Hum today announced that Dustin Smith, the company’s co‑founder, has been appointed CEO. Dustin succeeds Tim Barton, who led Hum through its early scaling phase. Barton is retiring from day‑to‑day operations and will continue to support Hum as an advisor.
For the past five years, Smith has guided Hum’s expansion into AI‑powered audience and content intelligence, launching flagship solutions such as Alchemist Engage and Alchemist Review and securing strategic partnerships with leading publishers worldwide. Under his leadership, Hum will continue to scale its platform and deepen its impact across the publishing industry.
“Hum is entering an exciting new chapter, and there’s no one better suited to lead us into the AI future than Dustin,” said Andrea Hoffman, Hum’s COO. “His product instincts, customer focus, and commitment to our values have been instrumental to Hum’s success.”
“I’m looking forward to building toward what we call ‘the Alchemist future’ – a vision where publishers harness AI-powered intelligence to transform their operations,” added Dustin Smith. “We’re committed to seeing publishers thrive in the age of AI. As CEO, I’ll stay deeply engaged with our customers and team as we expand our platform’s capabilities and scale our impact across the industry.”
