Horizon Media Holdings, the parent company of independent agency Horizon Media, appointed Bob Lord as its first president. 

Lord returns to the marketing and media industry after spending nearly a decade at IBM, where he held various leadership roles in advanced technology, including chief digital officer. After leaving the tech giant in January 2024, he began consulting and helped Horizon invest further in AI and data.

Before IBM, Lord worked at AOL, where he rose to president and was integral in transforming the company from a legacy internet provider to a digital advertising powerhouse. Earlier, he served as global CEO of Razorfish, overseeing the digital shop’s acquisition by Publicis Groupe.

Reporting to Horizon CEO Bill Koenigsberg, Lord will help oversee Horizon Media Holdings, which was established in 2021 after Horizon sold a minority stake to investment firms Temasek and LionTree. The company has more than 2,500 employees and offices in New York, Los Angeles and Toronto. It also houses performance marketing arm Horizon Next, creative shop One Horizon, social agency Blue Hour Studios and more.

Lord will also manage Horizon Media Holdings’ international strategy—which may include digital acquisitions, according to Koenigsberg—and help integrate advanced technologies, such as AI and quantum computing, which he became intimately familiar with at IBM. 

“This industry is ripe to use all those technologies in a smart and effective way,” Lord told Ad Age. 

Koenigsberg said he’s been looking for a president over the past few years and sought an executive that complemented his skill set. “Bob has had a career in marketing, media and technology, but he's really sat at the epicenter of technology transformation,” he said. 

In an October 2022 interview, Koenigsberg said he hoped to anoint a successor within the year, with both internal and external options being considered. Asked about succession plans following Lord’s appointment, Koenigsberg said recent moves, including the promotion of Gene Turner to president and global chief client officer of Horizon Media, are “setting the table for me to move faster,” not “slow down.” 

“I think the world of Bob,” Koenigsberg said, before adding that Horizon Media Holdings has “a lot” it needs to accomplish right now. “And that's what we’re thinking about.”