Horizon Media, among the world’s largest independent ad agencies, underwent a round of layoffs this week, cutting 50 roles out of a headcount of over 2,000 globally as part of a broader restructuring. 

In a company-wide email sent Monday evening, obtained by ADWEEK, CEO Bill Koenigsberg said that the layoffs were “part of a skills optimization effort and broader realignment across the agency.” 

The cuts affected various departments across the organization, according to a source familiar with the matter who spoke under the condition of anonymity. Horizon declined to specify which departments were impacted.

The reorganization came as a surprise to many, according to the source. “It was definitely out of nowhere,” they said. The cuts affected some employees who had been with the company for over 10 years, they added, sparking concern that “anyone is vulnerable.”

A Horizon spokesperson confirmed the layoffs to ADWEEK, and said in a statement that the agency is “strategically focusing our current and future talent in the areas that drive the most value for our clients.” 

In his email, Koenigsberg noted that Horizon is changing some roles while “actively investing and hiring” in areas including “data, technology, AI, product innovation, and integrated capabilities.” 

The company is currently hiring for over 100 roles, the company spokesperson told ADWEEK.  “While these changes have unfortunately resulted in the elimination of some positions, this realignment allows us to continue delivering exceptional work for our clients and build on our momentum,” the spokesperson added.

“We are deeply grateful for the contributions of our departing colleagues and are providing them with support during their transition.”

The company is increasingly focused on scaling its tech and AI offerings. In December, it launched HorizonOS, a central hub integrating AI, data analytics, and external tech partners that help marketers plan media, activate, and measure more efficiently. HorizonOS is powered by Blu, the agency’s proprietary AI system designed to generate marketing insights.

Koenigsberg said that additional details about Horizon’s planned “evolution” in capabilities and “path ahead” would be shared in a town hall in April.

The white smoke has risen from the Playboy Mansion.

On Tuesday, the iconic publisher appointed media veteran Phillip Picardi as its new chief brand officer and editor in chief, ushering in a new chapter for a legacy brand looking to reestablish its relevance in the modern era.

In joining the company, Picardi brings more than a decade of experience reshaping publications into cultural touchstones. 

In his first turn in the editorial world, he repositioned Teen Vogue as an arbiter of the Gen Z zeitgeist, founded the queer-focused publication, them, at Condé Nast, and served as editor in chief of Out Magazine. (Them was spun off in February to Equalpride, which owns Out.)

Most recently, he was chief brand officer at Weight Watchers, and has consulted for brands including Nike, LEGO, and Loewe.

His hire comes just days after Playboy named David Miller, formerly an executive vice president at National Geographic, as its new president of media and brand. In departing the House of Mouse for the Bunny, Miller aims to lay the commercial foundation necessary for the wider reinvention of the outlet. 

Taken together, the two hires suggest that Playboy is making a coordinated bet. As the publisher approaches its 75th anniversary, Miller’s licensing and media expertise, combined with Picardi’s editorial ambitions, aims to create a sustainable, culturally relevant business.

For Picardi, the opportunity was less about a job change than a cultural calling. 

“Our moment right now is both extremely prudish and extremely pornographic,” he told ADWEEK. “The idea that we need a publication that is able to explain sexuality as a cultural force, especially as our younger folks are facing a sex recession and loneliness epidemic—it felt like the right challenge.”

While the position only became official this week, Picardi has been working with Playboy since November in a consulting capacity, helping to lay the groundwork for what is shaping up to be a broad editorial revival. 

In that time, the company has relaunched its print magazine, introduced a new class of Playmates, and launched a Substack newsletter blending new writing with archival material, fiction, and longform essays. The brand is also reviving signature franchises like the Playboy Interview in a video and social-first format.

Picardi will also become the first openly gay man to helm the historically heterosexual outlet, an appointment in line with the broader Playboy ethos of championing progressive causes.

“Queer rights don’t exist without women’s rights,” Picardi said. “These things are connected, and Playboy has always been very engaged with that.”

March ad-ness has begun, but CBS Sports and TNT Sports aren’t showing their full playbooks yet.

Today, during a press conference on the upcoming 2026 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, CBS Sports and TNT Sports executives discussed the tournament’s ad sales, saying demand was high and that live sports continue to make an impression on viewers.

However, though David Berson, president and CEO, CBS Sports, said there’s “tremendous demand,” he added that they were “not going to give too much specificity.”

“Sports are more and more valuable every single day. Big events like March Madness continue to cut through,” Berson said. “They help drive revenue for these events, as well as the larger portfolios that we and TNT Sports have.”

Luis Silberwasser, chairman and CEO, TNT Sports, added that the companies were in “a really good place” and CBS Sports and TNT Sports are confident in the “strength of the sales efforts.”

During the call, Berson said linear TV is where the majority of fans watch the games, but he noted that the 2026 NCAA Men’s Tournament is also a multiplatform sale, including linear TV, streaming, and social.

“We’re touching fans with this in all kinds of ways, and it becomes a real good opportunity for advertisers to connect with fans however they want to consume the games and content,” Berson said.

The executives didn’t share insights into which brand categories were up or down in the college basketball event during the press conference. In addition, CBS Sports and TNT Sports did not immediately say whether more details on ad sales for the 2026 Men’s Tournament were forthcoming.

Around this time last year, CBS Sports and TNT Sports executives got into a lot more specifics about the ad sales for the 2025 Men’s Tournament. At the time, executives announced that the 2025 Men’s Tournament was “virtually sold out,” with more than 50% of all ad inventory going to the NCAA’s Corporate Champions, which included AT&T, Coca-Cola, and Capital One, and 15 corporate partners ranging from Buffalo Wild Wings to Unilever.

Regarding the 2026 broadcasts, CBS Sports and TNT Sports will provide live coverage of all 67 games across four networks, TBS, CBS, TNT, and truTV, with all games streamed on NCAA March Madness Live. Meanwhile, live games from TBS, TNT, and truTV will stream on HBO Max, and live games on the CBS Television Network will stream on Paramount+. 

Coverage for the tournament begins with the Selection Show on Sunday, March 15, at 6 p.m. ET on CBS.

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The escalating dispute between Anthropic and the United States Department of War is becoming more than a government procurement fight. For advertisers and tech buyers, it’s an early signal that the AI platforms powering future media and commerce may increasingly be shaped by geopolitical alliances.

On Monday, Anthropic sued the Pentagon after the department designated the company a “supply chain risk,” a label typically reserved for foreign adversaries. The designation requires companies doing work tied directly to the department to stop using Anthropic’s flagship product, Claude.

The move followed tensions between the two after the government previously used Claude in operations, including the ongoing war in Iran. Anthropic argues the designation punishes the company for its positions on AI policy and exceeds the government’s authority.

The case is part of a broader clash playing out as AI companies deepen ties with Washington while competing fiercely for commercial users. Meanwhile, OpenAI—whose AI answer engine ChatGPT dominates consumer adoption, reaching 900 million weekly active users—has expanded its own relationship with the U.S. government after accepting a deal Anthropic previously declined.

The moment underscores how AI firms are increasingly navigating two powerful constituencies: governments seeking strategic AI partnerships and a global consumer base that expects neutrality from the tools they use every day. 

For brands, the standoff adds a new layer of uncertainty around brand safety, as AI infrastructure becomes an increasingly critical channel for reaching consumers online.

AI’s Digital Nation-States

For an ad industry that is increasingly reliant on AI products rolled out by these companies, the implications may stretch far beyond defense contracts.

According to Nicole Greene, vice president, analyst at Gartner, governments and AI companies are increasingly operating as strategic blocs—what she calls “digital nation-states.”

Those alliances blur the line between technology infrastructure and geopolitics.

Large tech vendors are spending more than $70 billion per quarter on AI infrastructure, according to Gartner’s analysis, with six major tech companies, including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Alibaba and Oracle, investing over $300 billion in 2025. That scale rivals the economic output of many countries, Greene pointed out.

For advertisers and enterprises that rely on AI platforms, Greene said, that means scrutinizing not just product capabilities but also the political and strategic relationships behind them.

“If you’re a U.S company, are you going to be comfortable using a model that has a strategic alliance with China?” Greene said. “These are global infrastructures that are going to have these new partnerships with governments that’s going to impact how much customers, not only trust that platform, but how much they trust the media being distributed through that platform.”

In that sense, the Anthropic dispute is less about one contract and more about how AI platforms will operate within evolving geopolitical ecosystems.

Brand Safety Risks

The Pentagon’s designation has already led to brands in the regulated sector—such as banks and financial institutions—evaluting its compliance reviews with Anthropic. 

“Anybody who is close to government services has had to suddenly assemble a war room like an emergency session of subject matter experts and decision makers and evaluate the risk,” said Brian Bauer, vice president of AI products at Rational Exponent, which works with banks and financial institutions. 

For advertisers, the standoff also underscores that AI models increasingly carry brand identities tied to their creators. Models like Claude and ChatGPT often reflect the positioning of their parent companies—whether emphasizing safety, openness or rapid innovation. That identity shapes how users and businesses perceive them.

ChatGPT uninstalls in the U.S surged 295% day-over-day on February 28, as people responded to the news of the AI company’s deal with the Department of War, according to Sensor Tower. 

Bauer said sentiment toward AI models typically develops over time and is unlikely to change overnight because of a single policy dispute. Still, controversies involving governments or national security could shift perception if a major incident occurs.

“A material event in the future—a misstep by the military where something unexpected and less than positive happens and it’s traced back to a root cause that could be associated with one of these vendor AI models,” Bauer said. “At that point, people might say it’s really hard for me to be associated with this product.”

According to CBS, the U.S was likely responsible for a strike that hit a girls’ school in Iran, killing 168 people, many of them children.

Why Advertisers Should Be Watching

For brands exploring advertising on ChatGPT or commerce within AI answer engines, analysts said the episode is a reminder that the environment surrounding those tools is as important as the technology itself.

Jacob Bourne, technology analyst at Emarketer, said “The real issue is political and reputational optics. Brands that are advertising and looking to advertise on ChatGPT, for example, should be aware that this is a consumer sentiment issue, ultimately.”

The dispute also surfaces long-standing questions around AI governance—specifically whether companies or governments ultimately set the rules for how these systems are deployed. For advertisers, the answer may shape where the next generation of digital media platforms emerges—and who controls them.

“Its bigger than advertising– it’s about platform stability, governance, and brand safety” Greene said. “For advertisers its an early signal on how these AI platforms will evolve over the political, regulatory environment and ethical risk conversation.”

The legacy news brand Time has nearly completed that most modern of digital media pivots: After years of gradual transformation, it has now become an events company.

This year, revenue from its events business—including the attendant digital footprint of those events—is on pace to represent 50% of its total revenue. That’s up from 28% in 2023, according to chief strategy officer Dan Macsai. Within the advertising business specifically, events make up nearly 80% of its revenue.

The shift has been rapid: Time hosted 11 events in 2022 and will host more than 40 this year. Advertising revenue overall grew 23% year over year in 2025, which followed on double-digit gains in each of the two prior years.

“If you’d asked me 13 years ago what powered Time’s business, I would have said print or digital,” Macsai said. “Now it is unquestionably events. They’ve become the front door to Time—more new partners start their relationship with us in our event rooms than anywhere else.”

That front-door dynamic is showing up in the data. Ninety-one percent of Time’s 2025 event partners also invested across other Time platforms, including digital, social, and branded content, according to the company. For Time, events are a customer acquisition engine in addition to a revenue stream.

The growth of the sector is rooted, in part, to approaching events sponsorships from a collaborative mindset rather than a fixed offering, Macsai added. Rather than selling logo placements or stage time, Time now works with partners to build integrated presences across its franchises. (Time also does not ticket its events.)

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Rolex, for instance, is the official timepiece of the Time 100. And on Tuesday, Time named Target as its inaugural Design Partner across four major 2026 franchises: Women of the Year, Time Creators, Time Next, and the newly launching Time 100 Sports.

“I tell people that Time is a megaphone,” Macsai said. “We ask: What do you want to say with that megaphone? Then we amplify it far beyond the room.”

That amplification is increasingly the point. Time reaches more than 100 million people globally, and each partnership is designed with structured digital and social extensions that expand reach well beyond the live audience. The result has been a roster of repeat partners—including Toyota, Booking.com, Cognizant, Pinterest, Rolex, and now Target—and 33 new brand partners added in 2025 alone.

The publisher is also expanding its franchise portfolio aggressively. 

This summer it will launch Time Sports, celebrating the 100 most influential figures at the intersection of sports and culture. A Time 100 AI Leadership Forum is set to debut in May in New York. And later this year, the company will introduce Executives of the Year, its first business-to-business editorial and events platform, spotlighting CIOs, CTOs, and chief data officers.

Despite this rapid expansion, the events business has not come at the expense of editorial standards, according to Macsai. Every event mixes sponsored and purely editorial content, and speakers do not receive questions in advance. 

Eric Fleming, an experiential consultant who worked with Time in the early days of its events expansion, around 2019, said the company’s trajectory reflects a broader transformation. 

“We’re witnessing a live-time case study of watching an old media organization transform into what it means to be a modern media organization,” he said. “They’ve gotten really smart about how to do this. They are not just rinsing out a ballroom and throwing some slides on the screen.”

Fleming flagged one meaningful risk. As Time’s events business has taken on a significant global footprint, with gatherings in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Cannes, it is acutely susceptible to geopolitical disruption in ways that a purely digital business would not be. For now, though, the momentum is hard to argue with. 

Time’s evolution mirrors a broader shift playing out across the media industry, where publishers from Semafor to The Atlantic have leaned into events as a more durable, differentiated revenue stream than digital advertising alone. 

“The events business is not easy,” Fleming said. “We do a lot of pointing at things that go wrong, but driving these kinds of results requires a lot of people doing everything right over and over again.”

Stagwell expects first quarter 2026 new business to be the strongest in its history, giving the holding company reason to be optimistic about the year ahead, according to CEO Mark Penn.

“I can say with some confidence that our Q1 2026 net new business is shaping up to be the strongest in the history of the firm,” Penn said during Stagwell’s fourth quarter and full year earnings call Tuesday.

Penn attributed the opportunity to upheaval at larger rivals. “We see great opportunity in 2026 to capitalize on an industry distracted by restructurings and mergers, and bolster our position as a winner in the age of AI,” he said.

The remarks came alongside Stagwell’s latest financial results, which showed modest revenue growth and stronger profitability.

The Numbers

• $807 million: Q4 2025 revenue (+2% year over year)
• $651 million: Q4 net revenue (+3%)
• $129 million: Q4 adjusted EBITDA; ~20% margin on net revenue
• $0.30: Q4 adjusted diluted EPS
• $2.9 billion: Full-year 2025 revenue (+2%)
• $2.43 billion: Full-year net revenue (+6%)
• $422 million: Full-year adjusted EBITDA; 17% margin on net revenue
• $0.83: Full-year adjusted diluted EPS

Watercooler Talk

Stagwell’s 2025 results reflect steady growth across its core businesses as the company pushes further into AI-powered marketing tools.

Full-year net revenue rose 6% to $2.43 billion, while adjusted EBITDA reached $422 million at a 17% margin. Net income attributable to common shareholders jumped to $29 million from $2 million the prior year.

Growth was led by digital transformation (+13% net revenue) and marketing services (+6%). Stagwell’s Marketing Cloud unit had a standout year, with net revenue surging 230%.

CFO Ryan Greene credited improved efficiency and cost discipline for the margin gains. “2025 marked an inflection year for Stagwell, with clear momentum in the underlying business and improving efficiency contributing to strong year-over-year net revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EPS growth,” he said.

The company also expanded its stock repurchase program by $350 million, bringing total authorization to $725 million with about $400 million remaining.

For 2026, Stagwell is projecting net revenue growth of 8% to 12% and adjusted EBITDA of $475 million to $525 million.

Key Quote

“With industry consolidation and chaos, we’re seeing increased opportunities to win new larger wins,” Penn said.

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A few months ago, at the Spanish offices of Suntory Beverage where I served as its European CMO, I was presented with a brilliant activation for our Schweppes brand.

It was one that would teach me an important lesson. 

Our team had created some eye-popping bar takeovers in venues across Spain, with bright yellow lounge furniture, outfits for bar mixologists, Jacob Schweppes paintings—a whole Instagrammable set.

It was spectacular. It created that warm, intoxicating feeling every marketer secretly chases. Schweppes was showing up as the most dominant, visible brand precisely where our drinks were sold.

Then, the CFO asked the only question that matters for a mass brand: Could we take it from a couple of showcase venues to hundreds of bars next year? Can we scale this?

That’s when the spell broke.

My team had been inspired by another Suntory brand: the elegant Japanese gin Roku.

Roku is premium by design, the kind of brand that should be flaunted on terraces in a cherry-blossom spectacle. As such, Roku had brand activations to match.

My soft drink team observed Roku’s takeovers with envy. Schweppes existed in the very same bars, linked literally by gin and tonics. We worked with the same bar owners, were served by the same bartenders, and were consumed by the same customers.

Seeing the level of theater Roku could present made everything Schweppes had been doing, by comparison, feel a little too plain. A little too functional and mass.

Our mistake, I realized later, was that we did the Roku execution for Schweppes.

Premium gin math is not tonic math

Harvard entomologist E.O. Wilson famously said about communism: “Great idea. Wrong species.” Communism is a wonderful system for ants, but it is structurally incompatible with humans. 

Marketing has its own version: great marketing, wrong category.

A bottle of gin can generate several euros of gross margin. A bottle of Schweppes generates pennies. 

But while the margins differ drastically, the activation costs are the same. 

So what’s rational in premium spirits turns into financial self-harm in soft drinks: great execution, wrong economics.

Marketers are easily dazzled. We’re great at spotting magic, and that’s what makes us such good storytellers. The trouble is, once we’ve spotted it, we immediately want to import it.

Certainly, inspiration is oxygen. But the problem is what happens next.

To do great marketing in the right category, you need to sanity-check your ideas against three unsexy variables marketers ignore whenever they get too excited.

What is your margin?

Margin defines how much “romantic spending” you can afford per recruited buyer. 

Premium categories can fund high-touch programs. Many fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) categories cannot, unless that program scales massively or converts at a gravity-defying rate.

A few years ago, when Lipton Ice Tea in Europe tried to reposition around “better-for-you” territory, it moved from massive summer beach activations to targeted spa activations. It was an elegant idea, but didn’t work for a low-margin refreshment category that still wins on reach and repetition.

How involved are your consumers?

In spirits and luxury, people may seek meaning, ritual, status, and discovery. 

In most mainstream FMCG categories, people seek simpler things: familiar taste, refreshment, availability, value reassurance. 

For soft drinks, they just want something cold and tasty.

Boursin is a mass-market garlic-and-herb cheese spread, sold in virtually every supermarket in France. 

Last year, it posted a congratulatory LinkedIn post about an invitation-only yacht day in Stockholm with about a dozen influencers. 

It seemed to me that they were influenced by luxury glamor brands like Dom Pérignon. I felt the activation would be highly memorable for the guests, but that the economics were probably tougher to justify for a brand that recruits through mass sampling, new formats, and price promotions.

How are you positioned against your competitors?

Challengers sometimes need to over-invest in “top image” outlets to buy credibility or disrupt leaders. 

But marketers who spend like challengers can pay luxury prices to solve problems they don’t actually have.

In Spain, Coca-Cola is the default in bars, with over 90% marketshare. Many bar owners see Pepsi as a cheap alternative, and are reluctant to serve it, because they worry they will lose customers.

So Pepsi has a logical incentive to invest in the best venues and dress them up in Pepsi branding, not because it drives mass volume, but because it buys credibility. It tells bar owners that if they pour Pepsi, customers won’t see it as second best. 

It works because it is the strategy of a challenger trying to gain credibility and punch above its weight. 

If Coca-Cola were to invest as much in these bars, it would lose money and gain no real benefit.

Steal, but don’t copy

Copy-paste for marketers is dangerous.

Great marketers must keep the inspiration, but translate the idea through category reality: What purchase driver do we need to hit? What cost per recruit can we afford? Are we acting like a leader, or a challenger?

Because the most expensive mistake in marketing isn’t bad creative; it’s great creative in the wrong category.

Amazon debuted the most significant redesign of its Fire TV interface in about five years this week, part of a broader effort to make content discovery faster for viewers while creating more effective advertising opportunities across its connected TV ecosystem.

The update, which began rolling out last week to a small number of Fire TV devices in the U.S., introduces a cleaner visual design, new navigation features, and performance improvements designed to help users find something to watch more quickly, according to Aidan Marcuss, vice president Fire TV, advertising and app store at Amazon.

The updated experience is up to 20% to 30% faster on existing hardware after the company rebuilt the underlying software stack, Marcuss said.

For Amazon, the changes reflect a broader shift in how the company views the Fire TV platform, which has evolved from a streaming device into a hub for entertainment, apps, and games.

“Our job is to get people to what they want to watch fast,” Marcuss said. “Customers want to watch great content, but it can be hard to find. The redesign is really about bringing that content together and making the experience feel modern and intuitive.”

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The updated interface introduces a new top navigation system that lets users jump directly to categories like movies, TV shows, live content, and sports, pulling recommendations from across the entire Fire TV ecosystem rather than prioritizing a single service.

The home screen also features redesigned rows for personalized recommendations, “continue watching,” and new discovery sections. Users can now pin up to 20 favorite apps to the main interface.

The redesign also reflects a broader expansion of the Fire TV platform. According to Amazon, the company has shipped more than 300 million Fire TV devices globally since launching the product line, with its fastest-growing segment now coming from Fire TV–powered smart televisions rather than streaming sticks.

Beyond the television interface itself, Amazon also refreshed its Fire TV mobile app. Previously used primarily as a remote control, the app now mirrors the TV interface and includes content-discovery features designed to act as a companion experience. It does not yet have ads, although they may arrive in the future, according to Charlotte Maines, director of devices content and advertising at Amazon.

For advertisers, Amazon says the updated experience creates more opportunities to engage viewers during moments of active decision-making.

“We’re laser-focused on driving a great customer experience, which ultimately drives better outcomes for advertisers,” Maines said. “When customers are browsing and deciding what to watch next, that’s a high-intent moment where brands can connect with them.”

Advertising placements are integrated throughout the interface, including areas like the feature rotator and recommendation rows. According to Amazon, these formats are designed to feel additive rather than disruptive to the viewing experience.

Early campaigns suggest the strategy can deliver strong performance. 

Hair growth brand Nutrafol, for example, ran a multi-placement campaign across Fire TV surfaces including the feature rotator and screensaver placements. According to a case study shared with ADWEEK, the effort drove a 58% new-to-brand purchase rate while generating return on ad spend between $1.63 and $2.97, outperforming the brand’s typical campaign benchmarks.

Amazon says most Fire TV advertising placements can now be purchased programmatically through its demand-side platform, allowing advertisers to integrate Fire TV inventory with broader streaming campaigns across Prime Video and other CTV services.

The company is positioning Fire TV as a key piece of its larger advertising ecosystem, which spans streaming video, retail media, and connected devices.

“Devices are something that not every partner can offer,” Maines said. “Because we have logged-in customers and deep engagement across our platforms, we’re able to offer advertisers a full-funnel strategy that connects premium reach with measurable outcomes.”

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Beehiiv has hired Darren Chait as its first chief marketing officer, bringing on the former Calendly growth executive as the newsletter platform pushes deeper into the creator economy, according to its chief executive Tyler Denk.

Chait, who officially began the role on Monday, will oversee positioning, demand generation, and marketing operations as Beehiiv expands beyond its origins as a newsletter publishing tool, according to Tyler Denk.

“We’ve outgrown the newsletter platform,” Chait told ADWEEK in an interview. “We have tens of millions who know us that way, but we have ambitions to grow deeper and wider.”

The company, founded in 2021 by former Morning Brew operators, has grown rapidly alongside the newsletter boom. It now reaches more than 400 million readers each month and sends nearly 3 billion emails monthly, according to Denk. 

It also counts roughly 55,000 active users, including publishers such as TIME and The Boston Globe, as well as major creators like Arnold Schwarzenegger and The Ringer.

Beehiiv ended 2025 with about $23 million in annual recurring revenue and roughly $34 million in total revenue, including its growing newsletter ad network. The company expects revenue to reach between $50 million and $55 million in 2026, according to Denk.

Product-led growth expertise

The company’s growth has historically been driven by its product rather than traditional marketing.

But Beehiiv’s ambitions have grown alongside its product suite, which prompted the company to bring in a chief marketer.

In November, the company released a slate of 10 new tools—including an AI-powered website builder, podcast pages, digital product sales, and analytics—and repositioned itself as a broader platform for creators and publishers.

“The old way was to stitch together Mailchimp, Squarespace, and some ad tool,” Denk said at the time. “Having everything integrated gives creators a big advantage.”

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The company now describes its mission as building an “operating system for the content economy,” which includes everyone from solo creators to established media brands.

Chait brings more than a decade of experience building product-led growth companies. Most recently, he served as vice president of growth at Calendly, where he led its marketing and growth organization.

Before that, he co-founded Hugo, a meeting-notes platform backed by investors including Gradient Ventures, Slack Fund, and Atlassian Ventures. Hugo was acquired by Calendly in 2022.

“It’s hard to find founders who have built a company successfully and gotten it acquired,” Denk said. “He has the mindset of being a founder first.”

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