• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, May 20, 2013

Nick Pahade, the former North American CEO of Interpublic Group’s Initiative, has been appointed CEO of crowdsourced video advertising specialist Poptent effective June 3. Pahade will be based at Poptent's Philadelphia headquarters.

Pahade succeeds Rick Parkhill, Poptent founder, who is retiring from the CEO position; he will remain involved in the company as a board member. Parkhill credited Pahade’s skills as “a business leader and industry visionary [which] make him the perfect CEO choice to build upon our progress and lead Poptent into the video-centric future."    

Pahade was CEO of Initiative for just under a year before stepping down amid a sweeping management shakeup at both Initiative and sister media shop UM in February. He previously served as CEO of digital media management platform Traffiq. Before that, he was president of TrueAction, part of e-commerce and online tech provider GSI Commerce.

Earlier, Pahade served as president of Denuo, Publicis Groupe's digital and futures practice. Previously, he co-founded Beyond Interactive, which was sold to Grey Global Group and eventually became part of WPP media agency MediaCom. For a time, Pahade led Mediacom Digital as its managing director.

"I have been quietly watching Poptent grow during the past several years and am excited to join the team at a time when demand for high-quality video by brands and agencies is both deepening and accelerating," stated Pahade. "Now there is a wider industry recognition of the importance of video in earned and owned media, in addition to more traditional paid environments.”  

Poptent claims a network of 65,000 independent filmmakers in 140 countries that it can tap to create video ads and other content for marketers. A major backer is venture capital firm MK Capital, which last year led a $5.5 million round of funding for the firm. That followed a $3 million round of funding for Poptent in 2010 that was also led by MK.

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