PilotDesk Inc.

What does PilotDesk do ‘in the wild?’ We just announced our partnership with LG Ad solutions. For over 4 months, PilotDesk performed over 500,000 automated actions. This equated to 25,000 hours (2.85 years) of manual ad operations productivity time created for LG AD Solutions. Kelly McMahon, SVP, Global Operations, LG Ad Solutions, said it best “Partnering with PilotDesk has allowed us to curate our ad breaks and optimize in ways we hadn’t been able to before. We were able to focus more on strategic initiatives, less on manual tasks, maximizing our ad inventory's potential, and ensuring our inventory has maximum impact for our clients." Stay tuned for more exciting use cases... https://lnkd.in/e-t8TRur

Episode 81: Joseph Hirsch on the SpringServe (now part of Magnite) story and how he's automating adops at PilotDesk Inc. Spotify: https://lnkd.in/e3CAehHT Apple: https://lnkd.in/et2TshQP

Linkedin family. I'm looking for an ad operations wizard whose done it all. Ad server experience in SpringServe, Freewheel, GAM, TTD, MGNI, etc. Have you trafficked more campaigns than you care to admit? optimized even more? Changed thousands of price floors, bids, and frequency caps? Have you designed ad architectures, ad systems, etc. Ping me, or apply here for the Senior Yield and Operations position. https://lnkd.in/ehq9EBzB

A slide from David Ellison's Skydance Paramount pitch deck. Under the 'Generative AI' column we have... •Opportunity to leverage models and support tools for workstream process streamlining and other operational benefits. Big media needs efficiency. Where will it come from? If you, a loved one, or someone you know in big media needs to hear or see this, please share.

I’ve come to learn that the timing of a new career opportunity at least as, if not more important than, the opportunities themselves! After spending a rewarding year working across a number of companies and teams in the marketing data and GenAI space, I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve joined my old friends Joseph Hirsch, Rich Lin, Danielle Rosen, MBA, and Matt Dearborn (all of SpringServe fame) in this latest venture, PilotDesk Inc., as President. I am genuinely ecstatic to be back in the nerd-tastic world of ad servers, ad operations, yield management, and media optimization after learning the ins and outs of the data and identity space over the past several years. What's old is indeed new again. Why would I do such a thing? Paraphrasing Scott Galloway: Go with what you are great at. Being great at something will inevitably lead to a passion for it. True story Scott. So while I may not be great at many things (let’s say golf), I have been able to figure out how to build and scale technology and data businesses throughout the media ecosystem. And why PilotDesk? The team, the product strategy, and some early success stories with our first set of customers. We’ve also got some amazing investors and board members especially in Mike Shehan and Phil Herget who led our $3M seed round just a month ago. PilotDesk has taken a unique approach to automating what is an endlessly expensive and relentlessly repetitive set of problems: Advertising operations. No matter how “intelligent” your ad servers, SSPs, or DSPs are under the proverbial hood, you still need large teams of people to constantly turn the dials and levers within those systems to get campaigns to deliver in a way that maximizes returns in whatever ways you need them to. PilotDesk neatly complements these delivery platforms by automating many ad operations tasks thus allowing our mutual customers to refocus their precious resources on more important work. Our early customers have also seen significant improvements in revenue and media efficacy. Thanks to AdExchanger and Anthony Vargas for covering us! Last, I’d like to take a quick moment to appreciate JoAnna Foyle for always being the best sounding board (and wife) for these kinds of big decisions. The PilotDesk team are looking forward to sharing our results with you (after Cannes ;-) ) ! https://lnkd.in/e9tFx5M2

I am excited to announce Ardent Venture Partners' participation in PilotDesk's Seed round alongside CEO Partner, brother-in-law, and friend, Mike Shehan at Roster Capital. Mike introduced us to CEO and founder Joseph Hirsch back in 2020 when SpotX invested in his previous company, SpringServe. Since then, I have been impressed by the founding team's industry expertise, technical chops, and vision for the future of advertising. Congratulations to the entire team, including Matt Dearborn and Rich Lin, who made the jump alongside Joe from Springserve. PilotDesk is revolutionizing the ad-ops industry by automating repetitive, time-consuming, and resource-heavy tasks through innovative AI-driven “pilots.” To read more about why Ardent is excited to invest, you can click on our latest blog below.