One month after announcing $10 million in new funds, mobile ad network and site developer Quattro Wireless has hired a former executive from Google's DoubleClick division to raise its market profile.

Lynn Tornabene on April 15 took over as Quattro's first chief marketing officer, responsible for the company's corporate, global, internal and product marketing as well as public relations. She will work out of Quattro's New York with a dozen colleagues.

"What the board realized was that the company was at an inflection point, that it had built technology, had good clients, but it needed a senior marketer to take it to the next level," Ms. Tornabene said.

Experience she has. Ms. Tornabene most recently served as head of DoubleClick Communications at Google. Prior to the Google acquisition, she was vice president of marketing and communications at DoubleClick, the leading online display-ad management platform.

Ms. Tornabene also served stints at Stockback, WPP Group's Wunderman relationship marketing agency and PIA Radio Network.

The CMO appointment is part of Quattro's strategy to attract key talent to grow its advertiser and publisher business.

The company also hired Dan Grigorivici from Omnicom Group's Rapp direct marketing agency as vice president of data strategy, targeting and analytics.

Another new hire is former Menshealth.com national online ad director Mike Owen, who is now East Coast director of ad sales at Quattro.

These hires come soon after Quattro announced a spate of new mobile site launches and exclusive ad sales deals. It also comes a month after Quattro made public its Series C funding in a round led by Highland Capital Partners and Globespan Capital Partners (see story).

Quattro's advertiser base includes Microsoft, Sony, Kmart and General Mills.

The Waltham, MA-based company also has built mobile sites and signed exclusive ad sales deals with marketers and brands such as the National Hockey League, CBS Sportsline, CNET, BNET, Univision and Hachette Filipacchi.

Amped networks
Fuelled by venture capital and growing business, mobile ad networks have stepped up their market visibility efforts in the past few months.

Companies such as JumpTap have launched new technology, Millennial Media hired Mack McKelvey as vice president of marketing and Crisp Wireless named a new chief revenue officer.

In addition, they are also sharing more client data on an aggregate basis.

Millennial Media recently launched its own mobile-ad scorecard for brand advertisers, joining AdMob's media metrics report and the Crisp Wireless Index in shedding more light on mobile advertising and publishing.

Even Quattro is looking into the possibility of introducing its own quarterly metrics report as part of this new drive to engage with key stakeholders.

"One of the primary things I'm concerned with is the front door -- the Web site," Ms. Tornabene said about her first task at hand.

"[Also], I want to sell the company to the best effect," she said. "A lot of our competitors are out there with metrics."

Premium pride
Positioning is another issue Ms. Tornabene and her colleagues will tackle.

With virtually no advertising or branding and outwardly-similar technology, mobile ad networks have few differentiators to distinguish them from the pack. Hence the common perception that they deal with remnant publisher inventory.

Steve Rosenblatt, Quattro vice president of advertising sales, said that 60 percent of the relationships that his company has with publishers is as contractual, exclusive sales partner. And the publishers represented are premium brands, he said.

Quattro opened doors in September 2006.

"We pioneered the premium model," Mr. Rosenblatt said. "The model was to always build this premium-reach ad network ? Because we built a lot of these sites like NHL, we're not a remnant seller."

Overall, industry observers and marketers can expect the 80-person Quattro to become more open as Ms. Tornabene puts her touches on the company's marketing outreach efforts.

Still, she acknowledges that Quattro faces the same challenge as most companies: telling the story.

"Marketing's all about story-telling," Ms. Tornabene said. "Right now, we're letting the market tell the story. We're not telling the story ourselves. Of course, the stories are based on fact, it's not fiction."