Douglas Leeds
| Doug Leeds | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
May 16, 1968 Los Angeles, CA |
| Residence | Danville, CA |
| Occupation | CEO |
| Spouse(s) | Tracy Leeds |
| Children | 3 |
Doug Leeds (born 16 May 1968), is the Chief Executive Officer of IAC Publishing, a digital media operating group launched on December 9, 2015 by media and Internet conglomerate IAC. The single digital media publisher reaches 100 million monthly uniques according to comScore October 2015 numbers and includes publishing brands About.com, The Daily Beast, Investopedia and Dictionary.com. Digital publishing is one of four key areas of strategic focus for IAC, as Leeds noted to the WSJ, saying that “bringing the sites under one umbrella will allow IAC to combine their strengths.” Leeds previously held the title of Ask.com CEO since 2010.
Leeds was named CEO of Ask.com in 2010 following his tenure as president of the company. The previous CEO of Ask.com was Jim Safka. Under Leeds's helm, Ask.com returned to its roots as a Q&A service, redesigned its site and launched an online community to generate human-powered answers to supplement answers that are indexed from across the web. Leeds also focused the company on reaching mobile users, launching Ask.com mobile applications for web, iPhone and Android as well as several well-received stand-alone applications that spun out of the Ask.com flagship experience. Ask.com mobile apps have been downloaded over one million times.
With the Ask.com product re-focused on Q&A, Leeds returned the brand to the TV airways, inking partnerships with Live with Kelly and airing new TV commercials that highlighted the Q&A value proposition. The result of this product and marketing coordination has been greater than 25% user growth in the past year as well as a tripling of revenue and 700% increase in annual profits under Leeds's leadership. IAC (company) CEO Greg Blatt stated about Leeds's management that "for the first time, maybe since we bought it, I think Ask is really hitting a stride."
Leeds has been a leading advocate of "Applied Improv" as a business tool to foster creativity and innovation. Under Leeds's direction, all Ask.com employees have been trained in using improv techniques to enhance their communications, identify new opportunities and accept a more diverse set of business possibilities.
Prior to assuming the top role at Ask, Leeds served as the company's chief operating officer, chief strategy officer, and SVP of Products where the products he launched won multiple Webby Awards and were heralded as the "Apple of search" by Chris Sherman of Search Engine Land
In addition to running Ask.com, Leeds now also oversees a publishing network of informational, evergreen content aimed at helping people learn new things and includes About.com, Investopedia, Ask.com, Dictionary.com.
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