facebook, Liu spearheaded efforts to get app install ads up and running. In the company's second quarter earnings report total ad revenue was $2.68 million, while mobile ads made up 62% of the company's ad revenue. Facebook doesn't lay out just how much app installs are making, but it is substantial.
Liu joined Facebook in 2009 working on the Games Platform and Facebook Credits. Prior to Facebook, Liu worked at PayPal as the director of product marketing management and product management.
McDonough comes to Twitter from MoPub, a digital ad exchange purchased by Twitter for $350 million in Sept. 2013. At MoPub, she headed up the MoPub Marketplace, but since the acquisition, has taken over as Twitter's exchange director.
When Twitter first acquired MoPub, and McDonough was working there, the company said it was managing $100 million in annual spend on apps and mobile media.
Twitter is a big leader in the mobile ad space. The company has recently launched in-tweet "buy now" buttons and promoted, in-feed video ads. Twitter's ad revenue was up 129% to $277 million in the second quarter, and mobile ad revenue accounted for 81% of the company's total ad revenue.
Wojcicki recently took over as CEO of YouTube. She was previously Google's svp of advertising and commerce. Just last year, when she worked for Google's advertising team, Wojcicki worked on big mobile projects including creating responsive ad units for mobile and helped create mobile ads for Google's RTB exchange.
Now, as the CEO of a company worth possibly up to $40 billion, Wojcicki will be in charge of roughly $5.9 billion in video ad sales and $2.8 billion in ad revenue. Roughly 40% of global monthly YouTube watch time, about 2.5 billion minutes, is consumed on mobile devices.
In Q2 2014, Facebook reported mobile revenue made up 62% of its $2.7 billion in ad revenue. Mobile ad revenue alone was up 151% from the previous year.
Facebook continues to be a leader in the mobile advertising space, with mobile app install ads, video ads, and more recently introduced units that users can click to "shop now," "listen now," "book now," etc.
Before joining Facebook, Everson was the cvp of global ad sales and strategy for Microsoft, evp of strategy and operations for MTV Networks, and manager of business development for Walt Disney Imagineering.
Here's how this year's list of the most powerful women in advertising came together. We asked people in the mobile ad industry to send us nominations of women they felt were worthy of a spot on the list and spoke with some industry experts to get their input, too.
We are also grateful for the advice and insights of Erin "Mack" McKelvey,* founder and CEO of the marketing firm SalientMG. McKelvey is formerly the svp/marketing at Millennial Media and a senior director of marketing at Sirius XM. She previously took a spot on our "Most Powerful Women In Mobile Advertising" lists in 2012 and 2013. (Basically, she knows everyone in the mobile ad biz.)
Once we collected the nominations and input we then used this criteria to put together, and rank, our list of powerful mobile ad women:
Revenues: When it comes to revenue numbers, most companies tend to avoid disclosing them. When they do disclose hard, dollar numbers, oftentimes the company won't break out what portion of that revenue comes from mobile ads. When a company shared revenue numbers with us, or revenues were available, that factored in heavily in our consideration.
Employees: When revenue is not disclosed, an employee headcount can be the next best thing to help gauge the size and success of a business.
Innovation: The mobile world is always changing, so when a company is ahead of the game, big or small, that's a good indication of power in the industry.
Best Representative: This list is by no means complete. There are plenty of women in all sectors of the ad business, from ad agencies to exchange networks, doing great things. This is, however, a representation of some of the most powerful women in the mobile game right now.
Did we miss a woman who is integral to the mobile ad business? Let us know in the comments or email krichards@businessinsider.com.
*Disclosure: Verizon and Rovio are both clients of McKelvey's.
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