AOL Names Former Google Executive as New Head of Ad Sales

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on April 30, 2009 - 8:50am.

Dulles, Va. - Just weeks after taking the reigns at AOL, Tim Armstrong on Thursday named a former colleague at Google (NASD: GOOG) as the unit's new head of advertising.

Jeff Levick, most recently Google's vice president of industry development and marketing for the Americas, will become the new president of global advertising and strategy at AOL.

In his new role, Levick primarily will be responsible for Platform-A, AOL's advertising arm.

Greg Coleman, who had served as the president of Platform-A since February, will leave the company.

"I've worked with Jeff for more than seven years at Google, and he is absolutely the right person to drive growth in our premium ad sales, dramatically scale our Advertising.com business, and further develop AOL's research initiatives and consumer insights," said Armstrong, a former senior vice president at Google who was named to replace Randy Falco as AOL's chairman and CEO in March.

The news comes a day after parent Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) said that AOL's revenue dropped 23% in the first quarter, including a 20% drop in ad sales.

Time Warner is currently looking into the possibility of spinning off all or part of AOL.

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