BBC global ad sales boss Tom Bowman is leaving the corporation to join UK-based programmatic company Intelligent Optimisations (IO) as chief executive.

Bowman – an M&M Global blogger – arrived at the BBC in 2007, rising up to become global SVP sales operations at BBC Advertising. Prior to this, he spent a decade in senior sales roles at Microsoft.

He joins the specialist prospecting demand-side platform (DSP) in the midst of a recruitment drive. In recent months, Emily Hanson has been recruited as vice president for marketing from Rocket Fuel, Adrian Degutis has arrived as sales director from Vibrant Media, and Melina Gisler has joined from Unanimis as commercial product director.

The new leadership team is tasked with expanding IO’s presence across EMEA, APAC and the Americas.

Bowman said: “I’m delighted with the opportunity to drive the future of advertising with IO. Their powerful machine-led insights combined with its dedicated teams of world-class data scientists and analysts offers a strong and unique value proposition to the market.

“I look forward to furthering the company’s shared vision for transparency, efficiency and flexibility to make IO universally recognised as the leading global solution for programmatic ad buying.”

IO board member and interim CEO Charles McGregor added: “Tom is highly regarded for his dynamic leadership across some of the world’s leading media brands, which makes him a perfect fit to the IO family. His appointment underscores our commitment to becoming one of the leading programmatic advertising platforms.

“With Tom at the helm, I’m confident that we’ll achieve this aim both in here in the UK and other international markets.”