Brian Florido joins Linkby as Chris Wirasinha gets band back together
Brian Florido and Chris Wirasinha
Former Val Morgan Digital managing director Brian Florido has been appointed Linkby’s commercial product director.
Linkby, a service that connects brands with publishers to get editorial coverage, was co-founded by Chris Wirasinha, who previously worked with Florido at Wirasinha’s former business Pedestrian. Florido’s appointment sees at least seven former Pedestrian staff now at Linkby.
Florido will be responsible for pushing Linkby’s Pubfeed product — which distributes editorial content across publisher sites in a feed. Brands pay either per click (CPC) or by impression (CPM), and editors retain control over the content, according to Linkby.
Wirasinha described Florido as a “savvy executive with deep relationships across the global publishing landscape”.
“He built the Val Morgan Digital business from the ground up and was instrumental in the record-breaking commercial success that Pedestrian achieved,” Wirasinha said in a written statement.
Several other former Pedestrian employees have joined Wirasinha at Linkby. Head of partnerships AU Pete Richardson, senior partnerships manager Jaymie Walker, partnerships manager Liam Creeley, partnerships and growth manager Bec Hawkins, content editor Chris Neill, and ecommerce content writer Isabella Noyes all worked at the youth culture publisher.
In a statement, Florido said he had implemented Pubfeed while at Val Morgan.
“I saw first-hand Linkby’s ability to bridge the gap between performance focused brands and digital publishers. The combination is building a global growth engine for performance marketers and a transformative new source of revenue for publishers.”
Linkby operates in global markets (including the US and UK) as well as Australia, and now employs over 100 people.
