AT&T Names Welch President Of Ad Group

AT&T appointed Mike Welch, previously head of ad sales for its Southwest region, president of the telco's AT&T AdWorks multiplatform digital advertising group. 

Welch reports to Jeff Weber, president of content and advertising at AT&T. Weber was elevated to the role last month with the departure of Dan York, who joined DirecTV as chief content officer.

Welch takes the helm at AT&T AdWorks following the departure earlier this year of Greg McCastle, who is heading up Cablevision Media Sales.

Most recently, Welch was vice president of sales for the Southwest Region of AT&T Advertising Solutions. Before that, he held several executive positions with AT&T spanning Consumer Services, AT&T Business Solutions and Sales Operations. He joined AT&T in 1997 after spending seven years in sales at The Pillsbury Co.

"I am pleased to join AT&T AdWorks at such an exciting time," Welch said in a statement. "Due to the new strategic alignment, AT&T AdWorks will be better equipped to help our clients connect all the pieces -- making it easy to buy, manage, and analyze multiplatform campaigns."

Led by Weber, AT&T's Home Solutions division oversees U-verse TV, broadband and voice services for the telco's 22-state local wireline operations. The AdWorks group provides ad solutions across online, mobile and TV platforms using proprietary, aggregated data to increase ad effectiveness.