FreeWheel appoints CPO

Comcast-owned ad tech company FreeWheel has announced the hire of Jon Whitticom as its chief product officer. 

In the role, Whitticom will define and oversee the company’s product vision, strategy, design and development along with leading FreeWheel’s global product team. 

The CPO joins from WPP’s GroupM, where he served as EVP of products for media planning, data analytics and digital services technology suite [m]Platform. Prior to that, Whitticom was at Xaxis, another WPP company, where he acted as VP global product development. He also has launched a number of start-ups including Charity Folks, which attracted clients such as Paul McCartney, Angelina Jolie, the UN Refugee Agency and Warren Buffet. 

Joining the company this week, Whitticom reports to FreeWheel general manager Dave Clark. On the appointment, Clark said: “Jon is the right product leader to drive FreeWheel’s next phase of growth. He brings a unique blend of product management, subject matter expertise and proven credentials as a trusted, visionary leader. He also shares our conviction about the future of the video ecosystem and we’re very excited to welcome him into the FreeWheel family.”

Whitticom said: “FreeWheel’s track record of removing friction from the video marketplace and empowering publishers to better monetise content while also helping advertisers to more effectively engage consumers puts it in a unique position to address the industry’s needs.

“I’m excited to work with Dave and the FreeWheel team to address advertisers’ demand for access to premium video and more sophisticated, data-driven TV activation capabilities.”

The appointment follows the recently announced multi-year partnership between Discovery and FreeWheel. The deal will see FreeWheel provide its unified decisioning platform to enable ad management for Discovery’s cable networks.