Neal Thurman

Neal Thurman

Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer

Neal Thurman is Co-founder and CEO of the Brand Safety Institute and the Director of the Coalition for Better Ads. He is also a Co-chair of the Education Committee at the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) and leads the education track for the Engage Responsibly initiative. Over the course of a 30-year career, he has experienced “digital” as an entrepreneur, publisher, and consultant to Fortune 500 companies including Coca-Cola, Sony Electronics, Fannie Mae, AOL, the McGraw-Hill Companies, and the US Federal Government. Neal holds an MBA from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and Bachelors degrees in Political Economy and Psychology from The Johns Hopkins University. Outside of work, he spends most of his time at his son’s little league and travel baseball practices and games and serving on the Board of Loudoun Soccer.

Mike Zeneis

Mike Zaneis

Co-Founder

Mike Zaneis is the Co-Founder of the Brand Safety Institute, which is the culmination of a career focused on improving the digital advertising ecosystem. In addition, he has served as the CEO of the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) since July 2015, leading TAG's efforts to eradicate digital advertising fraud, malware, ad-supported piracy, and to increase transparency across the digital advertising supply chain.

Prior to taking the helm at TAG, Mike served as the Executive Vice President and General Counsel for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). He created the organization's first Public Policy Office, headquartered in Washington, D.C., representing the industry before the United States Congress, federal regulatory agencies, international legislative bodies, and at public conferences. As General Counsel for the IAB, Mike oversaw internal legal operations of the organization and provided leadership on key judicial proceedings impacting the interactive advertising industry.

Prior to joining IAB, Mike served as Executive Director of Technology and E-Commerce at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world's largest trade association. He received his bachelor's degree from Michigan State University and both his Juris Doctor and Masters in Public Policy from Georgetown University. Mike has served as an adjunct professor for Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy.

AJ Brown

AJ Brown

Chief Operating Officer

As Chief Operating Officer, AJ orchestrates BSI's operations across its editorial, educational, and partnership endeavors. Prior to joining BSI, AJ served as Head of Brand Safety and Ad Quality at Twitter, where he was charged with ensuring that the platform delivered a positive advertising experience by serving high-quality ads in brand-safe environments. In addition to establishing Twitter’s Brand Safety practice, in his nearly seven years with the company Brown was a driving force in company milestones including the development and enforcement of civic integrity policies for ads, enhancements in transparency, and the creation of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media. His work to promote responsible monetization at Twitter aligns perfectly with BSI’s mission to continuously drive a healthy and sustainable advertising ecosystem.

Louis Jones

Louis Jones

Chief Marketing Officer

Jones serves as the CMO for the Brand Safety Institute, which follows a two year stint as the Brand Safety Officer (BSO)-in-Residence. Previously, Jones was EVP, Media & Data at the 4A’s (American Association of Advertising Agencies) where he jumpstarted the industry focus on brand safety with the creation of the 4A’s APB.  With more than 30 years in the ad industry, Louis has been the CEO of Maxus  - Adweek's Agency of the Year in 2012.  Previously,  Jones was responsible for Havas Digital’s global services, including product development across the various digital agency networks - digital, direct response, mobile, systems integration, and creativity after Louis led three years of double-digit growth for Media Contacts’ US operations as EVP, Managing Director USA.  His first ten years in advertising were spent at J. Walter Thompson in New York.  

Dan Dilsaver

Dan Dilsaver

Vice President, Information Technology

Dan has served as BSI's Vice President of IT since 2018. He brings decades of leadership, project management, and IT experience to the role. Dan carefully curates a suite of IT systems and services to ensure that BSI's mission is executed with minimal cost, maximized ease, and high reliability. Dan can often be found sharing mantras like, "my favorite color is done", "good enough is good enough", "plan to fail; don't fail to plan", and citing talks from people like Ryan Singer. As a consummate IT enthusiast, one of Dan's favorite things is reminding us often how profiles like this are used in social engineering attacks. Dan has never included fishing or phishing on a list of favorite hobbies.

Jeremy Spitzberg

Jeremy Spitzberg

Director, Digital Strategy

In 1972, a crack web development unit was born in prison, sent by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. This man promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the San Diego underground. Today, still wanted by the government they survive as Director of Digital Strategy for the Brand Safety Institute. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them... maybe you can hire Jeremy Spitzberg.

Victor Glenn

Victor Glenn

Multimedia Journalist

Victor Glenn joined the BSI team in 2021 as our Multimedia Journalist. With his background in traditional and digital news media he has produced content for our Knowledge Centers and the BSI Blog, among many other projects. Hailing from Austin, TX, Victor is an honors graduate of Texas State University where he studied Mass Communication with a minor in Business. Prior to Texas State he also earned a film degree and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. If Victor isn’t working you can most likely find him trying a new recipe in the kitchen, working on his travel blog, and exploring what the world has to offer.

Elijah Pysyk

Elijah Pysyk

Creator-in-Residence

Elijah Pysyk brings his passion for enhancing digital presence to our team, assuming the role of Creator-in-Residence. With a distinguished 11-year background in empowering small businesses and content creators through video production and brand cultivation, Elijah is committed to fostering digital brand growth through his distinctive perspective on marketing, favoring "creative decisions backed by data."