21 Feb 2014 07:00
BLINKX PLC APPOINTS UJJAL KOHLI TO BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Former Rhythm NewMedia CEO and Vodafone Executive Brings Significant Mobile, Marketing and Governance Expertise to the blinkx Board
London, England and San Francisco, CA. 21 February 2014 - blinkx plc ("blinkx" or the "Company"), today announced the appointment of Ujjal1 Kohli as a Non-executive Director. Mr. Kohli is transitioning from his former Executive role within the Company to his Non-executive Board post. Ujjal brings over twenty five years of executive management, engineering, marketing, strategy, M&A and Board level experiences to blinkx.
Based in California, Ujjal co-founded and led Mountain View-headquartered Rhythm NewMedia ("Rhythm") as CEO, before its acquisition by blinkx in December 2013. Under his leadership, Rhythm emerged as a dominant mobile video technology and advertising platform for tablets and smartphones - working with ultra-premium media partners, including NBC Universal, CBS, ABC, Fox, and Warner Bros, as well as top brand advertisers, such as Disney, McDonald's, General Motors, Ford, AT&T, Verizon, and Macy's.
Before Rhythm, Mr. Kohli co-founded and served as CEO of Meru Networks (NASDAQ: MERU). Prior to this he was EVP of Marketing and National Sales for AirTouch Cellular, and was part of the Executive team that led it's merger with Vodafone (LSE: VOD) in a $60 Billion transaction in 1999. Previously, Ujjal was a consultant with McKinsey and Company in London, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. Mr. Kohli has also been an investor, advisor and a previous Board member at several technology companies, including Magma Design Automation, Berkeley Networks, ByteMobile, Maverick Semiconductor, Convergenet, and WirelessHome. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MS in Electrical Engineering from University of Rochester and a BTech in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.
"Ujjal is a true visionary with extensive roots in the mobile sector. He recognized the massive potential for video across this medium before the age of smartphones and tablets had even begun," said S. Brian Mukherjee, CEO of blinkx. "As we continue to execute against our vision to connect consumers and brands through premium content online, the addition of Rhythm NewMedia lets us accelerate our growth into mobile, the fastest growing segment within the digital advertising sector. Ujjal's broad experience base and intimate knowledge of this fast-evolving landscape will be invaluable to our product initiatives, marketing strategy and business definition going forward. We are delighted to welcome Ujjal to the Board."
"blinkx's acquisition of Rhythm NewMedia represents a perfect alignment of our shared vision for premium digital video advertising," said Ujjal Kohli. "I am delighted to join blinkx and to help drive that vision into the future. I look forward to helping expand blinkx's foundation in digital video, search, discovery, distribution and monetization into mobile at scale, and to bring my technology, executive management, marketing and Board experience to the Company as it continues on its growth trajectory."
The Company confirms there is no other information required to be disclosed pursuant to Schedule 2 paragraph (g) of the AIM Rules.
1 Previous Forename Ujjaldip, Age 55
About blinkx
blinkx (LSE AIM: BLNX) is an Internet media company that connects consumers and brands through premium content online. Founded in 2004, blinkx pioneered Internet Video Search using its patented COncept Recognition Engine (CORE). This technology leverages speech recognition, text and image analysis to deeply understand the meaning and context of video content to generate improved search relevancy for consumers and a brand safe environment for advertisers. Today, blinkx is a broad digital media technology, distribution and monetization platform that connects consumers, advertisers and content across four screens. Through its partnerships with hundreds of media companies, including ABC, NBC, Conde Nast, Reuters and Bloomberg, blinkx has indexed and search enabled millions of hours of video content. blinkx powers video search, discovery or monetization on thousands of online properties including Lycos, ABC, CBS and Fox Sports. blinkx is headquartered in San Francisco, California with 15 offices worldwide. For more information please visit www.blinkx.com.
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