• by Wayne Friedman , January 17, 2024

Looking to boost its senior advertising executive team, A+E Networks has hired former Fox Television Network ad-sales executive Toby Byrne as executive vice president of national advertiser sales. 

Byrne&will report to Peter Olsen, president of ad sales, A+E Networks, who made the announcement.

Byrne had been president of media technology company ZEFR for six years.

ZEFR provides "brand suitability" targeting and measurement for platforms including YouTube, Meta and TikTok. Before that he was president of advertising sales at Fox Networks Group, a company he had been with for 20 years.

A+E Networks also named four new vice presidents of sales: April Denn, Jeff Gocel, Lindsey Quinn and Rob Duke.

Denn had been head of partnership solutions, Samsung Ads, while Gocel was formerly a senior streaming TV agency development manager at Amazon.

Quinn was vice president of sales of beauty, fashion, health & wellness at Firework and Duke had been director of ad sales for A+E Networks.

The new leadership announcement takes place as A+E Networks prepares for a new upfront advertising selling season. A+E will offer up a virtual upfront presentation on Wednesday March 6.

A+E has increasingly transitioned to new forms of measurement and currency due to brands evolving demands.

Advertisers can activate with A+E against iSpot, VideoAMP, Nielsen BDS and Comscore.