Ian became UK Online Media (UKOM)’s first dedicated CEO in September 2015. UKOM is the organisation that sets and governs the UK industry standard for digital audience measurement. Ian’s career spans 25 years and more in UK, European and Global media businesses at SVP, GM and Director level, and it encompasses broadcast and multiplatform TV, media agency, digital publishing , digital ad-network and mobile businesses.
After 10 years at ITV Ian crossed to WPP’s Mindshare in 2001 for nearly 4 years where as Managing Partner he ran the UK TV planning and buying for Kelloggs and others.
4 years as UK Sales Director at Turner Entertainment allowed Ian to deliver award winning marketing solutions across TV, online and mobile before he entered the dedicated digital market as SVP UK at Specific Media in 2009.
With Ian onboard the UK business at Specific received an unparalleled 7 consecutive IPA awards for Best Digital Media Owner, and in 2011 Ian was voted the IPA’s inaugural Commercial Director of the Year and was awarded Sales Director of the Year at the National Sales Awards.
A year followed running commercial and editorial as Managing Director of Digital Media at Trinity Mirror, where across 2013, Ian re-built the digital sales team and set out and implemented their programmatic strategy.
Following a year as GM Europe for Brand Sales at InMobi, a Bangalore based global mobile ad-network, in 2015 Ian took his experience to consultancy and delivered with MediaSense a project for Foxtel’s MCN in Australia exploring the future of programmatic television and digital video.
Ian’s depth and breadth of experience gives him a relatively unique perspective on the power and value of broadcast media alongside the capabilities of data to drive efficiency and value in a multi-platform market that can target down to the individual. His network stretches across traditional terrestrial and multi-channel broadcasters, media, digital and creative agencies and advertising clients as well as a vast array of ad-tech and data businesses that form such an influential part of today’s ad-market. He is not afraid to question commonly accepted truths and to investigate the true capabilities that many digital media and ad-tech companies claim as their own.
Ian’s hopes to achieve a state beyond the one of “informed bewilderment” that he, along with a relatively select number in the UK media industry, now occupies.
