Digital Turbine names Microsoft AI executive Ben John as CTO

Digital Turbine Inc. (NASDAQ: APPS) appointed Ben John as chief technology officer, the company announced. John joins from Microsoft AI Copilot, where he served as vice president of engineering.

John brings over 20 years of experience in AI and advertising technology platforms. He previously served as chief technology officer and co-founder of Xandr until its acquisition by Microsoft in 2022. Before that, he held the CTO position at AppNexus, described as a programmatic marketplace for digital advertising.

The executive holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science with specialization in machine learning and big data mining. He has served as adjunct faculty at New York University.

"His technical expertise and proven history of disruptive innovation align perfectly with our vision for the future," said Bill Stone, CEO of Digital Turbine. "His track record of driving scale through innovation will be instrumental in maintaining our momentum."

In his new role, John will lead the company's global engineering, product architecture, data scaling, and AI-driven development initiatives. The appointment comes as Digital Turbine continues its focus on mobile advertising technology.

John cited the mobile advertising market's projected growth to exceed $640 billion by 2030 as a key opportunity. "I am thrilled to join the team at this pivotal moment to harness AI and first-party data in ways that drive real value for mobile carriers, device manufacturers, app developers and advertisers," he said.

Digital Turbine operates mobile advertising technology that the company says is active on over 1 billion devices and embedded across more than 80,000 applications.

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