The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s search for a new leader ended up in a familiar place: it’s rehiring Randall Rothenberg.
The trade group said Rothenberg would return to the CEO post after just one month as chief digital officer at Time Inc. He was recruited to Time by Jack Griffin, who last week was ousted from his post as CEO.
Rothenberg’s possible return first surfaced on Friday in a story by Adweek.
The move ends a search process that people involved said never came close to hiring Rothenberg’s successor, which the group hoped to do before its annual meeting next month. In further turnover, IAB chariman David Moore stepped down this month and was replaced by IDG CEO Bob Carrigan.
“During his three-year tenure at IAB, Randall built the organization into the leading trade organization for marketing and media,” Carrigan wrote in an email sent to IAB members this morning. “With our industry at a crucial inflection point, we are confident that Randall is the best person to continue to advance the work he’s done to date.”
Most Read
More in Media
AI royalties for small and midsize publishers: collective licensing’s next big play
October 17, 2025
Don’t credit OpenAI’s ChatGPT, credit corporate LLMs – enterprise RAG is what’s creating royalty revenue for publishers.
The Economist licenses its content to enterprise clients’ private LLMs
October 16, 2025
The Economist is among those to start licensing its content this way – having opened its API to corporate clients with their own data ring-fenced LLMs in August.
Media Briefing: Why some publishers are flipping their position on whether to block AI bots
October 16, 2025
Some publishers that blocked all AI bots are rethinking their stance, as AI platform traffic raises new monetization and access trade-offs.