Prove It to Move It: Making the Case for CTV

David Cohen joined IAB in April 2020 as President and was named Chief Executive Officer in September 2020. Cohen is a widely respected advertising agency leader who, prior to IAB, served as President, North America for MAGNA, Interpublic Group’s (IPG) centralized media intelligence, investment, and innovation arm. In this role, Cohen was responsible for more than $20 billion in media spend. During his tenure, Cohen structured and executed large global transactions on behalf of IPG and its clients, with such major IAB member companies as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Spotify, Twitter, and Verizon Media.

Prior to MAGNA, Cohen served as Chief Investment Officer of UM, ensuring that digital innovation, data, and technology acumen flowed throughout the agency to drive performance. From 2001 to 2011, Cohen served in critical, transformational roles at UM during the explosive growth of digital advertising, including Chief Media Officer, Chief Digital Officer, and Executive Vice President, U.S. Director of Digital Communications. In the late 1990’s, Cohen was responsible for launching and building IPG’s digital practice.

Cohen has a long history of working with trade organizations including IAB and 4As, where he served as chairman of the Interactive Marketing Committee from 2009-2013. He has also been instrumental in initiating several vital industry-wide programs, including the Future of Television, facilitated by EY. Cohen is a Queens native, with a bachelor’s degree in communications from Adelphi University. He was recognized by Adweek as a “Media All Star” and was part of the “Adweek 50” in 2012.

In 2016, David was elected to the Board of Directors of Partnership with Children a non-profit whose mission is to strengthen the emotional, social, and cognitive skills of vulnerable children in New York City to help them succeed in school, society, and life.

David enjoys spending time with his wife and two teenage daughters. A self-described gadget-geek and sometimes fitness fanatic – he ran the NYC Marathon in 2014 and 2019 and Boston Marathon in 2016.

Alison Levin is the President of Advertising & Partnerships at NBCUniversal. Reporting into Mark Marshall, Levin is responsible for shaping and executing the division’s audience focused sales strategy, and has oversight of all advertising sales initiatives for NBCUniversal across national, local, SMB Growth, Peacock, sports and Olympic and Paralympic Sales.

Before joining NBCUniversal, Levin served as Vice President of Global Ad Revenue and Marketing Solutions at Roku where she led the new product and go-to-market strategy for the company’s advertising business, including the TV streaming division. As the first ad sales hire for the company, Levin shaped Roku’s early value proposition with advertisers and built out the ad sales and support teams both in the U.S. and internationally, including marketing, research, analytics, publishing partnerships, strategy and more. Prior to Roku, she was a sales executive with YuMe, managing key accounts for its ad tech business, and has held sales positions with IAC and BusinessWeek.

Levin has received industry-wide recognition and was named to the 2019 Ad Age 40 Under 40 List, the 2019 NYC Television Week’s 40 Under 40 List, the 2020 Cynopsis Top Women in Media List, the 2021 Multichannel News Wonder Women Honoree List, and the 2023 Campaign US Inspiring Women Honoree List. She holds a B.A. from Boston University.

Eric John leads the IAB Media Center, a dedicated unit within the IAB whose mission is to simplify the video and audio supply chain, providing best practices and education for brands, agencies, and media companies. Eric drives the center’s efforts in the development of market-making research, industry standards, best practices and buyer/seller terms and conditions. Before joining the IAB, Eric served as VP of Digital Services and Strategy at the Alliance for Audited Media and as Global Director of Publisher / Developer marketing at Nokia, managing the company’s world-wide mobile app developer ecosystem. Prior to Nokia, Eric launched and led advertiser brand engagement solutions for Yahoo!, creating advanced, data-driven video, mobile and interactive campaigns for brands such as Pepsi, L’Oréal, GM, Audio and Nikon. Eric began his career at internet advertising pioneer DoubleClick (Google) where he led product development and marketing within the DART for Publishers (DFP) and DART for Advertisers (DFA) business units where he launched the industry’s first post-click measurement tools. Eric is an alumnus of Miami of Ohio (BA) and Indiana University (MA) and is a graduate of Columbia University’s Product Management Program.

Greg Johns is the EVP Chief Digital Officer at Canvas Worldwide in Los Angeles overseeing digital strategy and transformation across all Canvas Clients. His background spans multiple disciplines and markets, with expertise in digital analytics, digital technology platforms, digital operations as well as global digital strategy and investment. Greg also oversaw Canvas’ two main clients, Hyundai and Kia while at Initiative. He previously led the digital group at PHD in Los Angeles, overseeing a diverse group of clients including Mitsubishi, Overture Films and California Lottery. With PHD New York, Greg oversaw all digital operations and platforms for North America before moving to Omnicom Media sibling agency Annalect. There he served as Director of Media Technology, providing his digital strategy and investment expertise in the building of a wide array of technology solutions across OMG’s stable of Fortune 500 clients. Greg then returned to the automotive sector as Global Digital Lead on General Motors with Carat Detroit, overseeing both global digital strategy as well as Chevrolet US digital strategy and investment. Greg is a graduate of the Marshall School of Business at USC.

Kyle Johnson is the Director of Digital and Performance Marketing for Rhone—the men’s premium performance lifestyle brand that was founded in 2014. Kyle oversees Rhone’s performance marketing team, along with managing Rhone’s affiliate marketing, SEO, and direct mail. Prior to Rhone, Kyle worked for various digital marketing agencies as well as Backcountry.com, a large eCommerce company. Kyle Graduated from the University of Utah with a BS in Communications.

Anthony Katsur is a media technology veteran with more than twenty-five years of executive leadership and operational experience at innovative technology companies in the digital media industry.

At Nexstar Digital, Anthony is responsible for leading all digital partnerships, corporate development and business operations across Nexstar Media Group’s portfolio of digital assets.

He most recently served as President of Sonobi, where he implemented strategy, recruited and led highly effective teams and drove partnerships with leading agencies, brands and media companies.

Prior to Sonobi, Anthony held global leadership roles at Rubicon Project as EVP of Business Operations and General Manager of Buyer Cloud. He also held global executive roles at MediaMath and Maxifier, where he served as CEO. Earlier in his career, he joined DoubleClick via the acquisition of NetGravity and quickly ascended to lead multiple product, operations and engineering divisions.

Anthony is an active participant at industry conferences, speaking about the latest trends in advertising at the National Association of Broadcasters, AdAge’s Brand Summit, Advertising Week, Broadcasting & Cable, AdMonsters and GABBCON. He has been quoted on industry trends and provided thought leadership in The Wall Street Journal, AdAge, Adweek, AdExchanger, MediaPost, Econsultancy and Digiday, among others.