AI21, a leader in AI systems for enterprise, announced today the appointment of Shanen Boettcher as Chief AI Policy Officer. His role will help to implement responsible AI implementation policies amidst the company's continued expansion into the enterprise market. He brings extensive experience in enterprise technology implementation and product management from top technology companies, including Microsoft, Netscape and Accenture.

"There is an incredible opportunity for companies to supercharge productivity with focused AI applications and task-specific language models," said Boettcher. "I am excited to join AI21's expanding leadership team to help our customers and partners streamline their processes with safe, reliable, and tailor-made large language models."

Following the recent appointment of Tom Nides as the first independent board member in North America, AI21 continues strategic expansion with the addition of Shanen Boettcher. He will play a key role in the implementation of guiding principles for the company that will help propel innovation in an ethical and value-driven way. AI21's easily integrated LLM-based solutions include developer tools for constructing NLP applications and end-user tools for reading and writing via Wordtune.

Boettcher will oversee the responsible implementation of AI at AI21, drawing on his experience in ethical technology development at Responsible Innovation Labs and his experience implementing technologies at large enterprises from his time at Accenture. He also brings vast product development and management experience from his time spent at Microsoft as General Manager of product management and marketing for Office and Office365, in addition to leading product planning for several versions of Windows.

"With advancements and unforeseen changes constantly evolving the AI landscape, we are excited to welcome Shanen Boettcher to our executive team as our Chief AI Policy Officer." said Ori Goshen, co-CEO and co-founder of AI21. "His experience will shed light on the needs of our customers while also supporting the company's implementation of policies to shape AI governance and guardrails to ensure safe and reliable use of AI."

The commerce acceleration platform strengthens its executive team with industry pros, including a former Microsoft enterprise product veteran, to accelerate product development and meet surging demand

Pacvue, the industry’s first commerce acceleration platform, today announced it is strengthening its leadership team with several new hires across departments to ramp innovation and growth. The bolstering of Pacvue’s bench builds on the momentum of its recent release of the most comprehensive commerce and retail media suite for both enterprise brands and SMBs. The company now works with more than 70,000 brands and agencies across 95+ retailers worldwide in 21 markets.

Pacvue is undergoing tremendous growth to keep up with brands’ increased investment in commerce and retail media. To maintain its leading position, Pacvue added several industry veterans to its executive team including Sunava Dutta, senior vice president of product, Morgan Martins, appointed as vice president of marketing and David Kronfeld, designated as senior vice president of customer growth and experience.

Dutta joined Pacvue, after a lengthy career at Microsoft, to support the rollout of several AI-enhanced products that streamline marketplace operations, retail media activation and measurement for brands and sellers. Dutta held leadership roles at Microsoft for nearly 18 years. He most recently served as the senior director of product at Microsoft in the robotics and emerging technologies division.

“Our mission has always been to empower brands and agencies with the right solutions to maximize their commerce potential,” said Melissa Burdick, co-founder and president of Pacvue. “Over the past year, we’ve significantly expanded our team with proven industry veterans to ensure our solutions are always a step ahead of the evolving retail media landscape. This year we delivered on our commitment to brands and agencies in a big way, and we’re eager to roll out more solutions that will give our customers an even bigger edge in an extremely competitive market.”

Pacvue continues to lead the industry in innovation. Most recently, Amazon selected Pacvue as one of its beta partners for its new AI-powered image generator tool. Additionally, the company introduced several new solutions and tools including Pacvue XL Copilot, with more AI-enhanced products set to launch in 2024.

Optable's Service Gives Customers the Ability to Maximize Their Existing Footprint With New Privacy Safe Advertising Solutions on Google Cloud

Optable, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) data collaboration platform and clean room solution designed for the advertising industry, today announced its availability on Google Cloud Marketplace, providing customers with a simple way to safely and securely match audience data with any partner.

Google Cloud Marketplace lets users quickly deploy functional software packages that run on Google Cloud's infrastructure. Google Cloud Marketplace allows customers to easily start up a familiar software package with services like Compute Engine or Cloud Storage, with no manual configuration required.

"Bringing Optable to Google Cloud Marketplace will help customers quickly deploy, manage, and grow the data collaboration and clean room solution on Google Cloud's trusted, global infrastructure," said Dai Vu, Managing Director, Marketplace & ISV GTM Programs at Google Cloud. "Optable can now securely scale and support customers on their digital transformation journeys."

Founded by long-time collaborators Yves Poiré, Vlad Stesin, and Bosko Milekic, Optable was developed in response to significant changes introduced during the privacy era to managing, linking, and utilizing audience data. Optable deploys an interoperable approach to data collaboration and seamlessly integrates with ad delivery platforms, ensuring smooth collaboration and a safe and secure environment to match audience data.

"Privacy isn't just a checkbox; it's the cornerstone of ethical data collaboration," said Bosko Milekic, Chief Product Officer and Co-founder, Optable. "Optable's availability on Google Cloud Marketplace further extends our commitment to empowering businesses with the tools and technologies necessary to achieve safe and efficient handling of audience data. This ensures they can maximize their reach while maintaining ethical standards in data usage."

Identity verification and fraud prevention leader adds Arun Kumar as CTO, Steve Rooney as SVP of Global Sales and Katia Mar as SVP of Marketing to Bolster Executive Bench

Socure, the leading provider of artificial intelligence for digital identity verification, sanction screening and fraud prevention, today announced the arrival of three new executives to continue its momentum into 2024. The executives – Arun Kumar,  Katia Mar and Steve Rooney – have already injected a new passion and energy into Socure's culture and team. These new executive moves signal a continued acceleration in Socure's trajectory, reinforcing our commitment to pioneering innovative solutions in an increasingly digital world.

Arun Kumar, Chief Technology Officer
Prior to joining Socure, Arun held leadership roles at investment platform Luma Financial Technologies and Citadel, where he centralized a myriad of bespoke custom-built services and infrastructures from different business lines to launch a centralized platform called Citadel Enterprise. Prior to that, he worked at Amazon, where he played a crucial role in scaling an internally built machine learning platform into what later became Amazon's consumer-facing product, Sagemaker. Arun's expertise will help catalyze Socure's technological advancements, further solidifying its position as a leader in AI-driven identity and fraud solutions.

Katia Mar, SVP Marketing
Katia built a life-long career in cybersecurity, fraud protection, and identity verification, starting as a software engineer, and moving into leadership roles in product and marketing. Leveraging her expertise in scaling go-to-market efforts at Onfido, Sift, Thomson Reuters, and others, she will elevate Socure's brand while ensuring the company's sales and marketing teams are fully equipped for success. She will lead product marketing, content, six-level market education program Socure University, sales enablement, and a portion of the digital marketing team. Katia's appointment is pivotal in amplifying Socure's brand presence and aligning sales and marketing strategies to scale the company's impact globally.

Steve Rooney, SVP Global Sales
Coming from anti-money laundering platform NICE Actimize, Steve has been scaling regulatory and fintech sales organizations for more than two decades. His extensive experience at NICE Actimize and deep understanding of fraud, AML, and compliance solutions across various sectors position him as an invaluable asset in optimizing Socure's go-to-market strategy and expanding its commercial footprint.

"Each of these leaders brings a wealth of expertise and a builder's mindset, aligning seamlessly with our ambitious vision," said Johnny Ayers, founder and CEO of Socure. "As we continue to build a world-class leadership team, their collective experience is not just an asset but an accelerant in our journey to redefine the landscape of digital identity verification and fraud prevention globally."

Consumer identity access management pre-integrations with 500+ networks, services, MVPDs and platforms slashes rollout times for new content deals and launches

Synacor today announced the Cloud ID™ Media Connect managed consumer identity access management (“CIAM”) service to fast track streaming ecosystem deployments amid a heavily fragmented viewing market. Cloud ID Media Connect can save streaming media companies months or even years of authentication integration work required to connect streaming services to various platforms. The new offering, which is pre-integrated with more than 500 networks, services, MVPDs and platforms, comes as changing business models, more complex deals and a continued wave of new content providers upend streaming market dynamics.

As the streaming market matures, more content is being distributed to more platforms. Deals are often made on the fly with urgent rollout requirements. More content providers are entering the market with no prior experience navigating an increasingly splintered ecosystem. At the same time, security requirements are more pressing than ever, demanding SAML or OAuth integrations that can each take weeks or months to complete and require ongoing support and maintenance. This is further complicated by many providers not offering standard authentication endpoints, requiring custom API integrations. It is not uncommon for content providers to support a dozen or more platform integrations at a time, and some MVPDs or streaming TV providers must accommodate literally thousands of combinations of content provider apps and streaming platforms.

Based on more than a decade of experience managing comprehensive authentication integrations for premium entertainment services, Cloud ID Media Connect delivers a reliable, managed CIAM solution that is now pre-integrated with more than 500 content distributors, platforms and MVPDs, including AT&T, Comcast Xfinity, Charter Spectrum, DISH, Amazon Prime, MAX, Paramount+, Peacock, Sling TV, DirecTV Stream and YouTube TV. Synacor has helped customers launch new services or meet the terms of new deals in as little as a couple weeks, saving countless hours of integration time and eliminating the need for internal authentication expertise.

“A recurring theme in our recent customer meetings is heightened concerns about content security, recognition that authentication requirements are becoming overwhelming and a desire to move as quickly as possible to get content everywhere it needs to be,” said Synacor Senior Vice President Dana Golden. “Cloud ID Media Connect immediately delivers several years of complex authentication integrations to support changing business requirements and get content in front of consumers as quickly as possible.”

More connections, more capabilities

Cloud ID Media Connect features end user capabilities like home-based authentication, Apple® Single Sign-on with your TV Provider, device rendezvous solutions and more. Cloud ID Media Connect seamlessly integrates with Cloud ID Passkey Connect, a managed service offering for passkey management, registration and authentication.

Powered by Oracle® Cloud Infrastructure, Cloud ID provides a modern, custom and turnkey identity management platform for premium, globally renowned streaming entertainment, content and service provider companies, with use cases spanning traditional MVPDs, telcos, healthcare, hotels, airlines, rewards programs and more. Cloud ID leverages Synacor’s expertise in creating breakthrough identity management solutions to move toward the industry goal of frictionless customer experiences that retain high levels of security. Cloud ID reaches more than 200M subscribers and manages more than 30M unique sign-ins per month.

Peach Worlds, the Squarespace for 3D Immersive Websites, recently secured a pre-seed investment of USD$540,000. Blockchain Founders Fund co-invested in this round alongside former Multimedia Director of Apple, Antonio Rallo's ID345 fund and several angel investors. This funding enables Peach Worlds to launch their no-code builder with top designers and establish a first-mover advantage in the 3D Web industry.

Since 2019, the company has led the 3D Web Software field, creating 3D websites for high profile clients such as Warner Brothers and T&B Media Global. They have since evolved to become the market leader in the 3D Web industry by enabling designers to create 3D websites easily without any coding.

According to Aly Madhavji, Managing Partner at Blockchain Founders Fund, "Peach Worlds is at the forefront of a new era of immersive websites and experiences and we're excited to be a part of their journey."

Grega Trobec, CEO and Founder of Peach Worlds, emphasizes the need for web technology to evolve to solve the growing issue of people not caring about websites anymore by making immersive 3D Websites that are exciting destinations for visitors.

Peach Worlds' Private Beta has been released to world-class designers to create 3D Website Templates for their Public Launch in February 2024.

Guide Offers Key Strategies, Considerations, and Best Practices to ECM Buyers

Square 9 Softworks, a leading provider of AI-powered Intelligent Information Management solutions, has published a practical guide detailing everything you need to know when implementing an Enterprise Content Management solution.

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) refers to the solutions used by organizations to capture, manage, store, and deliver information in a structured and organized manner.

This expert guide, "Your Complete Guide to Enterprise Content Management," aims to act as an easily digestible starting point for organizations researching ECM solutions. The guide provides insights into all things ECM, including the benefits of proper content management, finding the right ECM solution, creating an effective content management strategy, ensuring air-tight compliance and security, and much more.

"Launching a content management project can be initially daunting given its complexity and diverse requirements," says Stephen Young, Square 9 president and CEO. "Thankfully, enterprise content management offers plenty of options to meet your business needs and maximize organizational efficiency."

Brown previously served as Senior Vice President of People and Culture and led employee development and DEI initiatives

Mediaocean, the mission-critical platform for omnichannel advertising, has announced the promotion of Nicole Brown to Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO). Brown has 20 years of experience building and leading core functions including People Operations, Learning and Development, Talent Acquisition, and Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DEI). In her new role, Brown will work as a member of the senior executive team to ensure global alignment, streamline processes, and further foster a culture of inclusion and engagement for Mediaocean’s employee base.

“In her 18 years with Mediaocean, Nicole's impact on the organization as a whole has been nothing short of extraordinary, making her the ideal candidate for this elevated role,” said Nick Galassi, President and CFO of Mediaocean. “Through her passion for employee development, Nicole has fostered a culture of inclusivity, growth, and a profound sense of belonging for all employees.”

While serving as SVP of People and Culture, Brown led the development and implementation of Mediaocean’s core global employee development program. Originally starting as one program, it has grown to five distinct programs over the course of five years. These programs have delivered an average of 50 hours of learning for each employee globally and 700+ instructor-led training sessions annually. Additionally, the Mentorship Programs implemented by Brown have had more than 700 participants, with an 85%+ retention rate.

The appointment comes as Mediaocean records a particularly impactful year, hitting key milestones in philanthropy, workplace experience, mentorship, education, and sustainability. Brown’s contributions helped the company receive numerous recognitions for its positive workplace environment, including 2023 Best in Business award from Inc, Chicago Tribune Top Workplaces 2023, The 2023 Top Workplaces USA Award, and Ad Age Best Places to Work 2023.

As the company strives to continually improve its Environmental and Social Governance (ESG) efforts with various sustainability initiatives, Brown will be leading this ongoing focus in 2024 and beyond. Through its ESG commitment, Mediaocean does its part to advance progress on combating the climate crisis and to create a more sustainable future for all. In 2023, Mediaocean joined Ad Net Zero, an industry-wide initiative, to signal support of its client and stakeholder goals to decarbonize the media ecosystem.

DEI has also been a large area of focus for Brown and Mediaocean. Through programs implemented in the past two years, Mediaocean has seen a 5% increase in female representation across the organization, a 30% increase in underrepresented minority group representation, and a returnship program that is designed to support women who have been out of the workforce for some time and are transitioning back to work.

“I am beyond honored and excited to take on the Chief Human Resources Officer role at Mediaocean,” said Brown. “It has been truly rewarding to witness the positive impact of the work carried out during my time at the company, and I am incredibly proud of the progress we have made in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. I’m looking forward to expanding on this growth and lifting up all voices at Mediaocean as we drive results for our customers and make a difference in our communities.”

Aside from her work at Mediaocean, Brown is an active mentor in her community at large, mentoring young women of color who are emerging in their careers. She has centered her mentorship around finding their voice, knowing value, and being an advocate for themselves.

“I’m very proud and appreciative of everything Nicole has done at Mediaocean and can’t wait to see the continued impact she makes as our CHRO,” added Bill Wise, Mediaocean CEO. “We have big plans for the years ahead and, as we deliver for our customers and the industry at large, we’ll need our people to be their best selves at work every day. I’m confident Nicole will enable us to do just that.”