Valerie Combs

Valerie Combs is the Head of Global Communications for IAC, overseeing strategic communications for IAC and helping guide its portfolio of over 150 brands and products. Prior to this role, Ms. Combs was Senior Vice President of Communications for IAC Publishing, IAC’s collection of premium publishers, where she shaped and continues to help drive PR strategy for brands including Investopedia, Dictionary.com, The Daily Beast and Dotdash. Prior to this, Ms. Combs oversaw communications at leading Q&A search engine Ask.com, where she helped accelerate the search brand’s evolution to a Q&A platform with 30 percent year-over-year increases in positive press coverage during her tenure. She also served as the brand’s resident consumer trend expert with her commentary appearing in dozens of national and local publications, including USA Today, Huffington Post, MSNBC and Fox Business.

Prior to joining IAC, Ms. Combs ran communications and marketing for Ingenio, a Benchmark-backed ad platform that empowered small businesses to monetize phone leads that was acquired by AT&T. Ms. Combs was also responsible for launching the first-gen social networking start-up, Tribe.net, and spent years at Omnicom-owned boutique firm InterActive PR, where she led accounts for B2B tech companies and start-ups while also serving as a contributor to the SF Weekly. Ms. Combs holds a B.A. in Journalism and Theater Arts from CSU Chico.