Canoe Ventures, the advanced-advertising startup formed by the six biggest U.S. cable operators, has hired three executives to manage product development, ad-agency relations and partnerships with national cable and broadcast TV networks.
The executives are: John Collins, senior vice president of product development; Bruce Dennler, senior vice president and chief relationship officer for agency relations; and Mark Mitchell, senior vice president and chief relationship officer for network relations.
“With our growing team, Canoe Ventures is closer to our goal of turning television into a more robust platform,” Canoe CEO David Verklin (left) said, in a statement. “I look forward to announcing the specifics of our product lineup and working with agencies and networks in deploying these products.”
Collins, who has been involved with Project Canoe since its formation in 2007, is in charge of developing the company's advertising products and services. Previously, he was Time Warner Cable's group vice president of advanced advertising technologies and has contributed to the CTAM On Demand Consortium, where he is currently a co-chair of the advertising subcommittee.
Dennler, based in Los Angeles, will be in charge of advertising agency relations. Most recently, he was president of Nielsen Entertainment, which provides the entertainment industry with a range of syndicated and custom research. Prior to that, he was president and chief operating officer of media services company Palisades MediaGroup and had been interim president of ad agency Carat USA.
Mitchell, previously head of sales for in-store TV network Premier Retail Networks (PRN), will handle collaborative partnerships with national cable and broadcast networks. Prior to PRN, Mark spent more than 10 years with ABC Television Network, holding a variety of sales management positions.
New York-based Canoe Ventures is backed by Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Charter Communications, Cablevision Systems and Bright House Networks.
