Who

A former ad sales chief at Google, Armstrong was tapped by Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes to take the reigns at AOL in early 2009.

Backstory

Armstrong was raised just west of Boston in Littleton, Massachusetts—his father worked in product development at IBM and his mother worked in human resources. After heading off to Connecticut College and earning a degree in economics and sociology, Armstrong started out in finance, then quit his job after a few months to start up a local lifestyle magazine. The publication wasn't much of a success, but a year later he found his calling when an acquaintance introduced him to the internet browser Mosaic (the precursor to Netscape). Armstrong decided the future of media was on the Net and promptly sold his magazine stake to go and work on IDG's magazine, I-way. A year later, he headed off to Seattle to work for Starwave, Paul Allen's online advertising agency, where he helped launch ESPN.com and ABC.com.

Armstrong later landed at the Internet Advertising Bureau, where he found a new mentor in Rich LeFurgy, an early internet ad guru. When LeFurgy started Snowball.com, Armstrong became the company's VP of sales. He remained there for two years before getting the call from Google, joining the company's New York office in 2000. Nine years later, he got another important call, this time from Time Warner chief Jeff Bewkes, who asked Armstrong to take over for Randy Falco as CEO of AOL.

Of note

During his time at Google, Armstrong helped the internet giant become one of the advertising industry's most dominant players: Google raked in more than $5 billion in ad revenue in 2007, and the company's acquisition of DoubleClick for $3.1 billion that same year only further cemented its position as the king of online advertising. Armstrong has since been credited with helping the company diversify its online-ad business by getting more ads on YouTube and with leading the charge to expand Google's presence to print advertising and radio.

In person

Often described as a "hottie" by technology writers used to dealing with awkward, nerdy PhDs (like Armstrong's former boss's boss, Google CEO Eric Schmidt), the tall, dark, and handsome Armstrong seems to have also made an impression with the hacks who cover the ad trade, too: In 2006, he appeared on Advertising Age's best-dressed list, where he was described as a "millionaire who dresses like a billionaire."

On the side

All those millions have to get parked somewhere, no? Along with banker Bill Hambrecht, Armstrong is an investor in the NFL competitor, the United Football League; he helped enlist Mark Cuban as the UFL's first team owner. He's also an angel investor in Associated Content, a user-generated content site that, like just about every content site on the web, makes most of its money from Google.

Personal

Armstrong and his wife, Nancy, have three kids—Jack, Hope, and Summer (he's a boy)—and live in a Riverside, Conn. home they bought for $3.6 million in 2005.

For the record

Armstrong should not be confused with Rancid frontman Tim Armstrong.