In 1995 Maymann founded Neo Ideo along with two old friends, Morten Lund (a future investor in Skype) and Lars Holm Hansen. Neo Ideo was an internet consultancy advising Scandinavian companies on internet strategy and Maymann served as Managing Partner until 1999, when the company was acquired by global advertising agency Leo Burnett. As part of that acquisition Maymann joined Leo Burnett first as its Strategic Director responsible for managing the firm’s major Scandinavian clients, but ultimately becoming Global Discipline Head of Leo Burnett’s Marketing Service practice Arc Worldwide.
In 2005 Maymann co-founded GoViral, an online video distribution company that developed video advertising platforms able to track, distribute and host video ads across multiple online sites. With Maymann’s guidance the company evolved from being primarily involved in video production to focusing on platform development, allowing it to quickly scale its operations.
In February 2011 GoViral was acquired by AOL for $96.7m. Maymann was reportedly initially opposed to the sale, preferring instead to continue building the business. However, despite being the single biggest shareholder, he ultimately acceded to the desires of the other shareholders and agreed to the sale.
After the integration of GoViral into AOL, Maymann was promoted by CEO Tim Armstrong to be the Senior Vice President of International of the newly formed AOL Huffington Post Media Group, which had been formed after AOL’s purchase of the Huffington Post for $315m, only weeks after the acquisition of GoViral. In this role Maymann was primarily responsible for creating and managing the international strategy of the Huffington Post as well as AOL’s various content
Maymann also served on the board in computer vision company Polar Rose, which was sold to Apple in January 2010. Jimmy has a Master in International Marketing and an Executive MBA from London Business School.
