Singtel subsidiary Amobee today announced that Samba Natarajan, CEO of Singtel’s Group Digital Life, has been concurrently appointed CEO of Amobee with immediate effect. His appointment comes as Kim Perell steps down as Amobee CEO to pursue her passion of supporting startup entrepreneurs Martech News.
As CEO of Singtel’s Group Digital Life since 2015, Natarajan has been responsible for the Group’s digital portfolio, including Amobee, HOOQ, DataSpark and Innov8. He has more than 25 years of corporate and consulting experience in senior roles across strategy, business development and finance. Prior to his current role at Singtel, he worked for Citibank and McKinsey & Company. In his last role with McKinsey, he led the Southeast Asia Technology, Media & Telecommunications practice, consulting with C-level executives in the areas of transformation, corporate finance, M&A and commercial operations.
Natarajan said, “I’m honored and excited to take on this role as CEO of Amobee. I look forward to working closely with the dedicated Amobee team to drive further progress in the programmatic business and make Amobee the leading platform for omni-channel advertising. This is an exciting time to be in digital advertising, and Amobee’s assets position us for success.”
Amobee’s Chairman Evangelos Simoudis said, “We are fortunate to have someone of Samba’s caliber taking over to lead the next stage of Amobee’s growth. As a leading advertising platform, we are at a crucial phase in our development and need experienced leadership to implement our strategy and to capitalize on the market opportunities ahead. Samba is a proven CEO who has been intimately involved with Amobee over the past five years. His strong content knowledge and global corporate experience will allow us to further accelerate our growth strategy to win in converged advertising.”
Simoudis added, “On behalf of the board, I would like to thank Kim for helming Amobee over the past three years. Under her leadership, Amobee has successfully integrated the acquisitions of Turn and Videology, positioning it to deliver superior converged advertising solutions,” he added.
Perell has served as Amobee’s CEO since 2016. Before joining Amobee, she was CEO of Adconion Direct, a global digital marketing company, which was acquired by Amobee in 2014.
About Amobee
The world’s leading independent advertising platform, Amobee empowers brands, agencies and broadcasters with advertising solutions for the converging world. Amobee’s platform provides end-to-end campaign planning, management and optimisation across TV, digital and social media. Through the application of prescriptive AI, proprietary data and advanced analytics, advertisers can now seamlessly orchestrate the consumer journey across converged media and all devices, and eliminate the media overlap and waste which come from traditional media silos. Amobee is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singtel, one of the largest communications technology companies in the world, which reaches more than 700 million mobile subscribers. The company operates across North America, Europe, Middle East, Asia and Australia. For more information, visit amobee.com or follow @amobee.
About Singtel
Singtel is Asia’s leading communications technology group, providing a portfolio of services from next-generation communication, technology services to infotainment to both consumers and businesses. For consumers, Singtel delivers a complete and integrated suite of services, including mobile, broadband and TV. For businesses, Singtel offers a complementary array of workforce mobility solutions, data hosting, cloud, network infrastructure, analytics and cyber-security capabilities. The Group has presence in Asia, Australia and Africa and reaches over 700 million mobile customers in 21 countries. Its infrastructure and technology services for businesses span 21 countries, with more than 428 direct points of presence in 362 cities.