Time Inc., looking to boost digital ad revenue, has tapped Mark Ellis, most recently VP of North American sales for Yahoo, to develop an integrated sales strategy across the company’s properties.
Ellis, in the newly created role of senior VP of corporate sales, will be tasked with creating “big, tentpole programs” for marketers and agencies. He joins the company Aug. 25 and will report to Mark Ford, exec VP of global advertising sales.
Time Warner this year spun off the money-losing Time Inc. division, which debuted as a publicly traded company in June.
During Ellis’s three-year stint at Yahoo, he led a sales staff of 150 and was responsible for nearly $3 billion in annual revenue. Prior to Yahoo, he was EVP of North American sales at AOL, where he spent seven years, and before that was VP of sports-marketing firm IMG in charge of digital sales.
Ellis “knows how to deliver best-in-class digital marketing solutions for clients and agency partners and has a reputation for producing impressive results,” Time Inc. chairman and CEO, Joe Ripp said in a statement. “His considerable sales and digital expertise will be big assets to us.”
Ellis worked for Time Inc. from 1991 to 1999, where he held a variety of executive positions, including publisher of Time Inc. New Media and publishing director for Sports Illustrated. He began his career in Detroit in automotive advertising for agency Kenyon & Eckhart.