Scot McLernon
CRO, YuMe
Scot McLernon entered the interactive media and advertising business in 1995, marketing banners and interactive “booths” for the web’s first online and offline trade show entitled “Web Innovation”. Since that time, his sales team leadership and unique advertising solutions have received numerous accolades throughout his career at CBS MarketWatch and CBS Interactive. He’s been branded as an industry pioneer and innovator and above all, is known for generating enthusiasm and record results from each employee under his leadership, and from his teams as a whole.
In 2007 McLernon joined Doug Weaver and Upstream Group to enter a new phase of his career but one that makes complete sense: Sales Training and Mentoring. Something he has unofficially been doing for the last 15 years as a sales leader. McLernon and Weaver are now helping shape and foster the digital sales leaders of today and tomorrow with customized workshops and Habitat – the industry's only combined training and networking event for sellers.
Prior to Upstream McLernon built and led three different and very successful web advertising sales teams, most recently with the newly formed CBS Interactive Group. McLernon’s sales teams were cited by Forrester for highest revenue per sales person for four years in a row. While under his leadership, CBS MarketWatch won “best business and finance site to advertise with” and his sales teams earned the acclaimed ASPY award as Best Overall Sales Team on the web. (The ASPY group is made up of over 100 agency votes.)
McLernon has been recognized as an industry thought leader and evangelizer who has consistently and constantly pushed the web’s advertising capabilities. In 2000, he introduced day-part advertising to the web. The following year, he publicly (and controversially) de-emphasized the value of reported clicks in a campaign. In the midst of the ad recession in 2002, McLernon created the At Work Brand Network - a group of like publishers and competitors built to rival the size and reach of the major portals. In 2003, he co-founded the Seller’s Forum, a twice-yearly aggregation of over thirty of the top brands sales VPs, gathering to share and work out industry issues for a day in an open and well moderated forum. In another industry bridging effort, McLernon co-founded the Bay Area Interactive Group (BIG) in 2004, which remains active and focused on educating and networking the Bay Area’s dominant interactive marketing community.
