It will be Steib’s job to bring Vente-Privee, which launched in France in 2001, to the U.S. market.

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The daily deals space has become much more crowded in the past year. And Vente-Privee is aiming squarely at one of the niche leaders in the space, Gilt Groupe, which has already begun its own expansion efforts into local e-commerce, men’s shopping and travel.

Having Amex behind it, with its existing, long-term relationships with retailers, gives Vente-Privee a certain advantage, even if the name will likely strike most Americas as a Starbucks’ drink order instruction.

Steib is a widely-respected, well-liked advertising and media executive, having most recently served as Director of Video Advertising for Google’s Americas Operations. He had previously managed Google’s Americas business teams for its emerging ad products: Mobile Ads, Local Ads and Commerce—that latter item could help him in organizing his plans for Vente-Privee, as his experience has generally been focused around products directed at ad sales. During his time at Google, Steib was perhaps best known for handling the launch of Google TV Ads, an online marketplace for ad sales via the set-top box. That

Before joining Google, Steib was GM of Strategic Ventures at NBC (NSDQ: CMCSA) Universal, where he helped create NBC Weather Plus, an all-digital broadcast TV network. Earlier, he worked on the incubation of new media businesses for Walker Digital, LLC. Steib also spent two years as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company. Release