AdzCentral, with USD 4M in funding, hires digital media quartet with over 70 years experience

Singapore startup AdzCentral, which is building an online targeted media buying platform, has made a string of hires after its recent USD 3.2M Series A round raised from Electric Sheep Capital and Digital Media Partners. The new executives have previous stints at companies such as Yahoo!, Living Social, NBC, and Deutsche Bank.

Their profiles are as follows:

Russell Conrad (“Russ”): As Chief Revenue Officer, Russ will be responsible for AdzCentral’s sales and client strategy across all markets. He has over ten years in digital media and well over 20 years’ experience in driving revenue and sales. Russ joins from Living Social, where he served as Regional VP of Retail. Prior to that, Russ was instrumental in building digital media audience measurement firm Effective Media in SEA. He also worked as Regional Managing Director for Southeast Asia at Admax Network. He first embraced the digital advertising world in 2003, working as managing director for search engine marketing firm New Media Thailand, and then as managing director with New Media Vietnam, and from 2007, as CEO of New Media. That followed nearly ten years in international roles with The ServiceMaster Corporation. Russ holds an MBA from Sasin University in Bangkok, a program developed in collaboration with Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Christopher McCarthy: As VP Product Strategy & Solutions, Chris  will be responsible for customer solutions and product strategy. He helps to bring together advertising technology and solutions to deliver cutting edge media results. Chris is an industry veteran who has been creating online products and services for more than 20 years, including for NBC, Warner Music, Deutsche Bank, Carnegie Hall and Cosmopolitan Magazine, and the first e-commerce systems for Nike, Lands’ End and Sephora. He has lectured on digital strategy at Columbia, Princeton and UC Berkeley Business School and spoken at ad:tech, Internet World and the American Center for Design. He has also been an entrepreneur, starting several venture-funded startups.

Chip Wilcox: The new Head of Business Operations will be responsible for all of AdzCentral’s business operations, from internal operations to external processes. Chip brings more than 15 years’ experience across the digital media, financial services, insurance and healthcare industries, in a variety of operational and strategic management roles in the US, and since 2006, in Asia. Chip was previously with International SOS as General Manager for the Asia Pacific Region, leading the growth and stabilization of a team located in Singapore, Australia, Japan, Korea and the Philippines. Previously, he worked with Yahoo!, including as Head of Business Operations for Yahoo! Southeast Asia and acting General Manager for Yahoo! Singapore. Chip holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from DePauw University and an MBA (Finance) from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington.

Rajeev Saxena:  Joining as Director of Sales & Client Strategy, he is responsible for driving AdzCentral’s revenue through strategic partnerships and engagements in Singapore and India. Rajeev has over 15 years of digital marketing experience. Prior to joining AdzCentral, Rajeev worked as the General Manager, Southeast Asia, at Exponential, managing a multi-million dollar digital ad sales business. Rajeev comes with a strong background in media sales, account management and media technology, including successfully building and managing digital start-ups. His capabilities include setting up & aligning business processes, setting up offshore teams, managing media sales and optimizing online ad network business models across different geographies.