Our Advisory Board Members

Hank Close, currently serving as Founder & President of Close & Co., LLC is a forward-looking sales and marketing executive focused on advising traditional and digital media companies in maximizing top and bottom-line performance. This includes executive search, organizational structuring, process management, and go-to-market strategy. Hank’s industry experience includes running multi-screen cable and broadcast network advertising sales groups, and research/marketing operations. He employs a relentless focus on driving revenue growth, pioneering breakthrough ad models, and organizing structurally for efficient success. He has broad and recent experience in digital/mobile media, advising leading media companies including Sony Pictures Entertainment, ION Media, Weather Channel, Saban Entertainment, The Guardian U.K., Endemol Productions, and many others.

Prior to founding Close & Co., LLC, Hank served as President, Advertising Sales for the $4B+ advertising business at MTV Networks, a division of Viacom. Hank’s tenure at MTV was notable for his creating the cable industry’s leading digital sales group, driving $200M+ in annual digital advertising sales in only three years. He was widely credited with engineering a marriage of street-friendliness with high-value selling. Internally, he managed an 800-employee department for efficiency and results. He created a unique talent development culture, mentoring and catapulting numerous current industry leaders into the traditional and digital spheres. At MTVN Hank expanded his depth of relationships with the ad agency community, as well as brand marketers and fast-rising digital media platforms. Those relationships have enabled his role today as a trusted strategic advisor.

From 1987-1999, Hank was a driving force behind the market’s acceptance of Fox Broadcasting as a “fourth network.” Hank led Ad Sales Research, and later Ad Sales Development & Marketing, resulting in his promotion to SVP, Advertising Sales. He stewarded Fox past $1B in advertising revenue for the first time. His successes include the build-out of the Fox Kids Network, Fox News Channel, as well as Fox Late Night, Sports and Primetime.

Prior to Fox, Hank served as Director of Broadcast Research at J. Walter Thompson and Director, Sales Inventory & Planning at CBS Television Network, and earlier in data and research at A.C. Nielsen Company.