Timothy M. Armstrong (born December 21, 1970) is an American business executive. He was formerly the CEO of Oath Inc., then a subsidiary of Verizon Communications that served as the umbrella company of its digital content subdivisions, including AOL and Yahoo!. Previously, he was the CEO of AOL Inc. from 2009 until its purchase by Verizon in 2015.
A Connecticut College graduate in economics and sociology, Armstrong began his career in journalism. He became known for his online advertising sales in the 1990s, and was appointed marketing director for Seattle-based online entertainment-and-news portal Starwave, which was acquired by Disney in 1998. He was vice-president of sales at the New York-based news-and-gaming company Snowball in 2000. He became U.S. sales chief for Google, and then became President of Google Americas operations. He replaced the outgoing Randy Falco as CEO of AOL in 2009.
Education and early career
Between 1989 and 1993, Armstrong studied for a double major in Economics and Sociology at Connecticut College. He played lacrosse, was on the rowing team, and coached the women's ice hockey team for four years. He also studied at the Lawrence Academy, and became a trustee of both the academy and Connecticut College.
After graduating from Connecticut College in 1993, Armstrong was responsible for teaching high school students in summer classes at Wellesley College, for a program called Exploration. A colleague convinced him to pursue a media career, which resulted in him establishing a financial newspaper for young people in Boston. Titled BIB (Beginnings in Boston), this paper offered advice to young college graduates on entering the workforce. To finance the newspaper, Armstrong and friend Michael Dressler sold their mountain bikes and amounted to a debt of about $100,000. In the fall of 1994, Armstrong and Dressler closed down BIB to run a larger, rival newspaper, Square Deal at Harvard Square, following the death of its chief editor.
Armstrong saw considerable potential for publishing online and earning revenue through advertising. He sold Square Deal and commenced working as an ad-sales director for I-Way, run by the Boston-based International Data Group. Armstrong was later appointed to Starwave, a Seattle-based online entertainment-and-news portal, in 1995. Disney acquired the firm in 1998. Armstrong served as the Director of Integrated Sales and Marketing for Starwave's and Disney's ABC and ESPN Internet ventures. While at Starwave, he made his first $1 million online advertising deal with Columbia/HCA, a health firm.
In the summer of 2000, Armstrong was appointed vice-president of Strategic Partners at New York-based news-and-gaming company Snowball. While there he became interested in Google ads and arranged to meet its sales and operations chief, Omid Kordestani. Kordestani invited him to California to meet Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who subsequently appointed him as U.S. sales chief for Google. He held positions such as President of Google's Americas Operations, and Senior Vice President of Google Inc. Armstrong has been credited for helping establish Google AdSense in 2005. Armstrong led Google into display advertising, aided by a $3.1 billion acquisition of Doubleclick in 2007. He used part of the wealth he amassed at Google to establish the New Jersey news website Patch Media, which was later acquired by AOL when Armstrong was appointed.
AOL
In early 2009, Jeff Bewkes, the chairman of Time Warner, announced that he wanted to coordinate AOL as a private company. At the time, the firm's revenues had dropped around 22% to just under $3.3 billion between 2008 and 2009. Bewkes appointed Armstrong as CEO of AOL on March 12, 2009, seeing him as a way to regain and secure the trust of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and advertisers.
Under Armstrong, AOL became a player in advertising. In 2009, Armstrong was named by Fortune magazine as one of the "40 under 40". Armstrong helped AOL rebrand as a content company, focusing on original material, and making the decision to cut the number of ads generated by the firm to make advertising more exclusive and appealing to the most prominent advertisers. In 2010, Time Warner formally consented to AOL becoming a privately traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. It resulted in a cut of the company's workforce by one-third and a reduction to often a single featured advert a day, instead of the 15 previously. That year, Armstrong sold AOL-owned social networking site Bebo for around $10 million, a reported eightieth of its original cost. Another 1000 employees were laid off in March 2011.