Criteo, which sells personalized display ad management services, has hired its first president, Greg Coleman. The new position reflects Criteo’s recent sales growth, a company spokeswoman says.  

Coleman comes from The Huffington Post. The political news and commentary site hired him in October 2009 as president and chief revenue officer. Earlier this year, AOL bought The Huffington Post.

Coleman also worked for AOL’s advertising business and as president and CEO of NetSeer, a search and ad targeting company. Prior to that, he was executive vice president of global sales for Yahoo Inc. Under his leadership, Yahoo ad revenue increased to more than $6 billion from $600 million, Criteo says. He also was president of U.S. magazine publishing for the Reader’s Digest Association.

“Greg is a visionary who raises the bar,” says JB Rudelle, CEO of Criteo. “With his experience and relationships, we will extend our e-commerce solutions to new clients, deepen our engagement with existing customers, and bring industry appreciation of retargeting to new levels.”

Criteo says it serves more than 1,000 e-commerce companies in 20 countries, and has delivered more than 50 billion personalized ads. Such ads typically appear on web sites after consumers browse or put into shopping carts products at other e-commerce sites, but then leave without making a purchase.

While Coleman will oversee all of Criteo’s growth efforts, he will focus on growth in the United States, a company spokeswoman says.

Arianna Huffington, co-founder of The Huffington Post, is a featured speaker at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition 2011 where she will talk about how the Internet disrupts established businesses in a session entitled “The Internet Disruption is Just Beginning.” John Kelly, vice president of sales at Criteo, will speak in a session entitled “Retaining and retargeting the Web 2.0 customer.“