Management Team

Yoav Shaham | CEO and Co-Founder

Yoav is the CEO and Co-Founder of Kontera, the leading provider of In-Text Advertising Solutions. Throughout the past five years Yoav has methodically grown Kontera’s technology, network, and organization. Under his leadership Kontera has become a leading technology provider and a rapidly growing advertising network. Kontera’s platform reaches more than 100 million monthly unique users, and serves more than 15,000 publishers. Kontera’s patented contextual analysis technology analyzes more than 85 million page views, in real-time, each day. Yoav brings more than 10 years of technology, internet, and online advertising experience to Kontera. Prior to founding Kontera Yoav led Internet start-ups, that enabled advertisers to reach users in contextually relevant, non-search environments. Yoav is a graduate of Tel Aviv University with a degree in Economics and Law.

Hal Muchnick | President

Hal brings over 20 years of senior sales, marketing, business development, product and executive leadership in marketing information, ad tech and interactive media companies. Prior to Kontera, Hal served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of Operative. Earlier, Hal served as Vice President, Sales and Account Management for Doubleclick, where he was responsible for revenue and customer growth in Publisher, Agency and Rich Media segments prior to a sale of the company. Hal was Chief Operating Officer of Lowermybills.com where he was responsible for product, technology, sales and media and was instrumental in attaining significant growth and market leadership leading to the acquisition of the Company by Experian. Hal spent over 10 years at Experian in various leadership positions, and which he helped evolve into a standalone global marketing information services company.

As President, Hal is responsible for Marketing, Sales, Client Services, Business Development, Publisher Network and US Operations at Kontera.

Ammiel Kamon | Executive Vice President, Marketing

Ammiel brings 19 years of marketing, technology, products and Internet leadership experience to Kontera. Previously he was the Vice President of Marketing at Rearden Commerce, and the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Products at Emptoris, where he was instrumental in attaining market leadership and establishing the company’s challenger brand. Earlier in his career Ammiel served as a Vice President and business unit general manager at Netscape Communications, which he joined in the company’s first year of operations. During his five years with Netscape, Kamon also led marketing for Netscape’s e-commerce products which accounted for more than 30 percent of revenues, and he served as strategic marketing lead and Director of Technology in the CTO’s office. Prior to joining Netscape Ammiel held several leadership positions with Oracle Corporation. He holds a BS in Computer Science and Business from Carnegie Mellon University.

Assaf Henkin | Executive Vice President Products and Co-Founder

Assaf is a co-founder of Kontera and has led product management and product operations since inception. Under his leadership Kontera’s products and network have grown to more than 100 Million unique visitors per month, spanning more than 15,000 publishers. Assaf has more than 11 years of experience in web-based products ranging from e-commerce to online advertising and content platforms. Prior to co-founding Kontera he served as a technical lead on several large scale e-commerce applications at iXL, Inc., a leading interactive consulting firm. Assaf is a globally recognized expert on semantic analysis products, delivering in-context information, and Internet advertising. He graduated from San Francisco State University with a BS in Computer Information Systems (Magna Cum Laude) and holds an MBA from the Joint Executive MBA Program at Kellogg, Northwestern University and Recanati, Tel Aviv University.

Matthew Haugen | Senior Vice President, Publisher Network and Delivery

Mathew brings 14 years of sales management experience within the online advertising and media technology space. He is responsible for growing the Kontera publisher network, advertiser delivery, and profitability. Under his leadership, the Kontera network has grown to over 140 million unique users and is currently one of the leading sources of publisher monetization. Prior to joining Kontera Mathew was an Ad Director at Jupiter Media (formerly Internet.com), and pre-dating Jupiter Media, Mathew was Online Advertising Sales Manager for Citysearch; a division IAC. Haugen holds a BsC in Business Administration/ Marketing from San Diego State University.

Itai Brickner | Vice President, Research & Development

Itai is responsible for the research and development of Kontera´s technology. He joined the company in 2003 and was responsible for developing the platform from the initial concept phase. Under his leadership Kontera’s technology has scaled to analyze more than 85 million page views, in real-time, per day. Prior to joining Kontera Itai served in technical lead positions in several tech companies including TTI Telecom, Contact Networks and Informative Ltd. Mr Brickner brings practical and managerial experience in Java and C++ server technologies, in-depth knowledge in communication protocols and practical and academic experience in natural language processing and machine learning techniques. Itai holds a BS in Computer Science from Tel-Aviv University, and has attended graduate studies at UC Berkley’s School of Information.