Claria Makes Changes at the Top

In a continuing effort to shake off its reputation as a pop-up adware company, Claria has named a new top management team to implement its behavioral marketing strategy.

Scott VanDeVelde, Claria’s former SVP of global sales, has been named president and CEO. Scott Eagle, Claria’s CMO, will retain that role and also take the title of executive VP. Jeff McFadden, Claria’s co-founder and CEO since 1999, will step down from his position, but retain a consultative role.

“The board of directors and I believe that new leadership will be a catalyst to accelerate this bold change in business direction, and capitalize on Claria’s current market momentum in the behavioral marketing arena,” McFadden said in a statement.

Mitchell Weisman, formerly a senior VP in charge of software distribution deals, has left the company. With the company’s increased focus on its personalization platform and diminished reliance on adware, Jason Fairchild, VP of business development, will take on his distribution duties and lead Claria’s partnership initiatives with online publishers.

Claria began earlier this year shifting away from the pop-ups that it built its business on when it was known as Gator. It plans to replace those ad impressions with behaviorally targeted banner ads on a network of sites called BehaviorLink. The company is also banking on a content personalization tool called “PersonalWeb“, which it introduced in May.