Mojiva Inc., parent company of the Mojiva mobile ad network and mOcean Mobile ad platform, has hired Tony Nethercutt to fill the newly created position of general manager for North America.

As vice president of sales for AdMob, Mr. Nethercutt is credited with creating the sales, account management, ad operations and creative services organization. Google acquired AdMob in May of 2010 for $750 million, and Mr. Nethercutt had remained with Google after the acquisition until joining Mojiva.

As general manager of North America at Mojiva, Mr. Nethercutt will be responsible for driving revenue to further expand the company's growing footprint in global mobile advertising and publishing.

He will focus his attention towards building mOcean Mobile's MAST Advertising Platform, as well as the Mojiva ad network.

Mojiva exec discusses reasons for hire
Mobile Marketer?s Dan Butcher interviewed David Gwozdz, CEO of Mojiva, New York. Here is what he had to say:

Why did Mr. Nethercutt decide to make this move? What challenges and opportunities does this new position present?
As a proven leader with decades of experience building companies, Tony understands that technology will be the differentiator in mobile advertising.

The development put into Mojiva?s mOcean Mobile platform gives the company a competitive edge?the platform is already being utilized as the mobile ad-serving platform for 10 mobile ad networks, dozens of top publishers and Intel?s AppUp center. Today there are more than 70 million Intel Atom-based netbooks.

In addition, the massive sales and usage of iPads, tablets and smartphones worldwide is getting marketers? attention in a big way.

Mojiva and mOcean Mobile are uniquely positioned here to connect marketers to this massive audience.

What are Mr. Nethercutt?s responsibilities? What is his mandate as general manager of North America operations?
As general manager of North America, Tony will be responsible for driving revenue to further expand the company?s growing footprint in mobile advertising and publishing.

He will focus on building mOcean Mobile?s market-leading MAST Advertising Platform as well as the Mojiva Network. He will also oversee marketing, business development and PR.

How can an independent mobile ad network such as Mojiva Inc. compete with the likes of Google AdMob and Apple iAd?
The short answer is that Mojiva has already been competing with larger companies in the space over the past few years and winning.

Mojiva offers some very unique solutions to the mobile industry, specifically, an ad-serving platform?mOcean Mobile?that is now widely regarded as the most sophisticated on the market.

Lots of development work has gone into the platform that made Tony?s decision to join the company quite easy.

With mobile advertising just hitting its stride, there is still room to show how smaller, more nimble players can leverage technology for a more compelling mobile offering for marketers.

What are your predictions for the mobile advertising space in 2011?
Mobile advertising is exploding, which means that the technology will continue to evolve to meet the demands of media buyers and that ad spend is only going to keep growing.

Mojiva will see publishers and advertisers begin to take on a larger role in the mobile space.

With so many new smartphones and tablets being introduced on faster networks, this is really going to just grow like wildfire.

NeoMedia also bolsters team
News of Mr. Nethercutt's hiring came on the same day that mobile bar code scanning specialist NeoMedia Technologies Inc. hired media industry veteran Bruce Braun as senior vice president of sales and business development.

Mr. Braun's career has spanned more than 20 years with companies such as CBS, USA Networks and Turner Broadcasting. He was most recently at GoldSpot Media.

Based in Sausalito, CA, Mr. Braun will initially be focused on driving brand and agency sales in North America for two of NeoMedia's premium products, NeoSphere, a globally available mobile bar code management platform, and NeoReader, a bar code-scanning software application for mobile phones.

Final Take