Industry Moves: Former Yahoo Ad Exec Coleman Lands CEO Post At NetSeer
This story was written by David Kaplan.
Greg Coleman, who officially departed Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) last month as EVP of Global Sales, has landed a position as president and CEO of NetSeer, a startup focused on search and ad targeting. NetSeer credits Coleman with helping Yahoo grow its revenues from $600 million to more than $6 billion during his seven years at the company, as well as integrating its search and display ad units. That said, when Yahoo initiated a major reorg last August - which included an announcement detailing that Coleman would be leaving by February - Yahoo had been experiencing slowing banner ad sales.
As for NetSeer, the two-year-old Los Angeles company has about 30 staffers and has received funding from Mission Ventures and ONSET Ventures. The company said it will reveal more details about its services by the end of the year. Release (PDF)
-- WSJ: Coleman decided to join NetSeer because it presented a combination of something "big" and something "young." In terms of the big part, he claims that NetSeer can tell that terms such as "Cuban cigar" and "cognac" can occasionally be found on the same web pages. That ability will make it easier for marketers to target users of specific websites.
By David Kaplan