The Ozone Project Appoints Martin Harriman As Chair

The Ozone Project has appointed Martin Harriman as its first chair in a move to further boost the strategic direction and commercial success of the cross-publisher venture.

Mr Harriman was most recently non-executive chair for augmented reality company WaveOptics Ltd. He is also non-executive chair for radio technology company Cambridge Communications Ltd, and a non-executive director of broadband company Community Fibre Ltd.

Mr Harriman has previously held a number of digital leadership positions including that of chief executive for Telefonica Digital UK, where he was also a board member for O2 UK. During his tenure in this role, Martin was a founding director and rotating chair of Weve, the advertising joint venture formed by O2, EE and Vodafone.

Speaking on behalf of The Ozone Project’s board of shareholders – incorporating News UK, Telegraph Media Group, Guardian News and Media and Reach Plc – David Dinsmore, chief operating officer at News UK said, “We are delighted to announce Martin’s appointment as Ozone’s first chair as he brings the perfect blend of leadership, board governance and strategic direction required for the next phase of the platform’s growth.

“Following the board’s additional and significant investment in Ozone in late 2020, and despite a still unpredictable outlook, we continue to see demand for our advertising offering accelerate.

“This appointment reinforces the board’s commitment to Ozone’s future as a results-driven platform that allows advertisers to buy our highly engaged audiences at unrivalled scale, through a single point of contact, in the most trusted and best known media environments.

“We are all excited to be working with Martin, alongside Ozone’s chief executive Damon Reeve and the team, to build a better future for digital advertising – one that ultimately allows premium publishers like ours to invest in quality journalism and maintain a vibrant media ecosystem for all.”

Martin Harriman, chair of The Ozone Project said, “I am thrilled to be joining a company that is turbocharging the digital economy by driving long-term advertiser growth while also creating a more sustainable future for our publisher partners. With digital disruption making even relatively recent innovations obsolete, there’s never been a more important time to get it right.

“The laser-like focus Ozone has on harnessing consumer attention to drive great advertising results, builds upon the key foundations of scale, transparency, brand safety and trust that have already made the platform a huge success.

“Moving forward, we will build on this success to pioneer new ways of delivering brand and business results that in turn create new revenue models for all of our stakeholders. I couldn’t be more proud to be joining the remarkable team at Ozone to help them do just that.”