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Rubicon Targets Asia/Pac With Former Google Exec
Written by Ryan Lawler
Thursday, August 27. 2009 at 08:00 AM EDT Post a comment

Ad optimization firm The Rubicon Project is expanding its operations overseas with a new Sydney office led by a former Google executive familiar with the region.

Kaylie Smith, former ad platform lead for Google's Japan and Asia/Pacific operations, has joined Rubicon as its managing director for Asia/Pac, reporting to general manager and vice president of operations Jay Stevens.

As part of her new position, Smith will oversee all operations in the Asia/Pac region from the company's newly formed Sydney branch. According to Rubicon CEO Frank Addante, that will include reaching out to local advertisers and agencies in China, Korea, and Japan.

Smith has a pretty extensive resumé from her years at Google and at DoubleClick (where she worked before the search giant bought the firm out). At Google, she worked with publishers and agencies across Asia/Pacific and Japan. Prior to that, Smith held a number of roles at DoubleClick, such as managing director of Asia/Pacific and Japan and vice president of global sales.

"She understands the Asia/Pacific market, and with her experience at Google and DoubleClick, she understands the ad business," Addante says. "We wanted someone with local and regional knowledge as well as industry knowledge."

The opening of a Sydney office highlights The Rubicon Project's rapid expansion into overseas markets. After much discussion about expanding its business overseas, Rubicon opened a London office in June 2009 to handle all European operations for the company. The London office currently has seven employees, but Addante expects that number to double in the next few months.

Right now, the vast majority of Rubicon's overseas operations involve connecting U.S.-based publishers with advertisers and agencies abroad. Addante says that about 99 percent of its publishers are in the U.S., but about 40 percent of all their views come from international markets. As a result, Rubicon helps them to monetize international views by tapping local advertisers in those markets.

The Rubicon Project hopes to change that dynamic somewhat by bringing on more overseas publishers that could also take advantage of the advertising connections it's made in their home markets.

Rubicon has expanded very rapidly over the past year, with the help of a $13 million round of financing that it raised earlier this year. According to Addante, the company has grown from about 40 employees a year ago to 130 today, with its U.S. headquarters in Los Angeles and additional operations in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area.

yup, saw that one - thx! about to post.