Xaxis Names Nicolas Bidon CEO, EMEA

Xaxis, the programmatic audience company, announced today it has named Nicolas Bidon as CEO, EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa). Bidon joins from Xaxis native specialist company plista where he served as global CEO. At plista, Bidon led the company’s integration into the Xaxis programmatic platform, relaunching it as the industry’s most comprehensive offering for programmatic native advertising and establishing new markets in the U.S., Russia, China and Norway. Jana Kusick will take over leadership of plista as global managing director, a promotion from her current role as managing director for Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

As CEO EMEA, Bidon will be responsible for leading Xaxis strategy and operations across the company’s 25 markets in the region, including helping to drive growth for Xaxis specialist companies Light Reaction, Bannerconnect and plista. Previous to plista, Bidon served as managing director, United Kingdom for Xaxis where he led three years of high double digit growth, establishing the UK as the company’s second largest market globally. Kusick has been a key player at plista since 2010, most recently leading the successful roll-out of the plista business in APAC where Australia has grown to be one of the company’s most successful markets.

“Nicolas has been instrumental in the success of both Xaxis and plista over the past three years and his management expertise, product knowledge and market understanding makes him the ideal choice to lead all Xaxis operations across the EMEA region,” said Xaxis global CEO, Brian Gleason. “He will play a prime role as we continue to advance our industry-leading market position and bring the benefits of our programmatic technology platform and know-how to new markets, advertising channels and audiences. We are also pleased to welcome Jana to the top job at plista, where she will drive global momentum for our fast growing native ad business.”

Prior to Xaxis, Bidon was director of brand display for EMEA at Yahoo!, where he was responsible for shaping the regional strategy for display solutions and video, and for developing innovative, multi-screen offerings for brand advertisers across desktop, tablet and mobile. He holds a Master of Science from Georgia Tech and is a graduate of ICN Business School (France). Kusick has held numerous positions at plista, advancing from an initial role as sales manager to be appointed Managing Director in 2013. She holds a Diplome in International Business from the European Business College Berlin/Dublin (Germany/Ireland) and a bachelor’s degree in International Business and Management Administration from Hogeschool Utrecht in the Netherlands.

“Using programmatic technology and data to unlock additional value for clients and make advertising more welcome to consumers has been the basis of Xaxis’ phenomenal growth across the EMEA region,” said Bidon. “I am excited to get to work with the region’s advertisers and media owners as we continue to build a better online advertising ecosystem for the benefit of all.”

“plista has taken programmatic native to a new level this year, leveraging Xaxis’ unique assets to create a single source solution for marketers’ native needs” said Kusick. “I look forward to building on our strong momentum as we continue to deliver new capabilities to our clients and partners across the globe.”

About Xaxis

Xaxis is a global digital media platform that programmatically connects advertisers to audiences across all addressable channels. Through the expert use of proprietary data and advertising technology along with unparalleled media relationships, Xaxis delivers results for over 2,800 clients in 45 markets across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East. Advertisers working with Xaxis achieve exceptionally high return on advertising spend through the company’s proprietary media products, as well as through its specialist companies, Light Reaction, Bannerconnect, plista and ActionX. For more information, visit www.xaxis.com.

About plista

plista is a pioneer when it comes to innovative solutions for native advertising and content distribution in premium environments. With its data-driven platform, the Berlin based company has been successfully bringing advertisers and media together since 2008. With its proprietary real-time Recommendation Technology, plista is able to deliver both content and advertising that matches users’ individual interests – across all channels and devices. Publishers benefit from longer user visit duration, increased traffic and the additional monetization of their digital products. By using plista’s native ad formats, advertisers are able to address users seamlessly and efficiently along the entire sales funnel. plista employs over 180 people and offers its solutions in 13 international markets. For more information, visit www.plista.com.

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Contact information

Harmonica / Xaxis
Peter Epstein or Adrian Brophy
peter@harmonica.co or adrian@harmonica.co
+1 323-251-3567 or +44 (0)7590 572 405