We’re fast approaching Disrupt Europe, the first flagship Disrupt conference that TechCrunch will hold in this part of the world. And to help us land in Berlin with a bang, we’ve put together a killer lineup of top speakers — entrepreneurs, investors and more — from both sides of the pond, with the latest of these Tim Armstrong, the CEO of AOL (mothership to far-flung TC).
Much like AOL — one of the first dot-com giants — Europe itself has long been in the middle of a struggle between “Old World” culture and renewal and driving forward with innovation and the next big new thing. You could argue that this has been apparent and most poignant especially in the tech and startup ecosystem. So Armstrong’s viewpoint on how to get a handle on this should be something worth hearing.
And that’s before considering that AOL has a pretty significant presence in this part of the world, both under its own brand, and soon through a dedicated Huffington Post site in Germany.
Armstrong became chairman and CEO of New York-based AOL in 2009, coming from Google, where he had been president for the Americas and SVP of ad sales and operations.
He’s overseen some pretty significant changes in his time at the company, including a much stronger shift to content (underscored by acquisitions of Huffington Post for $315 million and us); some major moves into video and ad tech (like buying Adap.tv for $405 million) to counterbalance the fact that AOL will never be able to win on scale alone against the likes of his former employer; and (finally) a turnaround into growth after eight long years of decline.
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We’ll also have a Startup Alley during Disrupt, where companies can show off their wares to potential investors and partners. You can grab a table here.
To get an idea of it check out these videos from one of the days at our most recent Disrupt event, in New York, or this video with clips from other Alleys past.
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