Freestar Brings on AdTech Veteran Premesh Purayil as Chief Technology Officer and Manny Balbin as VP, Analytics and Optimization

Continues to Accelerate Growth Moving Up to No. 16 in June 2020 Comscore Rankings


NEW YORK, June 25, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Freestar, the leading monetization partner for websites, today announced the hiring of Premesh Purayil as the company’s first-ever Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Manny Balbin as VP of Analytics and Optimization, as the company continues to lead the way as one of the fastest-growing companies in Comscore, moving up to No. 16 in the June 2020 rankings. 

“As the advertising space rapidly changes, the demand for Freestar’s tailored solutions and white-glove service continues to grow,” said Kurt Donnell, president and CEO of Freestar. “We are incredibly pleased to add Premesh and Manny to our leadership team as we continue to raise the bar on the services we provide to our partners. We are expanding and evolving Freestar in more ways than ever, and Premesh and Manny are the ideal additions to help support the next phase of our growth while also making positive contributions to the industry as a whole.”

With nearly 20 years of leadership and innovation in the tech space, Premesh Purayil spent the last decade at Ranker, most recently as the CTO, where he helped steer the company to be data-driven and technology-focused around monetization while building out custom header bidding solutions, ad products and yield optimization techniques. Assuming the role of CTO at Freestar, Premesh will oversee Freestar’s technology and product innovation and will continue the development of the company’s Ideal Ad Stack technology.

Manny Balbin joins Freestar as an expert in data technology, growth, and advertising solutions for companies like She Media (SheKnows) and IAC. As the Vice President, Analytics and Optimization, Manny’s focus will be to enhance the company’s data strategy, further optimize publisher revenue and improve organizational efficiency. He will build strategies, processes, activities and technology, leveraging analytics to drive growth and smarter decision-making across the organization.

In addition, Freestar recently moved up to No. 16 in Comscore’s June rankings of U.S. unique visitors, now reaching 145 million unique visitors — roughly 55% of U.S. internet users — and is the only bootstrapped company inside of the top 20. The company also climbed to No. 13 in Comscore in terms of total page views at 2.55 billion in May across its publisher partner sites.

As Freestar’s pool of expert talent continues to grow, the company launched its first podcast, Blood, Sweat and CPMs, featuring senior company leaders as well as industry experts who dive into the nuances of the ever-changing AdTech universe with an air of levity. More about the podcast and links to it’s airing platforms can be found at https://freestar.com/blood-sweat-cpms-podcast-episode-1

For more information on working with Freestar, please visit Freestar.com or email pubdev@freestar.com.

About Freestar
In an ever-changing industry full of buzzwords and empty promises, Freestar was founded to simplify the challenges of monetizing websites. Leveraging the ideal mix of programmatic header bidding, private marketplace deals, and a unified analytics platform, Freestar’s team of monetization experts help publishers and e-commerce sites unleash their true revenue potential. For more information, visit www.freestar.com.

Media Contact
Alexis Roberts
Blast PR for Freestar
alexis@blastpr.com
805-886-8511