Longtime Google Exec Tara Walpert Levy Is YouTube’s New VP Of Americas

Longtime Google exec Tara Walpert Levy is joining YouTube as its new VP of Americas.

In her new position, Walpert Levy will lead the teams overseeing YouTube’s collaborations with content creators and its media partnerships in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, and Brazil, Variety reports.

Walpert Levy is replacing YouTube’s former VP of content partnerships Kelly Merryman, who exited in October to join digital security firm Aura.

Walpert Levy starts at YouTube’s New York City office Nov. 29, and will report directly to the platform’s chief business officer, Robert Kyncl. A handful of other YouTube executives will in turn report to Walpert Levy, including head of gaming Ryan Wyatt, senior director of creator partners Jamie Byrne, head of news and sports partnerships Tim Katz, and Latin America/Canada head Nathalia Iervolino.

“YouTube is the foundation of the creator economy…and yet I think there’s another wave of explosive growth to come,” Walpert Levy told Variety

Walpert Levy has been with Google since 2011, and has served as its VP of agency and brand solutions since 2017. Prior to that role, she led ads product marketing across Google, YouTube, and DoubleClick, the online advertising biz Google acquired for $3.1 billion in 2008. Per Variety, she led development and launch for YouTube’s upfronts presentation Brandcast, as well as YouTube Select, which lets advertisers run marketing across extra-brand-safe bundles of top-performing YouTube content.

YouTube is currently looking to bring one more content executive onboard–someone to replace Malik Ducard, former VP of content partnerships. Ducard exited last week to join Pinterest; his replacement, when found, will report to Walpert Levy.