Joe Barone is Managing Partner, Brand Safety Americas for GroupM, the world’s largest media buying organization.
In that role, Joe has helped pioneer the industry’s move to a more transparent, accountable digital inventory supply chain, working to ensure clients get full value for their digital advertising investment. Joe’s focus is on developing and executing GroupM’s marketplace position on Brand Safety elements including Brand Safety & Suitability, fraud detection and prevention, anti-piracy, and insuring client’s ads appear in positive, relevant advertising environments. He has spent the past 12 years shaping GroupM’s practice in North America, and in 2017 was named to a new post adding responsibility for supporting the Latin America roll out of these trusted supply chain practices.
Joe first joined WPP in 1989. He has held various traditional and digital media positions within WPP agencies including Managing Director of neo@Ogilvy, and Director, Strategic Media Integration at Ogilvy & Mather.
Joe has been buying digital media since 1994, when Hotwired.com became the first publisher to offer banners online. Before moving into a full time Brand Safety role, Joe managed the US Groupm Digital Traffic team, was engaged in ad-tech systems development, publisher and ad tech vendor contract negotiations, and process re-engineering/workflow analysis, all in support of GroupM agencies including Mindshare, Wavemaker, Mediacom, mSix, Catalyst, Essence, and Xaxis.
Joe is currently a member of many Brand Safety related industry working groups, including the 4A’s Advertiser Protection Bureau, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media Steering Committee, the IAB Tech Lab Content Taxonomy Working Group, MRC Digital Committee, the Coalition for Better Ads Research & Methodology Working Group, Trustworthy Accountability Group Leadership Committee, the Brand Safety Institute Leadership Council, and the Double Verify and Integral Ad Science Advisory Boards.
