Premium discovery and native advertising platform Outbrain has announced two senior leadership appointments for its international business team after closing a record year in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.

Andrew Burke (pictured above, middle) joins Outbrain as its APAC managing director from Sensis, where he managed both the Yellow Pages digital business and Agency Found.

Prior to that, Burke spent more than 12 years in leadership roles, including stints as general manager for Racing.com and CEO of Next Digital.

He will lead Outbrain’s operations in the region and be responsible for driving the company’s relationships with publishers, agencies and brands.

Burke’s appointment comes off the back of Ayal Steiner’s promotion into the newly created role of vice president of international revenue.

In his new role, Steiner (pictured above, left) will be responsible for driving the revenue and distribution growth in Asia, Europe, EEMEA and South America.

Both Burke and Steiner will be based in Sydney.

Outbrain’s international managing director, Eytan Galai (pictured above, right), said: “We are confident that these moves will help us build additional growth, while ensuring tighter collaboration across our regional offices.

“I am thrilled to have Andrew on board and Ayal stepping up into the new role to lead the charge in securing continued growth.

“These are exciting times at Outbrain. In a world where Facebook is moving to a feed devoid of news, Outbrain envisions the opposite – delivering a personalised news feed to every user.”

Commenting on his appointment, Burke said: “I am excited to be taking on this new challenge, and I believe Outbrain has only scratched the surface of discovery and native with their potential to transform how brands connect with their audiences online.

“After watching Outbrain’s growth in APAC, I knew it was the right time to join and help  contribute to advancing discovery and native advertising for brands to engage with consumers at scale.”

Steiner said: “I am extremely proud of the progress we made in bringing discovery to APAC. We have a strong team across the region, and Andrew is a great leader to write the next chapter for Outbrain APAC.

“I am very excited to have the opportunity to work across Outbrain international markets. I love the way we keep innovating and driving our platform forward, and I believe the next few years are going to be an amazing journey of growth together with publisher, brands and agency partners as we help them unlock opportunities in the discovery space.”