Future Today Taps Roku Alum to Lead Advertising

Future Today, the streaming publisher behind HappyKids, has appointed Roku alum Mark Smith as VP of ad products, operations and strategy.

In his new role, Smith will look to optimize and improve monetization efforts and operations across Future Today’s streaming assets. He will also lead efforts to develop new programmatic and direct ad sales execution opportunities.

Smith will report directly to Vikrant Mathur, co-founder of Future Today.

Smith brings over 17 years of experience to the role, having led complex technical projects in the ad tech industry across SSPs, DSPs, DMPs and ad verification and brand safety vendors for top companies. Most recently, he was senior manager of technical operations for advertising at Roku.

Prior to that, Smith worked at YuMe by RhythmOne for four years, working his way up to be director of solutions engineering. He has also held leadership roles at SeaChange International.

“Our mission is to meet the demand of the surge in adoption of free, ad-supported streaming with high-quality content that keeps viewers engaged,” Mathur said. “With Mark’s strong track record of success, including his work with Roku where he bootstrapped the technical operations team then scaled and expanded it to support Roku’s diverse and respected monetization business units, will help unlock the full potential of our offerings and support our future goals.”

“I am joining Future Today at one of the most exciting times for streaming,” Smith added. “Future Today is a proven leader in AVOD streaming and delivers brand-safe and brand-suitable content to kids and families and continues to impress customers and partners with its offerings. I am excited to continue Future Today’s journey of developing high-impact products and services for the growing AVOD streaming space and to be part of a dynamic and growing team.”