Index one of the world’s largest independent ad exchanges, announced today the hiring of Ray Ghanbari as chief technology officer (CTO).
Ghanbari joins Index on the heels of a newly rebuilt exchange that’s aimed at accelerating company innovation and omnichannel growth.
Additionally, this rebuilt exchange platform is designed to increase efficiency and provide an ability to scale and innovate in new channels and formats for the company’s valued media owner and buyer customers.
Ghanbari will oversee the company’s engineering, IT and infrastructure organisations and will be focused on building solutions that drive the company closer to its mission of accelerating the ad technology evolution.
He will report to Index’s president and CEO, Andrew Casale.
“As we enter into Index’s next phase of accelerated growth, we’re excited to build atop our modernised platform to tackle large-scale industry challenges,” said Casale.
Having Ray at the forefront of our engineering and technology organisation will further our efforts to push beyond the status quo, and his leadership will be critical to ensuring our customers are future-proofed for our ever-changing industry.”
Ghanbari was most recently CTO of Omnitracs (now part of Solera Holdings), a fleet intelligence platform providing expertise and innovation in transportation data science, AI, and machine learning technologies.
Having previously served as a technology executive for companies like FICO, UnitedHealth Group, Overture/Yahoo! and several high-growth early and mid-stage companies, Ghanbari brings a deep expertise in engineering, corporate strategy and product management to Index.
“Index is well-positioned and poised to successfully build and innovate as the ad tech industry continues to embrace omnichannel,” said Ghanbari.
Ghanbari is based out of San Diego and will manage Index’s engineering centres of excellence in Boston, MA and Canada (in Toronto, Montreal, and Kitchener-Waterloo).
After closing them due to the global pandemic, Index recently reopened many of its 13 global offices – also expanding its presence in both New York City and Toronto . Though Index has said it will continue to prioritise fostering a culture where teams and talent can come together, no matter their location.
Ghanbari replaces Marc Staveley, who served as Index’s CTO for three years. Staveley will retire at the end of the year.
