Comcast Advertising Appoints Rick Mandler as VP, Growth Strategy

In this newly created role, Mandler will be responsible for formulating growth marketing strategies across the Comcast Advertising portfolio with the goal of advancing revenue growth and market share.

Comcast Advertising, a division of Comcast, today announced that it has appointed Rick Mandler as vice president, growth strategy.

In this newly created role, Mandler will be responsible for formulating growth marketing strategies across the Comcast Advertising portfolio with the goal of advancing revenue growth and market share. He will also collaborate across the organization to develop new, audience-based media solutions for customers.

Mandler will report to Comcast Advertising Chief Growth Officer Pooja Midha, who joined the organization last month.

In his new position, Mandler will partner with Midha and leadership across the division to accelerate marketing globally across Comcast Advertising and its two primary brands: FreeWheel, Effectv and Effectv’s newly launched sales development function. Working with Midha, he will help drive awareness of each company’s differentiated value through marketing and sales enablement and accelerate growth at the local, regional, national and global level.

“Rick brings a deep knowledge of the TV and video ecosystem and extensive experience working in advanced advertising. He has a natural talent for collaborating across functions and leading teams to distill and communicate complex ideas in a simple manner,” said Midha. “I truly enjoyed working with him previously and when this opportunity came, I knew Rick would be an excellent addition to my team here. I’m thrilled that he’s decided to join us and bring his skills to Comcast Advertising.”

“I learned a lot from my three years working with Pooja at true[X] and I’m very honored that she thought of me for this new role,” Mandler said. “I’m looking forward to working with her and the leadership team to pioneer new ways to connect brands with their audiences and drive meaningful results in today’s dynamic marketplace.”

Mandler is a seasoned media professional with experience spanning TV and digital media, sales, strategy, business development, research, marketing, distribution and product. Before joining Comcast Advertising, Mandler served as true[X]’s senior vice president of strategy and operations. There, he led teams that played a vital role in architecting the company’s overall strategy, leading cross-organizational strategic initiatives and ensuring that true[X] met and exceeded its operational priorities and goals.

He joined true[X] after a 26-year stint at ABC and its parent company, Walt Disney. Before true[X], he was vice president, strategy and digital media sales for ABC Television Network Sales. In this position, he helped set the strategy for media ad sales across all ABC properties, with a specific focus on multiplatform and advanced video advertising. In this role, Mandler was also credited with helping to establish a highly successful unified video upfront strategy as well as leading the development of advanced TV advertising products and technology.

Mandler has also served in leadership roles spanning vp, general manager for The Walt Disney Internet Group’s enhanced TV and broadcasting and local division. He began his career at the company as a general attorney before transitioning to business affairs and later, new media, at ABC.

He earned a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Wesleyan University and a J.D. from New York University School of Law. Following law school, he served as a law clerk for Leonard I. Garth of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and later worked as an associate specializing in intellectual property at New York-based law firm Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler.

Mandler has also served as an adjunct professor at NYU, where he taught a TV management course covering nearly every aspect of the TV and video ecosystem. He is a two-time Technology and Engineering Emmy Award (Outstanding Achievement in Interactive Television and Advanced Media) winner.

About Comcast Advertising

Comcast Advertising is the advertising division of Comcast Cable. As a global leader in media, technology and advertising, Comcast Advertising fosters powerful connections between brands and their audiences as well as between publishers, distributors, MVPDs, agencies and other industry players. Effectv, its advertising sales division, helps local, regional and national advertisers connect with their audiences on every screen by using advanced data to drive targeting and measurement of their campaigns. FreeWheel, its media and technology arm, provides the technology, data enablement and convergent marketplaces required to ensure buyers and sellers can transact across all screens, across all data types and all sales channels, in order to ensure the ultimate goal – results for marketers. Comcast Cable, along with NBCUniversal and Sky, is part of the Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA). Visit www.comcastadvertising.com to learn more.

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