Tara Walpert Levy, a 10-year Google and YouTube veteran ad exec, is moving over to YouTube full-time in a big new role.
Walpert Levy has been named VP, Americas for YouTube, leading the teams overseeing the video giant’s partnerships across the U.S., Canada, Latin America and Brazil that work with creators and media partners to build their audiences and monetize content.
“YouTube is the foundation of the creator economy… and yet I think there’s another wave of explosive growth to come,” Walpert Levy told PvNew.
YouTube’s ad revenue is a core — and fast-growing — piece of Google’s overall business. In the third quarter of 2021, YouTube generated a record $7.2 billion in advertising sales, up 43% year over year. It has more than 2 million creators who participate in the ad-revenue sharing YouTube Partner Program.
Walpert Levy replaces Kelly Merryman, former VP of content partnerships at YouTube, who left last month to join digital security provider Aura. In the new role, Walpert Levy reports directly to Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s chief business officer.She officially starts in the new role Nov. 29 and will remain based in New York City.
Reporting to Walpert Levy are executives overseeing YouTube content verticals and geographic regions. Some of those executives include Jamie Byrne (senior director, creator partners), Ryan Wyatt (head of gaming), Tim Katz (head of news and sports partnerships) and Nathalia Iervolino (who oversees Latin America and Canada).
Most recently, Walpert Levy served as VP of agency and brand solutions for Google since 2017. Before that, she led ads product marketing for Google, YouTube and DoubleClick. In that role, she led the team that launched and ran YouTube Brandcast, the platform’s annual upfront-style presentation for marketers and agencies, and YouTube Select (formerly known as Google Preferred), which provides access to ad inventory across top-performing global content.
Before joining Google in 2011, Walpert Levy was president of addressable TV advertising firm Visible World (now part of Comcast/NBCUniversal) and worked at McKinsey & Co. as leader of the global media and entertainment and sales and marketing practices.
Separately, last week Malik Ducard, VP of content partnerships at YouTube, left to join Pinterest as chief content officer. YouTube has commenced a search for a replacement, who will report to Walpert Levy.
