Amazon Prime Video’s Steve Cox Appointed CEO of Ryff

Ryff, global pioneer of “In-Scene Advertising” and leader in virtual product placement (VPP), has announced the appointment of Amazon Prime Video veteran Steve Cox as its new CEO. He joins Ryff founder, Roy Taylor, to take advantage of the advertising industry’s seismic shift towards AI, to not only build on the company’s success with CTV, linear, FAST and influencer platforms, but to also work closely with content owners to generate new revenue streams in addition to traditional interstitial advertising.

Steve stamps his mark at Ryff with the high-profile hire of Shirley Richter Hughes, as corporate vice president of sales and customer experience. With a track record of delivering both top and bottom-line growth, in leadership roles at R&CPMK and BEN Labs, Hughes has created hundreds of millions in revenue, leading brand teams for Heineken, Mastercard, Cisco, and many others.

“Our focus today is scale, and bringing in a team of heavy hitters, like Steve and Shirley, will accelerate both product development and sales,” said Ryff founder, Roy Taylor. “I look forward to working closely with them both, and taking Ryff into the next phase of its journey.”

Roy transitions to the role of chief product officer to further enhance Ryff’s Scene Intelligence™ AI, its proprietary large language model, and a key driver of Ryff’s next stage of innovation and market disruption. Able to analyse the content of a trillion hours of video, comprehending its context and narrative, Scene Intelligence creates insights into when, where, and how brands can be seen as narratively authentic for viewers, and content creators, leading to dramatically higher brand recall and relevance as a result.

“Ryff’s technical leadership in this segment, as demonstrated with platforms like Amazon Prime Video, together with its portfolio of generative, programmatic, and brand-safe solutions are already well known in this space,” said Steve. “I’m proud to be leading Ryff, together with Roy and the entire global team, as we continue to define the future of VPP.” 

As co-founder of VPP at Amazon Prime Video, Steve took the product from initial design, through development, and scaled to the global sales team. Steve also earned a US patent for the identification, insertion, storage, and playback of virtual product placements utilising ML and AI solutions. Prior to Amazon, he held senior technical roles at Microsoft and eBay, and led product management at Staples. His comprehensive experience has solidified his reputation as a visionary leader in technology and product innovation.