Jon Werther Named Chief Revenue Officer
of Simulmedia, Inc.
Time Warner Veteran Joins Dave Morgan’s Start-Up to Improve Effectiveness of TV Promotions
NEW YORK (Feb 09, 2010) Dave Morgan, who launched Simulmedia to help television companies improve ratings by lifting the effectiveness of their tune-in programming spots, today announced that Jon Werther, a 15-year digital media veteran, much of it with Time Warner, has joined the company as Chief Revenue Officer.
“We have spent the last year validating our methodologies and proving that we can meaningfully deliver viewers to TV shows,” said Mr. Morgan. “We are now ramping up our operations on all fronts and are very pleased to have Jon join the team. He has a great track record negotiating and closing win-win deals with big media, content distribution and information technology companies and in driving revenue. He is clearly a superstar ready to make his mark in TV and our start-up world.”
“I am very excited to be joining Dave and his exceptional team,” said Mr. Werther. I believe that Simulmedia has the potential to create billions of dollars of new revenue for TV networks and system operators, and I look forward to working with my colleagues and our clients and partners to achieve that goal.”
Mr. Werther, who will direct and drive all of Simulmedia’s sales, business development and corporate development activities, has been an advisor to start-ups and early stage companies and spent more than ten years in positions of increasing scale and responsibility at Time Warner and its AOL division, where he helped generate more than one billion dollars in revenue and EBITDA improvements during his tenure with the company.
Most recently, he served as Executive Vice President, Integrated Operations at AOL from 2008 to 2009. In that role, he was responsible for improving the EBITDA of AOL’s web business by several hundred million dollars and overseeing the company’s acquisition integration and core process improvement efforts.
Prior to that, Mr. Werther was Executive Vice President, Business Development at AOL for a year, responsible for company-wide business development and strategic partnership activities that facilitated both AOL’s shift to an advertising-supported business model and its international expansion efforts, while simultaneously generating more than $500 million in revenues for the company.
In 2006, he was Time Warner, Inc.’s Vice President, Operations, serving on an executive team responsible for shaping and implementing company-wide digital distribution strategy and improving portfolio business operating performance. As part of that role, Mr. Werther helped identify more than $100 million of incremental EBITDA improvements that were achieved across Time Warner’s corporate department and its portfolio businesses.
From 1999 to 2005, Mr. Werther spent six years in a variety of executive roles with AOL in Dulles, VA, serving as Vice President, Marketing Strategy & Operations, and before that, Chief of Staff, Office of the Vice Chairman & Vice President, Corporate Strategy, and before that, Vice President, Business Affairs & Development, and before that, Counsel. During that time, he negotiated and closed a variety of strategic partnerships that generated more than $500 million in revenue for the company, and led strategic initiatives which helped spearhead AOL’s shift to a web-focused strategy.
He started his career in 1994 as an Associate at Arnold & Porter, LLP, in Washington, D.C., representing and advising clients in connection with a variety of transactional matters, primarily in South America and Asia, including project finance, debt restructuring and sovereign debt offerings.
Mr. Werther holds an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, a J.D. from the George Washington University Law School (where he graduated Order of the Coif and was a member of the George Washington Law Review) and a B.A. from Emory University (where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa).
Simulmedia, Inc. (simulmedia.com) is a New York City-based media marketing company that delivers television viewership through data-driven program promotion. The company is pioneering the development of predictive technology to help television companies deliver the right on-air promotions to the right viewers at the right time.
The company’s founder and CEO is Internet entrepreneur Dave Morgan. Simulmedia closed $4 million in Series A funding from Avalon Ventures and Union Square Ventures in March 2009.
George Simpson
George H. Simpson Communications
203.521.0352
george@georgesimpson.com