GumGum appoints Michelle Hulst as president

GumGum says it will continue to focus on scaling the organisation with the hire of seasoned executive, Michelle Hulst, who will be joining GumGum as President. The company says she will lead GumGum’s global advertising business as well as drive the worldwide adoption of GumGum’s platform for the future of digital advertising, The Mindset Platform. Hulst will report to GumGum’s CEO Phil Schraeder and will be based out of San Francisco.

“Brand adoption and industry support have been unprecedented for us this year. At GumGum, we’re partners with over 50% of Interbrand's Best Global Brands of 2022 and are trusted by all six agency-holding companies. We’re starting to see advertisers and publishers embrace a mindset-first approach where they are excited about the deeper level of consumer connection and insights they can derive from it. This was highlighted recently when Domino’s leveraged The Mindset Platform that combines GumGum’s creative, context, and attention products and saw up to 400% ROAS,” said Schraeder. “Michelle is an industry veteran that we are thrilled to bring on board to help us continue to scale our business and ensure GumGum is a trusted strategic partner as advertisers head into the cookie-free world of the future that relies on consumer mindset rather than personal data.”

Speaking of the appointment, GumGum says Hulst has almost 20 years of leadership experience in advertising and data management and understands the needs of the industry and evolving digital landscape on a global scale. Hulst most recently served as chief data officer at The Trade Desk where she launched industry-leading initiatives such as retail media and Unified ID 2.0. Prior to The Trade Desk, she was group vice president, marketing and strategic partnerships at Oracle Data Cloud (now Oracle Advertising), where she led platform and data partnerships and participated in acquisitions of multiple companies, including Moat and Grapeshot. She was also a member of the executive team at data-driven advertising pioneer Datalogix, which led the company through transformational growth to an eventual acquisition by Oracle.

Hulst’s hire comes after GumGum has seen a double digit YoY growth rate, added the company. GumGum, which has a global presence in over 19 markets, continues to innovate The Mindset Platform to give advertisers the ability to understand the correlation between consumer mindset and digital advertising to drive campaign outcomes and connections.

“GumGum’s mission is to shape meaningful connections, and they’ve done a great job doing so internally and externally. Their differentiated assets help address some of the biggest concerns for advertisers today – they have unique, engaging ad formats that lead to a better consumer advertising experience, differentiated attention technology from their acquisition of Playground xyz, and an advanced, accredited contextual offering for CTV, web, and mobile that provides brand-safe and relevant advertising without the use of personal data. Each of these are effective products on their own, but the real strength is when they come together,” said Hulst. “Joining GumGum, I’m looking forward to bringing the effectiveness and power of The Mindset Platform to many more brands and agencies as we continue to scale.”

Hulst holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan and a Master of Business Administration from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. She serves on the board of directors of the Bank of Hawaii.