Leadership

Pooja Midha serves as Executive Vice President and General Manager for Effectv, the advertising sales division of Comcast Cable.

In this position, she oversees the company P&L and a national team spanning all sales and sales development, operations, technology, product, data innovation and insights, and customer experience. Pooja is also responsible for driving growth in addressable, multi-screen and audience-based advertising.

Pooja was formerly chief growth officer for Comcast Advertising. In that role, she led global marketing across the division, which includes FreeWheel, a global technology platform for the TV advertising industry, and Effectv, as well as Effectv’s sales development function. In addition to strengthening each unit’s brand and differentiated value, she worked with the leadership team to enhance the company’s products and solutions within a shifting, multi-screen landscape, emphasizing data and customer value.

She brings more than 20 years of experience in the media and advertising sector, with a track record of transforming businesses; creating new and innovative models; developing brands, partnerships and talent; and exceeding revenue goals.

Previously, Pooja served as president of advertising technology company true[X]. There, she was credited with leading the company through two acquisitions while also exceeding business goals, expanding its industry leading product suite, and growing true[X]’s advertiser, premium publisher and technology partnerships.

Prior to joining true[X], Pooja was senior vice president, digital ad sales and operations for the ABC Television Network. In this role, she created and led the network’s digital sales vision and managed its digital sales, planning, and operations teams. Pooja and her team also spearheaded the development of several new video offerings, including programmatic and addressable advertising, major platform partnerships and new products around social, custom ads and branded content.

Before joining ABC, Pooja held a variety of senior sales and marketing roles at ViacomCBS (now Paramount), in both a domestic and global capacity, including positions at MTV Networks, MTV Networks International and Nickelodeon. She started her career in ad sales at Dow Jones & Company.

Pooja has spoken at several major industry conferences, including Cannes Lions and Advertising Week. Adweek named her a 2016 “Young Influencer,” Cynopsis spotlighted Pooja as one of its 2017 “Top Women in Digital: Industry Leader,” Broadcasting & Cable recognized her as a 2021 “Wonder Woman” and Multichannel News honored her as a “Woman to Watch” in 2019 and a “Wonder Woman in Streaming” in 2021. She is also a recipient of the IAB’s 2018 Sales & Service Excellence Awards and ANA Business Marketing’s “Communicator of the Year” 2022.

A noted industry thought leader, Pooja has been quoted and featured in several major media outlets, such as The New York Times, Advertising Age, Adweek, AdExchanger, Beet.TV, Variety and more.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Business and Psychology from Lehigh University and a Master of Business Administration from Columbia Business School. Pooja also completed the National Association of Multi-Ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC) Executive Leadership Development Program from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. A mother of two, she resides with her family in New York.

Don Amboyer is vice president, strategic operations for Effectv, the advertising sales division of Comcast Cable. In this role, Don has oversight for raising the delivery excellence of the company both internally and for Effectv’s clients. He manages a team that leads Effectv’s operating plan as well as coordination and governance for executing against the plan.

When Don joined Effectv in 2017 as vice president, product architecture and platform strategy, he was responsible for the design and evolution of the technology stack that enables the company’s future product offerings and enhancements. Since then, Don has revolutionized the company’s product architecture and platform strategy, enabling several new technologies to help advertisers reach their target audiences and drive awareness for their brands.

In 2018, Don helped develop a new sales planning system, Audience Intelligence for Local. This is the first Effectv solution that combines privacy compliant viewership data with third-party data to provide local advertisers with an audience-optimized linear campaign schedule across the inventory supply. Additionally, Don has been instrumental in establishing a common technology architecture for the company with specific focus on product innovation, programmatic video insertion, business operations and data infrastructure.

With more than 20 years of experience, Don is an experienced Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) leader with extensive expertise creating revenue growth through launching products to solve complex advertising challenges.

Before joining Effectv, Don served as senior vice president and general manager for Operative, a leader in advertising business management technology, where he effectively scaled the company’s programmatic advertising services and technology. In prior roles with Operative, Don led sales, go-to-market and sales engineering teams, domestically and internationally. He also held a number of positions supporting technology and information systems for a variety of companies from independent think tanks to a division of Ford Motor Company.

Don holds a Bachelor of Arts in international relations from Michigan State University and a Master of Science in international management from the University of London. He resides with his family in the Denver area.

Melanie Hamilton is head of enterprise sales for Effectv, the advertising sales division of Comcast Cable. In this role, Melanie is responsible for the strategy, operational activities and direct sales for the company’s national, automotive and media & entertainment sales verticals. She also manages Effectv’s direct response business and partners with Ampersand, a media advertising sales and technology company, working with national clients and agency holding companies to drive partnership, share growth and audience-based cross-platform solutions.

In 2019, Melanie joined Effectv as vice president, sales, where she oversaw national sales before being appointed to her expanded role in 2020. Prior to Effectv, Melanie worked at Google in various sales capacities for more than 10 years. Most recently, as head of industry for telecom, she drove client growth and led a bi-coastal, cross-functional team that ignited opportunities across the company’s marketing, ad technology and cloud teams.

Throughout her time at Google, Melanie successfully led initiatives and forged strong c-level relationships by creating joint business plans to accelerate partnerships and effectively change the trajectory of their customers’ core business. In addition to head of industry for telecom, she served as head of industry for retail, head of industry for financial services, senior sales lead for Google+ and local ad products, and senior account executive for Google TV Ads.

Melanie began her career in the advertising sales departments for NBCUniversal at its owned and operated stations in New York and San Francisco.

An industry expert, Melanie is often quoted in publications such as Auto Remarketing, Beet TV, Broadcasting & Cable, Cynopsis Media, Multichannel News and more.

Melanie holds an Executive Master of Business Administration from New York University’s Stern School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish from Johns Hopkins University. She lives with her family in New York City.

Keri Reisbeck is vice president, human resources for Effectv, the advertising sales division of Comcast Cable. Keri is charged with setting the strategic direction of the company’s HR function through employee and organizational development initiatives. She partners with senior management to pioneer innovative workplace, performance and talent strategies aimed at increasing employee engagement while enriching their professional development, career pathing and overall contribution to the company.

Most recently, Keri was vice president, HR – sales for Effectv, where she led HR for the company’s sales markets division across its U.S. footprint. She was responsible for determining the HR strategies for sales employee engagement, development and retention, in addition to driving change transformation and strategy execution to achieve specific business results. For example, Keri orchestrated a tactical review of the company’s sales structure, which resulted in a new and highly successful formation. She also led an enterprise revenue improvement effort to identify KPIs that predict account executive performance success and partnered with finance and sales leadership to overhaul front-line seller compensation structure to a more progressive design.

Before that, Keri was vice president, HR for Effectv’s enterprise operations division. Here, she led the integration of 5 operations management centers encompassing 32 states and 1,400 employees. She came to the enterprise operations division after having led HR for Effectv’s legacy West division, which spanned six states and over 700 employees, rising from director to vice president in her seven years there. Keri began her career at Comcast Cable as a manager working on national recruitment programs and then as an HR manager supporting the West Division.

Keri has more than 20 years of HR experience. She is a graduate of Women in Cable & Telecommunications’ Rising Leaders program and the Betsy Magness Leadership Institute in addition to Effectv’s Women in Leadership program. Committed to giving back and raising awareness around early detection and treatment of melanoma, Keri leads fundraising efforts in her community supporting the national Melanoma Research Foundation.

Keri earned a Bachelor of Science in human development and family studies from Colorado State University. She resides with her family in the Denver area.

Travis Parrill is senior vice president, technology and operations for Effectv, the advertising sales division of Comcast Cable. He is responsible for the enterprise technology and operations organization including engineering, quality control, traffic, technology and solutions, project management organization and campaign management.

In this role, Travis leads the technical architecture vision across television and digital advertising products, partnering with FreeWheel, A Comcast Company and a variety of technology vendors to help marketers identify clients and reach audiences to drive brand awareness to customer attribution. He also oversees the execution of all advertising campaigns and the introduction of new and improved systems and processes to provide an exceptional customer experience, maximize growth and drive efficiencies and profitability.

In 2001, Travis joined Effectv, and throughout his tenure, he has led technical, engineering, execution and information systems teams across Effectv and Comcast Cable.

Early on, he was instrumental in orchestrating the consolidation of three operations centers to a centralized location in Effectv’s former West Division. In 2015, he led the operational integration for all of Effectv—bringing together the technology, tools, systems and processes from the previous divisional structure to a single enterprise approach that has delivered significant efficiency to the business and advertisers.

At Comcast Cable, Travis oversaw the engineering efforts for the Denver market and surrounding areas. Under his leadership, the team deployed DOCSIS 3.0 under Comcast’s high-speed data initiative, guided the transition to full digital television and supported numerous back-office transactions and rollouts of channel launches.

Previously, Travis was a systems engineer for Corporate Technologies, a leading provider of managed IT solutions. He also served as an adjunct professor at the University of Mary where he instructed computer information systems.

Travis received Multichannel News’ 40 Under 40 Award and Effectv’s National Leadership Award. He holds a number of degrees from the University of Mary including a Bachelor of Applied Science in computer information services, a Bachelor of Applied Science in business administration and a Master of Business Administration.

Travis resides with his family in the Denver area.

Kelly Perone is senior vice president, technology and product strategy for Effectv, the advertising sales division of Comcast Cable. Kelly leads the product management team responsible for Effectv’s innovative products and solutions that deliver audiences to advertisers across all screens and devices.

In this role, Kelly focuses on all aspects of decision making and business planning for new products and capabilities as well as enhancements for existing products. She and her team work hand-in-hand with functions across the company from concept to deployment to ensure the solutions position Effectv for today and the future, providing clients with the best experience, products, results and value. Kelly first joined Effectv in 2017 as vice president, product strategy.

Kelly has more than 20 years of experience in the media and advertising technology industry, analyzing, building and developing products. Previously, she served as senior vice president, product at Tremor Video, now Telaria Inc. (TLRA), where she oversaw its SSP and DSP development of video advertising opportunities across devices. During her tenure, Kelly spearheaded Tremor Video’s product transformation from an ad network to a combined media and ad tech company. She was responsible for increasing and strengthening company output to transform its value proposition in the marketplace, growing revenue and EBIDTA, and successfully exiting the DSP to a global mobile marketing company.

Prior to Tremor Video, Kelly held various product leadership positions at media and ad tech startups in New York City. She also created the original digital campaign stewardship platform for Donovan Data Systems for the U.S., U.K., Canadian and German markets (now Media Ocean’s Prisma).

Kelly earned a Master of Arts in rhetoric and professional communication from Iowa State University. She resides in New Jersey with her family.

John Wimmenauer is vice president and chief financial officer for Effectv, the advertising sales division of Comcast Cable. In this role, John oversees all facets of finance for the company. This includes leading budget, forecasting, planning, and analysis, in addition to driving P&L and capital performance.

John has a long tenure across the Comcast organization, resulting in more than 25 years of experience in finance. Most recently, he was vice president, financial and strategic planning for Comcast Advertising, which includes Effectv and FreeWheel, a Comcast company providing global technology solutions for the future of television advertising. Here, John led the organization through sequential periods of divisional consolidation and major strategic acquisitions, standardizing budgeting, forecasting, and reporting methodologies across the business.

Prior to this position, John held a series of vice president-level financial leadership roles within Effectv, including vice president, financial planning and analysis; vice president, business intelligence and advanced analytics; and vice president, financial application management.

John started his career with Comcast Cable. He first worked in the finance division in Indianapolis and later moved to Effectv where held a succession of financial leadership roles, first as regional director of finance for the Heartland Region and then the Central Division.

John was recognized for his leadership skills by inclusion into Comcast’s Executive Leadership Forum and Comcast’s Leadership Exposure and Development program. He earned a Bachelor of Science in accounting from Indiana Wesleyan University and resides in the Philadelphia area with his family.

Mike Ruggiero is head of region sales at Effectv, the advertising sales division of Comcast Cable. Mike is responsible for accelerating workflow and best practice coordination as well as consistency across the company’s six regions to maximize revenue and drive results for advertisers across the country. He also oversees Advanced Platform Solutions, which encompasses traditional interactive digital sales in addition to multi-platform video solutions that target data, attribution, addressability and linear advertising opportunities.

Since first joining Effectv in 2001, Mike has held a number of leadership roles, including most recently vice president, Northeast region. In this role, he led the overall sales strategy and execution of the company’s video product suite in more than 10 markets including New York, Philadelphia and Boston. He also served as vice president for two major regions, where he oversaw top markets including New York, Philadelphia, Detroit and Indianapolis.

Throughout his tenure, Mike has been dedicated to driving sales revenue and developing leadership talent. He played an integral role in creating the company’s Tomorrow’s Leaders Today (TLT) program that focuses on preparing high-performing account executives for management roles.

Mike has more than 25 years of experience in the advertising sales and television industries. Prior to joining Effectv, he spent eight years in the national and local broadcast sales arena with WTTV-TV/Sinclair Stations Group and WNDY/Paramount Stations group, both serving Indianapolis.

Mike is an honoree of the company’s President’s Club Leadership Award, which recognizes extraordinary leadership skills. He also received the Person of the Year award from the Mozel Sanders Foundation, honoring his commitment to this charitable organization that is dedicated to feeding families in need.

A graduate of Ball State University, Mike earned a Bachelor of Science in journalism. He resides with his family in the Philadelphia area.

Chris Vail is Vice President, Political Advertising at Effectv, the advertising sales division of Comcast Cable. In this role, he leads Effectv’s political sales arm and oversees its relationship with internal groups such as Comcast Government Affairs, as well as industry partners like Ampersand.

Chris has 16+ years of experience building, growing, mentoring and inspiring high-performing political ad sales teams at both start-ups and global brands such as Amazon.

Most recently, Chris was Head of Government and Political Advertising at Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat. During his time at Snap, he led multiple teams across the U.S. and Canada and focused on growing relationships with large and emerging advertisers. While there, Vail also built the go-to-market strategy for servicing political and issue advertisers across federal and state campaigns, leading to four-digit growth of the vertical in the 2022 midterms. His team also utilized technology across video and augmented reality to help political advertisers reach hyper-targeted and measurable audiences at scale.

Before Snap, Vail served as the VP of sales for Downstream, an early-stage ad tech company. Prior to that, he worked at Amazon Advertising in the early stages of its emerging sales business. During his tenure there, Chris led the expansion of the division’s sales function across North America, building highly successful and engaged teams in New York, Boston and Toronto. As an Amazon “Bar Raiser” Chris hired and coached over 30 individual contributors and managers, exceeding over $200MM in annual revenue.

A Comcast “boomerang,” Chris first joined the company in 2013 as an Account Executive at Comcast Spotlight (now Effectv) after working closely with the company as an agency lead for multiple election cycles.

Chris holds a Master of Administration in Political Science and Campaign Management and a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Florida, and he is a regular guest lecturer for the college’s graduate program. He lives in Southern New Hampshire with his wife and two daughters.

Dawn Lee Williamson is head of sales development for Effectv, the advertising sales division of Comcast Cable. In this role, she leads the company’s more than 300-person sales development organization designed to accelerate Effectv’s client-centric approach to customer success. Williamson oversees a team focused on understanding clients’ holistic business needs, developing the right solutions to reach those brands’ audiences across screens, and driving measurable results.

Dawn joined Effectv as Regional Vice President for the company’s Southeast region in 2018. Under her leadership, the Southeast became Effectv’s top performing region in 2020. Dawn and her team fueled this growth by expanding existing customer relationships and identifying and creating new revenue, innovation and growth opportunities.

Dawn came to Comcast from VICE Media, where she was SVP, head of U.S. advertising sales. There, she led revenue-generating strategies through custom client solutions, agency and media partnerships and other initiatives that reinforced and drove VICE’s value proposition in the marketplace. Before VICE Media, Dawn oversaw all commercial activity for BBC World News TV and BBC.com for the Americas (North America and Latin America). Williamson also held global and domestic leadership roles at Turner Broadcasting System, TBS, TNT, CNN and Cartoon Network.

Deeply passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion, Dawn is a two-time Cablefax “Most Influential Minority in Cable” honoree and a member of Effectv’s Diversity Board. She is also a member of She Runs It, an industry organization that aims to cultivate and promote female talent throughout all levels in marketing, media and technology.

Dawn graduated from the Betsy Magness Women’s Leadership and National Association for Multi-ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC) Executive Leadership programs.

She earned a Bachelor of Arts with a focus on East Asian Studies and Economics from New York University. Dawn resides in Miami with her family.

Steve Szluka serves as Vice President, Yield at Effectv, the advertising sales division of Comcast Cable. In this role, Steve leads the ongoing transformation of portfolio yield management by developing and implementing short- and long-term inventory management and pricing strategies, along with governance that drives efficiencies in workflow and maximizes yield. He oversees and supports Effectv’s media planning, pricing, inventory and business intelligence verticals. With 18 years of experience in planning and monetization, he works in tandem with Sales and all supporting groups – including operations, sales development and product – leadership to help increase teammates’ understanding and fluency around sales growth, gross margin and inventory costs to meet our client’s business objectives while maximizing the value of our inventory.

Prior to joining Comcast in 2021, Steve spent a decade at Disney where he most recently served as Vice President of Pricing & Planning for Disney Local, Programmatic and ABC News & Entertainment sponsorships. During his tenure, he was responsible for launching ABC Unified (demo guarantee buy across linear and digital), the cross sales between Disney & Hulu (DHXP) as well as drove strategy for programmatic (PG & PMP). Before joining Disney, Steve started the pricing and inventory team at BBC Digital North America that sold globally after beginning his career at CNN Digital.

Outside the office, Steve and his wife own and operate graphic design company Kelli & Company, which specializes in digital marketing campaigns.

Steve holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from the University of Connecticut School of Business. He also attended University College Dublin – Quinn School of Business. He currently resides in New York with his family.