BRAVE Unveils "The Class of 2026": 10 Rising Stars Rebuilding Ad Tech’s Infrastructure
by on 2nd Feb 2026 in News
BRAVE, the radically human supply-side platform (SSP) built for precision, performance, and transparency, today (2nd February, 2026) announced the launch of its inaugural list: "The Class of 2026: 10 Rising Ad Tech Stars." This definitive list honours the technical architects, yield engineers, and operational leaders who are rebuilding the open web in an era of agentic AI and privacy-first identity.
Selected by BRAVE team members, the Class of 2026 represents a fundamental shift in industry leadership. Moving away from the era of "relationship-driven selling" and "sales personalities," this group was chosen for their ability to "touch the metal", engineering the signal infrastructure required to navigate a post-cookie world.
"When we look back at the past four years, we remember a world where we were just trying to prove you could build a business on the 'person behind the pixel' without breaking the web," said Eyal Dorenbaum, senior product manager, Platform Solutions at BRAVE. "Compiling this list, we realised we weren't just looking at 'rising stars,' We were looking at the people doing the heavy lifting we only dreamed of when we started."
The BRAVE Class of 2026 Honourees:
Anya Libova (DoubleVerify) – The Bridge-Builder
Brad Tice (MobileFuse) – The Intentional Operator
Neha Kulkarni (InMobi) – The Impact Architect
Matthew Quinney (Havas Media Group) – The Ethical Strategist
Jordan Kaufman (Equativ) – The Curation Mastermind
Shira Shkedi (Intent IQ) – The Identity Pioneer
Adam Knoyle (Samsung Ads) – The Data Wiz
Liora Fox (Ogury) – The Authenticity Believer
Shir Elzam (Nexxen) – The Operations Specialist
Sarah Kim (Magnite) – The Ownership Advocate
The full article, featuring in-depth profiles and the BRAVE team’s manifesto on the "Infrastructure of Tomorrow," is now live on the BRAVE blog.
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