About Basis Technologies

Shawn Riegsecker is the CEO and Founder of Basis Technologies. He founded the company in 2001 intent on developing the most comprehensive, automated and intelligent software platform for the digital media industry.

His leadership, commitment to innovation and modernized approach to culture and employee happiness have led Basis Technologies to receive many accolades, including appearing on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500, the Inc. 500, and No. 1 on Crain’s Chicago Business’ Best Places to Work for three years in a row.

Shawn is a member of the Young President’s Organization (YPO) and a founding director and co-chairman of Unite America, a new movement working on solving the partisan divide in politics through the election of Independent, moderate candidates.

He serves on the board of directors of The Director’s Cup, a ski pro-am focused on bringing together influential leaders to aid and support the U.S. Ski and Snowboard team. Shawn is also serves on the Board of Governor’s of the Metropolitan Planning Council, dedicated to shaping a more equitable, sustainable and prosperous greater Chicago region.

Shawn is an active angel investor through Firestarter Fund, a venture capital fund driven by a network of successful technology entrepreneurs in Chicago.

Tyler, a 16-year veteran at Basis Technologies, leads software and service sales teams and Basis Technologies’ managed service organization. In this role, he oversees a team of more than 150 sales professionals and 300 service specialists.

Tyler was the fourth employee hired at Basis Technologies and has advanced his expertise and knowledge of digital media throughout his ascension within the company. Most recently Senior Vice President of Client Development, he managed a team that drove Basis Technologies’ relationships with more than 300 regional, independent agencies in the past year. This group was also awarded the 2016 IAB Sales Excellence Award. His extensive experience includes overseeing the digital advertising strategy of more than 1,200 brands.

Tyler’s career began with Real Media, one of the original Internet media services and technology firms. He moved on to Publicitas North America, where he sold advertising for Sports Illustrated and Entertainment Weekly, and then to Forbes magazine where he was the Southwest Director.

Katie leads Basis Technologies’ marketing, customer education, and sales engineering functions. With 20 years of experience in the digital marketing and advertising space, Katie was the third employee hired at Basis Technologies and has held various roles throughout her tenure.

Most recently, as Executive Vice President of Customer Experience, Katie oversaw the organization’s customer success team and led the go to market strategy and implementation of  the Basis platform. Previously, Katie launched, built, and led various new business units and teams within the company, including Basis Technologies’ publisher solutions division and private ad exchange, overseeing everything from product development, to marketing, to sales for each. She began her career at Basis Technologies as a media planner and buyer, handling the digital media strategy and execution for multi-million dollar accounts including General Motors, Dell Computers, and Lionsgate.

Katie got her start in print sales, as an advertising account executive for the Cincinnati Enquirer. She is originally from Milwaukee, and lives in Chicago. Katie holds a B.A. in English from Indiana University.

Hiten Mistry leads the product direction for Basis Technologies, serving as the lead architect for Basis, the industry’s most comprehensive, automated and intelligent digital media platform. Hiten orchestrated the formation of Basis by integrating Centro’s media workflow automation software with the SiteScout programmatic advertising platform Centro acquired. Prior to this acquisition, Hiten served as SiteScout’s director of platform operations.

Hiten previously supported business architecture for marketing & channel strategy at the Royal Bank of Canada. He has also led new product introduction process and end-to-end architecture for new features & services at Bell Mobility.

Hiten has an M.B.A. from the University of Toronto, and a Master of Engineering from Simon Fraser University.

Emily Barron oversees all aspects of human resources for Basis Technologies. She is responsible for developing and executing human resource strategy in support of Basis Technologies’ business plan and strategic direction. She also drives the programs that contribute to Basis Technologies’ award-winning workplace, as recognized by Fortune, Advertising Age, and Crain’s Chicago Business.

Emily ascended to her role after spending 11 years at Basis Technologies building her career in digital media by overseeing multi-million dollar cross-channel digital media spending from nationally-recognized brands. She later adopted leadership roles in Basis Technologies’ business operations side and then human resources. She was Basis Technologies’ second employee when she joined in 2004 as a media planner and buyer. Before Basis Technologies, she worked at Mass Mutual, CDW and AT&T.

Emily grew up in Cincinnati and graduated from Purdue University with a B.S. degree. Emily and her husband reside in the Western Suburbs of Chicago with their two young boys.

Clayton leads Basis Technologies’ finance operations. Prior to joining Basis Technologies, Clayton served as chief financial officer of Paintzen, a technology business where he was overseeing multiple departments, and where he helped navigate rapid growth through its sale to PPG Industries (NYSE: PPG). Prior to Paintzen, Clayton was part of the finance and strategy team at healthcare technology business ZocDoc, where he played a pivotal role in its multibillion-dollar valuation capital raise.

Clayton has served as an advisor, outside CFO, and board member for several high-growth technology businesses. A key partner for business leaders in their achievements, Clayton has navigated successful outcomes including ZipDrug’s sale to Anthem, Inc. (NYSE: ANTM), MyClean’s sale to Surge Private Equity, and several capital raises and organizational strategy implementations.

He began his career at KippsDeSanto, an investment banking firm with an aerospace/defense and technology focus, after attending Georgetown University McDonough School of Business.

As chief technology officer, Michael oversees engineering, quality assurance and production operations at Basis Technologies. He leads a group of talented engineers and architects charged with development and operation of the Basis platform, as well as data solutions aimed at providing exceptional reporting and insight across the data that Basis generates.

Michael’s 28 years of industry experience encompasses a diverse range of innovation-minded organizations: before joining Basis Technologies in 2014, he worked as the Director of Research and Development for OpenText, where he developed the mobile strategy for the company’s Social Workplace offering and drove implementation of its software for clients. Prior to OpenText, Michael worked as the Director of Research and Development at Hummingbird, where he was leading various communication and document management solutions.

Jeff Coon has spent the bulk of his 25+ years in the software and advertising industries focused on strategy and alliances.  He joins Basis from Progress Partners, an investment bank, where he focused on programmatic advertising, and has advised multiple DSP, SSP, identity and data-related M&A transactions.  Previously, Jeff led strategy and alliances at Inmobi, the largest ad supply platform in APAC, and led business development at Quantcast, a top web performance DSP.  Jeff joined Quantcast following their acquisition of his startup, Makegood Software, in 2013.  Makegood was developing a platform to automate ad operations, data management, reporting and billing for advertisers.  Jeff entered the advertising world in 2007 when he joined a small automotive social network, CarDomain, which grew into one of the largest automotive ad networks.

Jeff began his career in the enterprise software space.  After graduating the University of Washington [ Go Huskies! ], Jeff transitioned an internship into a role developing commercial database software and deploying scaled data-warehouse & analytics platforms.  After realizing software engineering is hard, he moved into sales, and quite enjoyed his few years selling statistics software.  He then joined DataChannel, and helped them grow into a market leader in intranet software, and was deeply involved in their pioneering web services platform.  Jeff then took nearly a year off to recharge his batteries, after which he consulted to Microsoft, where he split his time between program managing special security-related software projects and leading revenue teams, including the multi-billion dollar US Server & Tools Enterprise channel.

When he’s not thinking about the next big thing in advertising, Jeff is most likely in the mountains with his wife Jennifer hiking, climbing or skiing.

As the EVP of Media Services & Operations at Basis Technologies, April leads a team of 300 media professionals focused on helping clients solve business challenges in the complex world of digital media.

April has over 20 years of experience partnering with multiple Fortune 500 brands to develop omnichannel media plans and investment strategies that deliver results. Prior to joining Basis Technologies, April spent several years at IPG and Omnicom agencies working in leadership roles. April’s background includes planning and activation across the entire media landscape inclusive of print, out-of-home, radio, and television, with nearly two decades of digital media experience. She has partnered with brands within the CPG, energy, finance and insurance, healthcare and pharmaceutical, recruitment, retail, travel, and tourism verticals.

April has been the recipient of the IPG Organic Growth Initiative Award, and her past work received an Effie.

Joanna is a results-oriented portfolio, program, project management, and change leader with a history of leading highly successful teams in enterprise-level and global environments.

Prior to joining Basis Technologies, she was Director of Digital Portfolio Management at Weight Watchers International for over seven years. Her background also includes five years managing Federal and State Accountability Programs for the State of Georgia and five years in project management consulting.

Derek serves as General Counsel and leads Basis Technologies’ legal operations.  As the first in-house lawyer at Basis Technologies, he has been responsible for building the legal team and function from the ground-up.

Derek has more than 20 years of experience as a business lawyer, working both in private practice and as in-house corporate counsel.  Immediately before joining Basis Technologies in 2019, Derek worked at Oracle, supporting their cloud and data/marketing cloud businesses.  Before that, Derek was a shareholder at Vedder Price, a law firm headquartered in Chicago.

Derek received both a B.S. and J.D. from the University of Oklahoma and is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP)/US.

He lives in Chicago with his wife and four children.

Tim Smith leads Corporate Development and Partnerships for Basis Technologies. In his role, Tim is responsible for mergers and acquisitions, industry insights, channel and vendor evaluations, partnership agreements and oversight into implementation and review of existing partners.

Tim has been with Basis Technologies since 2009, and has held various roles with the company.  Before his current role, Tim was responsible for leading Basis Technologies’ entrance into emerging media channels. Prior to his time at Basis Technologies, Tim helped launch MySpace’s Integrated Marketing team. He guided a host of global brands’ entrance into the nascent social media category, and developed integrated marketing initiatives that utilized a combination of existing and custom programming and third-party technologies to support engagement strategies on the native platforms. Tim began his career in Marketing/Advertising with time at both OMD and Mindshare, where he launched and managed communication strategies for a portfolio of global brands.

Tim holds a B.A. in English from Lake Forest College, and a M.B.A. from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

As GM of the Technology Division, Matt Sauls leads a group of teams that function as the technical operations and support center for Basis Technologies. He previously served as VP Product Strategy and VP Operations.

Matt is a leading expert in ad-tech and real-time bidding software, and has been involved in building digital marketing technology for over 20 years. Prior to joining Basis Technologies, he was a founder at SiteScout, which was acquired by Basis Technologies in 2013. At SiteScout, Matt built the company’s operational and customer-facing departments, formed many of the company’s key industry partnerships, and helped shape the product vision for one of the industry’s first DSP technologies.