UPDATED 13:31 EDT / SEPTEMBER 26 2011

Clearspring Taps Seasoned Yahoo Veteran as New CEO

Clearspring, the company behind online content platform AddThis, announced that former Yahoo executive Ramsey McGrory will be the company’s new Chief Executive Officer, and current CEO Hooman Radfar will remain involved with the company as Executive Chairman. McGrory joins Clearspring from Yahoo where he led the Yahoo US data business and Right Media, pioneer of the digital advertising exchange.

“In our industry, data and social are where incredible innovation is happening. I’m thrilled to be joining Clearspring. Clearspring has a fantastic team and a differentiated ability to understand online consumer behavior through its massive reach and real-time data processing capability,” said McGrory.

“This is exciting because Clearspring’s premier digital services platform has not only proven to be powerful in the advertising market, but also it has the potential to disrupt others as well.”

McGrory has spent ten years in online media, banking and military experience, and is a survivor of the Persian Gulf War and the early days of the internet.  It seems he thrives in chaotic, fast-paced environments.  Before joining Right Media, Mr. McGrory worked in media and technology sales at DoubleClick and Excite. He joined Right Media in 2004 to manage advertising sales and served as Head of Right Media.  Before that, McGrory led a team that helps buyers and sellers define and implement their yield management solutions in the Right Media Exchange.  He served as Vice President of East Sales at Right Media, LLC.

Clearspring founder Hooman Radfar will continue to drive the company’s product and marketing in his new role as Executive Chairman. Current chairman, Ted Leonsis, will remain on the board of directors.

“Clearspring is at an inflection point,” said Radfar. “AddThis has become the standard sharing platform on the web, our advertising revenue is more than tripling this year, and the trajectory for next year is incredible. Ramsey’s operational expertise in scaling data-driven and large platform businesses operations is just what we need to take our rapidly growing company to the next level.”

McGrory and his expertise in in marketing and advertising are a sure fit with Clearspring’s aim to make big data available in the social web as well as real-time data analysis.  With their ability to recognize patterns of social influence, advertisers clamor to make sense of web-based interactions to find the best way to humanize data in order to improve their own methods of interaction.

And their AddThis platform is the best weapon in this data analytics-driven era.  Regarding real-time data, Clearspring is looking to make advancements in the areas of providing relevant information, as in their Audience Platform, helping clients to better serve consumers.

And this isn’t the only top-level change we’ve seen at Clearspring in recent months.  Earlier this year, Greg Cypes joined Clearspring as Director of Product after spending 11 years as Technical Lead at AOL.  Clearspring continues to mature in both its publisher and advertising businesses.  Fueled by its recent $20M Series D financing that was led by Institutional Venture Partners, Clearspring has aggressively grown its AddThis social sharing platform and Audience Platform. In 2011, this growth has been recognized by its selection for the AlwaysOn Global 250 Top Private Companies list, the Inc. 500, and Business Insider’s Digital 100 Most Valuable Startups.


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