Acast Appoints Chris Wistow as Global Head of Audio Product and Partner Sales

London, UK—Acast, the world’s leading technology platform for on-demand audio and podcasting, today announces the appointment of Chris Wistow, formerly AdsWizz UK and Ireland Country Head, who joins as Global Head of Audio Product & Partner Sales.

Wistow has been at the heart of digital advertising for streaming audio for almost ten years, with a successful track record at leading audio ad technology and streaming music services. At Acast he will be responsible for implementing the overarching audio product strategy, playing a key role in continuing to develop the company’s programmatic offering and taking it to market internationally, as well as expanding revenue streams for the business.

Wistow began his career at Last.fm, one of the original music streaming platforms, in March 2008, where he went on to become UK Group Head. In 2011 he moved to CBS Interactive (which bought Last.fm for $280 million in May 2007) as Commercial Director (Music). At CBS, Wistow restructured Last.fm’s standalone sales organisation, sales marketing, and ad operations teams into CBS Interactive’s corporate structure.

Spotting a gap in the market for digital audio ad technology, Wistow left CBS in 2014 to spearhead the UK launch of AdsWizz, the leading adtech specialist for audio streaming services and radio broadcasters. During his nearly four years at AdsWizz, he oversaw the successful launch of Global Radio’s DAX - built on top of AdsWizz’s technology stack - cemented the company’s position as the audio ad tech market leader across the UK and Ireland, and most recently drove programmatic audio adoption, launching AdsWizz audio DSP to agencies and trading desks.

Wistow, who will be based in Acast’s London office, comments: “It is immensely exciting to be joining such a talented team at Acast. With its Swedish audio-tech heritage, Acast is undoubtedly the world’s leading company for podcasters and audio content creators. I look forward to bringing my digital audio advertising and technology expertise to the mix to ensure Acast continues to drive and define the podcasting and audio on demand space.”

In the four years since its founding, Acast has pioneered the dynamic advertising insertion model, become the platform of choice for more than 2,000 audio content creators, and developed world class reliable statistics following international guides and standards to give content creators and advertisers the clearest understanding of listener behavior.

Acast is the largest global end to end platform for audio-on-demand, supporting more than 56 million listens each month. The company has built strong relationships with the content creators on the platform including both media houses and independent creators such as Watch What Crappens, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Football Ramble, Spar, Varvet, VICE, and The Economist.