Canoe Ventures, the advertising entity that is backed by the nation’s six largest cable operators, has expanded its executive team with the addition of four industry veterans.
Joel Hassell was hired as Canoe Ventures’ new senior vice president of engineering and technical operations. Hassell replaces Steve Reynolds, who was interim senior vice president of engineering. Reynolds is Comcast’s senior vice president of customer premises equipment and home networking.
Hassell is based in Canoe Ventures’ Denver office and reports to chief operating officer Kathy Timko. In his new position, Hassell will be responsible for all aspects of technology development and deployment at Canoe, including the development of technical requirements and specifications; software and systems development to implement Canoe products and infrastructure; integration and deployment with programmers and cable delivery systems; technical support and maintenance of operational systems; and management and administration of engineering department personnel, contractors, budget and facilities.
“Joel is a vital addition to our team,” Timko said. ”He brings tremendous depth of experience and technical expertise. We look forward to his contributions to our engineering efforts, guiding and implementing a path to realize Canoe Ventures’ vision in advanced TV.”
Hassell most recently served as chief technology officer of Digiforge, a technology consulting firm he founded to support the cable industry. Prior to Digiforge, he led the engineering development and deployment efforts behind Dish Network’s advanced interactive advertising platform and was co-founder and CEO of Intellocity. He also served as general manager at OpenTV, where he led the company’s Americas Division.
Bruce Dilger was hired as Canoe Ventures’ vice president of advanced advertising architecture, while Domenic Centofanti joined Canoe as its vice president of data architecture and metrics.
Dilger and Centofanti join Canoe’s Office of the CTO and will report to CTO Arthur Orduña.
As the senior technology architect, Dilger is responsible for developing and improving the technical strategies and architecture surrounding Canoe’s advanced television systems. In this capacity, he will work closely with partner cable operators, CableLabs and other industry partners.
Prior to joining Canoe, Dilger spent seven years as vice president of technology for OpenTV’s Advertising Systems Group, where he was the chief architect for new products serving the television advertising industry.
In his new role, Centofanti will be responsible for technical strategy and architecture of all data elements, interfaces and models required to populate and enable Canoe’s advanced television systems, products and services.
He will be responsible for providing technical guidance to the internal engineering, product and marketing teams at Canoe, as well as partner cable operators, CableLabs and other industry partners.
Centofanti joined the company from Iron Mountain, where he served as director of business intelligence and data warehouse.
“I am excited to have this talent on the Canoe team,” said Orduña. “Bruce and Domenic bring a wealth of expertise that will enable us to build on our advanced TV platform and continue to introduce innovative products and services.”
Michael Iacovelli also joined Canoe as vice president of platform and product development, reporting to Jim Turner, senior vice president of product management. Iacovelli will direct the strategy and development of Canoe’s core platform, as well as all industry integration services that drive the business.
Prior to joining Canoe Ventures, Iacovelli served as chief technical officer of TTC Consulting.
Canoe Ventures was formed in 2008 as a joint venture between Bright House Networks, Cablevision Systems, Charter Communications, Comcast Corp., Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable.
