Future Today appoints Roku’s Smith
January 5, 2023
Future Today, a specialist in ad-supported streaming, has announced the appointment of Mark Smith to Vice President of Ad Products, Operations and Strategy. Bringing over 17 years of experience to the role, Smith will lead Future Today’s Ad Products and Operations efforts.
In his role, Smith will report directly to Vikrant Mathur at Future Today to optimise and improve monetisation efforts and operations across Future Today’s streaming assets. He will also lead efforts to develop and cultivate new programmatic and direct ad sales execution opportunities, as well as researching dynamic new advertising products offerings for Future Today’s client base.
“Our mission is to meet the demand of the surge in adoption of free, ad-supported streaming with high-quality content that keeps viewers engaged,” said Mathur. “With Mark’s strong track record of success including his work with Roku where he bootstrapped the technical operations team then scaled and expanded it to support Roku’s diverse and respected monetization business units will help unlock the full potential of our offerings and support our future goals.”
Smith has led complex technical projects in the ad tech industry across SSPs, DSPs, DMPs and ad verification and brand safety vendors for top companies. Most recently, he served as Senior Manager, Technical Operations, Advertising at Roku, leading monetisation efforts across all Roku Ads Networks properties. Prior to Roku, Smith was at YuMe by RhythmOne for almost four years, working his way up to Director of Solutions Engineering, where he managed direct Tech Ops personnel for an Ad Exchange, Demand Side Platform and Ad Network. Smith also held leadership roles at SeaChange International, managing linear advertising and content management product line life cycles while maintaining partner relationships for the products.
“I am joining Future Today at one of the most exciting times for streaming,” said Smith. “Future Today is a proven leader in AVoD streaming and delivers brand-safe and brand-suitable content to kids and families and continues to impress customers and partners with its offerings. I am excited to continue Future Today’s journey of developing high-impact products and services for the growing AVoD streaming space, and to be part of a dynamic and growing team.”