Darren Herman keynote speaker at Network Ad Ops Forum US I, Dec 3

AdMonsters is excited to announce that Darren Herman, President of Varick Media Management, will be the keynote speaker at the first Network Ad Ops Forum in the United States on December 3rd in New York City. Herman's presentation, The Online Advertising Power Struggle: Redefining Roles of Agencies, Networks and Publishers, will be about the rapid changes in our industry and how we've seen over the past few years a shift in the balance of power.

As the President of Varick Media Management and Head of Digital Media at MDC Partner’s leading media agency, The Media Kitchen (part of kbs+p), Herman brings 12 years of digital media experience, senior level leadership, and the ability to drive both simple and complex strategies to solve marketing problems using the Internet.

Before joining The Media Kitchen in 2007, Herman was no stranger to Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley having raised over $50MM in venture capital for his own successful digital media startups and over $30MM for startups he was advising. From 2004-2007, he was the founder of IGA Worldwide, the leading independent in-game advertising platform for retail distributed video games. Varick Media Management is wholly owned by MDC Partners and is the next generation Demand Platform for agencies and brands. VMM provides Audience Driven Media™ and Insights for both MDC agencies and brands directly. VMM is headquartered in New York, NY and launched in September of 2008.

His Presentation

Where once traditional publishers and portals were able to command the CPMs they wanted for all their inventory, they now struggle to provide differentiated, premium inventory that they can sell directly. Agencies have gone from thinking of online as an afterthought to seeing significant investment in systems to help them drive performance for their clients. Networks continue to evolve in every way possible as they attempt to develop their own secret sauce that will make them a top player among hundreds of others.

Following the shift of power is complicated by the fact that all the players are continually redefining their roles:  publishers and agencies are creating their own networks and ad exchanges. Publishers and networks are offering services akin to digital agencies.

This redefinition of roles not only applies to the companies themselves, but internally as well. The importance of Ad Operations for all the players has grown tremendously in the last couple of years. Ad Operations ability to help connect technology and process to the business side of online advertising makes it a focal point for our further evolution.

This focus is of particular interest to Networks who sit at the center of many of these changes and must remain nimble to survive. This creates unique challenges for Ad Operations leaders.

Darren's keynote will take us through the macro level shifts in the balance of power, how that is redefining the roles of all the players involved and focus on how Ad Operations need to position themselves - especially at networks - for today and the future.

Who Should Attend

AdMonsters, the on-line advertising industry's only professional association exclusively dedicated to operations and technology, will be hosting this unique event specifically tailored for those who run or manage ad ops and technology teams at networks. Over the last 10 years, AdMonsters has proved an invaluable resource for senior leaders in publisher operations in both the US and in Europe and for the first time we will be hosting applying our unique formula to forum specifically designed to address the particular needs of ad networks and exchanges. Registration is open on the event detail page.

Agenda & Topics

Specific session information will be updated shortly.Topics currently being discussed with potential speakers include stopping malvertising and fraud, managing operations through an ad server change, working with ad exchanges and network optimization companies and partnering with sales. The agenda for the day will run from breakfast and registration between 8:00 and 9:00 AM through lunch, and the forum will conclude around 5 PM.

Additional information is available on the event detail page.