Life At Nexxen with Mike Connon

Welcome to our latest installment of Life at Nexxen, a series spotlighting our employees – from their career journeys and go-to advice to the rituals and activities that make up their days here at Nexxen.

This month, we sat down with Mike Connon, Sr. Sales Director on the Strategic Sales Team. We discussed what it’s like to manage your own team, the skills you need in any sales role, and the musical start to his career.

During the weekdays, how do you get your day started?

I drink a lot of coffee. I have a 4-month-old son, and my wife and I alternate who watches him at night. The nights that are my turn, I’m up early taking care of him, typically making bottles and coffee simultaneously.

In terms of your career, what was your journey to Nexxen? 

I graduated from McGill University in Canada, with a degree in Jazz Performance as a saxophist. My first job after graduating was at a Montreal-based talent agency, recruiting musicians for cruise lines. I would recruit saxophone, trumpet, and trombone players for Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Cunard, P&O UK, Holland America, and Crystal Cruises. It was my first sales role – pitching these gigs to the musicians. 

Then I pivoted towards a more tried and true sales job back in the States, landing at a French start-up called DynAdmic. It was a great introduction to the industry because they wanted to train you on the job. A few years and one more company later, I came across an opportunity with Amobee.  

When I was interviewing at the time, each company was a niche point solution type of partner. Amobee caught my interest when they said, “We can do what that partner does, and everything else too.” As a seller, that was attractive to me – being able to sell a variety of solutions to solve a variety of challenges meant more sales opportunities.  

Can you talk about the changes that happened with Amobee integrating into Nexxen? 

The expansion of the offerings that we can provide to clients, the efficiency – it’s really exciting. We’re on the cutting edge of taking that next step by becoming an end-to-end platform – a lot of our competitors aren’t doing that. 

From the perspectives of efficiency, accuracy, and transparency, there are so many benefits to partnering with a company that owns their technology. We see these pillars becoming more important to the industry through reports coming out that aim to untangle the convoluted media buying knot. Currently, advertisers are faced with a buying journey where countless middlemen sit between their ad dollars and a served impression, both on the supply side and the demand side. Consequently, ad dollars are diluted due to increased fees, ineffective audience targeting, and poor inventory quality. 

It’s only a matter of time until more brands and agency partners realize their dollars are better spent with platforms who have proprietary technology connecting the demand side with the supply side to regain control over their ad dollars and maximize their impact.


What’s an important skill that you’ve found translates across all the sales roles you’ve had? 

Above all, the desire to win. I played a lot of sports growing up and have quite the competitive fire. I hate losing – especially when it doesn’t make sense why I lost. 

Curiosity is also big for sales. Understanding as much as possible about the architecture and engineering of a product that you’re selling enables you to work backwards when explaining a solution to a client. It’s much better to dial it back when you need to than to be in over your head. And when you can articulate complex solutions in a simple way, it adds to your credibility as a seller and instills trust in the client. 

What do you enjoy most about your current role/team? 

Recently, I’ve transitioned from an individual contributor to managing my own team. What I enjoy most is the opportunity to impact the organization through sharing what I’ve learned in this industry. Over the years, you figure out how things work; what motivates agencies,  advertisers, industry partners who can help us, our internal teams, etc. Why should this person want to collaborate with me? This leads to a value proposition that’s a win-win for all parties. I’ve been able to see this philosophy come to life through my team’s internal and external communication. And when a newer seller starts to see their hard work begin to pay off, as a manager, that’s really rewarding to see.  

I only have one more question: do you play any jazz instruments? 

I play the saxophone, soprano through baritone – that’s what my degree was in, all the saxophones. My go-tos are alto and tenor. I do write and produce some music (yes, I have a Soundcloud). It’s a great creative outlet. I’m also a big, big basketball player and fan.  

Ok one more question: your favorite basketball team? 

I’m a big UConn Huskies fan, which is very timely because they just won the National Championship!