Outbrain Inc. has announced the promotions of Yonatan Maman as chief technology officer and Andraz Tori to the newly created executive role as chief product officer.
Co-founder, chief technology officer and general manager, Israel, Ori Lahav, will transition his responsibilities and focus on cross-company strategic initiatives while continuing his role as general manager, Israel.
The newly-appointed executives will support the open web recommendation platform’s growth by building upon the company’s existing technologies and product offerings to align with the evolving needs of publishers, brands and advertisers as they increasingly seek to drive measurable outcomes while building deeper engagement with audiences. Both Maman and Tori will report to David Kostman, Co-CEO of Outbrain.
Kostman said: “Under Ori’s esteemed leadership, Yonatan and Andraz have helped transform our engineering team into a world-class technology organisation, built a mature infrastructure fit for supporting our partners, and helped us reach over $1 billion in revenue.”
Yaron Galai, Outbrain’s co-founder and Co-CEO, said: “We’re introducing a new generation of Outbrain leadership who are committed to advancing and elevating Outbrain’s capabilities, offerings and culture, and I’m looking forward to seeing how Yonatan and Andraz will build upon Ori’s legacy.”
Maman joined Outbrain in 2011 as a Senior Software Engineer and has served as vice president of Engineering for the past five years. While leading Outbrain’s R&D team, he brought modern practices and new capabilities to the growing engineering organisation.
Tori has served as head of recommendations and data science at Outbrain for the past four years, following Outbrain’s acquisition of Zemanta, of which he was a founder.
Maman said: “Outbrain is entering a new era, and I’m excited to continue expanding upon our 16 years of prediction technology. We plan to keep innovating and providing great insights and actionable outcomes for our customers and partners.”
Tori continued: “Our industry is entering an AI-powered age where automation and machine learning are driving real outcomes more than ever before. I’m thrilled to support Outbrain in leading this next wave of innovation.”
Lahav said of the appointments: “Yonatan and Andraz bring distinct strengths and capabilities to our team, and we’re fortunate to have a succession stemming from internal drivers of Outbrain success. I’m confident they will have a positive impact on the engineering organisation and the future of Outbrain as our company continues to evolve to meet the needs of this dynamic industry.”
Lahav’s transition will enable the co-founder to focus on the company’s growth from a new perspective as he leans into cross-company collaboration at the executive level.
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Top image: Yonatan Maman and Andraz Tori