Roku’s New Ad Sales Leader Expands Team With First Major Hires

Roku’s new ad sales leader is making moves.

What’s happening:

Today, Roku announced that Sarah Harms and Sal Candela are joining the company as vp of advertising marketing and vp of global agency partnerships, respectively.

These are the first two major executive hires under Jay Askinasi, svp, head of global media revenue and growth, who became the company’s ad sales leader in February.

Why is it happening:

Askinasi joined Roku following the surprising departure of Alison Levin, Roku’s former head of advertising, who left the company last year for NBCUniversal. With the appointments, the company’s ad leader puts a personal touch on the team and bolsters Roku’s sales efforts as it tries to take even more share of the market during the TV upfront season.

Harms, who reports to Askinasi, will be responsible for the overall strategy and execution of marketing and measurement efforts across Roku’s advertising business, according to the company. The exec previously spent five years at Microsoft, overseeing national sales and account management for the buy-side ad technology business, formerly Xandr.

Meanwhile, Candela, who reports to Kristina Shepard, vp of global advertising sales and partnerships, will look to elevate partnerships with Roku’s largest ad clients across all markets. Candela previously served as head of agency development at Spotify and president of enterprise partnerships and U.S. investment at Omnicom Media Group.

“Expanding the Roku Media team marks a pivotal time for the company, as Roku continues to grow its market-leading scale,” Askinasi said in a statement. “I have no doubt that Sarah will help take our business to new heights with her proven ability to deliver scalable, valuable solutions to advertisers. Sal’s deep industry knowledge and agency relationships will be advantageous to our business as media investments continue to shift towards TV streaming this upfront season.”

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What else to know:

In addition to the ad sales appointments, Roku is enhancing its ad sales through new partnerships with demand-side platform The Trade Desk, measurement service iSpot.tv and the publisher NBCUniversal. The company announced the partnerships in May during NewFronts.

The deals with The Trade Desk and iSpot.TV will facilitate programmatic buying and measurement, while the NBCUniversal partnership creates a hub for the 2024 Paris Olympics on the Roku interface.

“We want to position ourselves as the lead-in to all television,” Julian Mintz, head of U.S. ad sales at Roku, said at the time. “Right now, streaming is fragmented, but we put that puzzle together for viewers and advertisers.”