Roku Bolsters Ads Team With New VP of Global Ad Sales

Roku is continuing to build its ads team, adding a new key hire ahead of the upfront.

Today, the company announced that Lauren Benedict is joining as vp of global ad sales and partnerships, effective immediately. Benedict is based in New York and reports to Jay Askinasi, svp, head of global media revenue and growth.  

In the role, Benedict will be responsible for global revenue efforts across Roku Media, looking to maximize the platform’s monetization business and maintain operations.

Most recently, the executive served as chief revenue officer at Spotter, leading the ad sales team. Previously, Benedict served as svp of enterprise sales at MNTN, building the performance CTV enterprise sales team, and spent more than a decade at Hulu, with her latest title being svp of addressable sales.

“Lauren brings a wealth of ad sales leadership experience across some of the largest and most innovative streaming platforms in our industry. Her track record speaks for itself, and the balance of Hulu, Disney, MNTN, and Spotter experience gives us supreme confidence that she will accelerate Roku’s ambition to lead the market in performant premium video,” Askinasi said in a statement. “Her expertise in streaming and performance monetization will be invaluable as we continue to solve TV’s biggest challenges in advertising.”

Benedict noted the importance of joining Roku amid the streaming landscape continuing to change.

“This is a pivotal time for Roku’s advertising business as marketers continue to shift towards CTV being fundamental to their buys,” Benedict said. “I am thrilled to join Roku to help our advertising partners reach engaged audiences across the platform and deliver optimal campaign performance.”

Staying ahead of the trends

Since joining as Roku’s top ads leader in Feb. 2024, Askinasi has made several hires to his executive team, including Sarah Harms and Sal Candela joining the company as vp of advertising marketing and vp of global agency partnerships, respectively, last June.

With the move to add Benedict, Roku continues an industry trend of bolstering ad sales teams ahead of the upfront.

In addition to the tech platform, Fox recently announced it added several key executives to “turbocharge” its ad sales growth. Meanwhile, in February, Warner Bros. Discovery announced its new ad sales leaders, Ryan Gould and Robert “Bobby” Voltaggio.

In its most recent earnings call, Roku reported nearly 90 million streaming households at the end of 2024. That’s a boost of 12% year over year.