London – 2nd October 2018 – Blis, the global pioneer in advanced location data technology, today announced the appointment of Aaron McKee as Chief Technology Officer. In this position, Aaron is responsible for leading the company’s engineering team and driving the next phase of innovation and growth for Blis’ advertising solutions around the world. He reports directly to Blis CEO Greg Isbister and serves on the company’s leadership team.
Aaron is a seasoned technology executive with a history of building products at the intersection of big data and machine learning. He has 25 years of professional experience in the technology sector, including serving as CTO at both Skimlinks and Job Today, both sector-leading consumer and B2B marketplace companies. As CTO of Struq, a performance advertising technology company later acquired by Quantcast, he was one of the first to bring a deep use of machine learning to dynamic content personalisation and programmatic advertising. He helped break web server performance records at Intel and launched the first modern local search product at Ask.com.
“As well as his track record in martech and machine learning, Aaron brings a strong commercial focus. What particularly impressed us is how he gets involved across the entire ecosystem of a company, from investors to sales teams and support. This hands-on attitude combined with his first-class tech company experience will undoubtedly be an asset as we seek to drive revenue through our proprietary data and analytics solutions for our clients. It is the ideal time for a strong leader like Aaron to join our team and steer our technological innovation,” said Greg Isbister, CEO of Blis.
“Ever since getting my first computer as a child and learning to programme, I’ve been a self-confessed nerd. I’m passionate about technology and solving interesting and complex problems,” said Aaron. “Joining Blis is a chance to contribute to a market-leading company at an exciting stage of growth and expansion. I’m looking forward to being part of a team that’s single minded about building great products and astounding users.”
Aaron comes to Blis as the company doubles down on developing and growing its cutting-edge technical offerings, including a recently launched global blockchain pilot platform with IBM to further address the challenges brands are facing around transparency and data verification. He joins Microsoft veteran Diane Perlman as the newest members of Blis’ senior leadership team. Perlman came on board in August as CMO when Blis also announced record growth in the U.S. market, resulting in expansion into Chicago, Atlanta and Washington, DC and with plans to open additional locations in Los Angeles and Toronto by the end of this year. This follows the company’s move into South East Asian markets as well as further growth in Europe, including new offices in Italy, Portugal and Poland.
Throughout this period of expansion, Blis continues to achieve industry recognition from their HQ in London. Recent accolades include the prestigious Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50 Programme, winning 2017 BVCA Management Team of the Year and being named one of the fastest growing companies in The Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 for the fourth consecutive year.
