Ad-tech is a catch-all term for advertising technology. All of the tools and software platforms that advertisers are using to deliver ad campaigns to prospective consumers are referred to as ad-tech. Advertisement technology platforms are used by publishers to digitalize the monetization of their inventory with ads. Ad-tech helps businesses plan and execute marketing strategies by assisting them in the the stages of media buying and selling, as well as performing analysis and optimizing their advertising efforts. Ad-tech software is at the heart of the programmatic advertising industry.
Below, we have compiled a list of some of the exciting Ad-Tech CEOs to look out for in the coming years.
Ali Ghodsi-Databricks
Ali is the CEO and Co-founder of Databricks, and is in charge of the company’s growth and international expansion. He was previously the VP of Engineering and Product Management before being appointed CEO in January 2016. In addition to working at Databricks, Ali is an associate professor at UC Berkeley and a member of the board of directors at UC Berkeley’s RiseLab. Ali earned his MBA from Mid-Sweden University in 2003 and his PhD in Distributed Computing from KTH/Royal Institute of Technology in 2006.
Jeremy King-Attest
Source: LinkedIn
Jeremy King is the CEO of Attest and focuses on customer service, new ideas, team growth, and redefining how the industry works. Before founding Attest, Jeremy worked for McKinsey & Company for 9 years, guiding teams in almost every industry sector and in more than 25 countries. Jeremy’s noteworthy interests include synthetic biology, mathematical simulations, and reef fish ecology. He was originally a scientist focusing on genetics, ecology, and behavior. Jeremy is also the Chair of the REAch2 Academy Trust, which assists in the support and improvement of over 60 state primary schools across the United Kingdom. He graduated from Harvard Business School with an MBA.
Naveen Tewari – InMobi
Source: LinkedIn
InMobi was founded by Naveen. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Harvard Business School, where he also earned the Dean’s Award for outstanding leadership and contribution. His former school, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, also awarded him with the prestigious ‘Distinguished Alumnus Award’ in 2013 for his entrepreneurship brilliance. Naveen is currently involved in the fueling of approximately 30 start-ups in India and has personally invested in and backed several start-ups such as NestAway, SlideRule, Mettl, and others.
Alex Vratskides – Persado
Source: LinkedIn
Persado’s CEO and co-founder is Alex Vratskides. Alex envisions a world in which data should be used to drive decisions rather than justify them. Prior to co-founding Persado, Alex was the co-founder and CEO of Upstream from 2004 to 2012. During his tenure, the company grew to become a global leader in mobile marketing, with over 40 mobile operator clients. Alex began his career as a management consultant at OC&C/McKenna Group (Boston, MA) and in United Airlines’ R&D department (Chicago, IL). Alex has a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics from Columbia University and a Master of Science in Operations Research and Information Engineering from Cornell University.
Andrew Bialecki – Klaviyo
Source: LinkedIn
Klaviyo, which was founded in 2012 by Bialecki, who is now the company’s CEO, and Ed Hallen, remained a lean bootstrapped business for a few years, offering smart databases to companies facing similar challenges. He aimed to bring third party data of various businesses to one place, to help analyze it for better user experience.
Brian Long – Attentive
Source: LinkedIn
Attentive’s co-founder and CEO is Brian Long. He previously served as CEO of TapCommerce. Brian has also helped lead mobile products at Pontiflex, a mobile advertising company. Brian created the mobile ad product at Pontiflex, brought it to market, and scaled it across thousands of mobile apps. Prior to joining Pontiflex, Brian held various sales management positions at CNET.com (acquired by CBS Interactive), where he collaborated with large advertisers such as Dell, Samsung, and AT&T to develop performance-based interactive advertising programmes. Brian holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently on leave from NYU, having completed half of his MBA in Finance and Entrepreneurship.
Stephane Coruble – RTL AdConnect
Source: LinkedIn
Stéphane Coruble is the CEO at RTL AdConnect.. Since January 2016, he has been leading RTL Group’s international sales team. From 2012 to 2016, he was the “Television and New Business Director” at RTL Belgium. He was the New Business Operations Director from May 2009 to October 2012. Prior to this, he held various marketing and sales positions at IP Belgium and RTL Belgium. Stéphane Coruble, born in 1970, holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the Institut d’Administration des Entreprises d’Aix-en-Provence in France. Stéphane has also been serving on the board of the EGTA (European trade association for marketers of TV and radio advertising solutions) since May 2018, and he was appointed Vice-President in June 2020.
Daniel Heer – Zeotap
Source: LinkedIn
Daniel Heer is the CEO and Founder of Zeotap, a global customer intelligence service that enables brands to effectively comprehend their customers’ behavior, allowing them to invest in customer relationships and products that matter. Currently, zeotap collaborates with over 70 of the top 100 global brand advertisers.
Daniel previously held a strategic position at Vodaphone Deutschland, where he designed and implemented transformational sales techniques for Vodafone’s entire German retail footprint. His desire to bring high-quality data and identity solutions to the martech landscape stems from his time as director of strategic partnerships at AppLift, a data-driven tech firm for mobile advertising.
Joe Root – Permutive
Source: LinkedIn
Joe Root is the CEO of Permutive, the only publisher-first Data Management Platform (DMP) that enables publishers to see and target their entire audience in real time. Permutive, which is backed by Y Combinator and EQT, has clients such as Conde Nast, Immediate Media, Hubert Burda, IDG, Dennis, and ESI Media. Joe dropped out from a PhD in Mathematical Genomics at Cambridge to start Permutive after earning an MSc Computer Sciences at Oxford.
Conclusion
All these CEOs have played a vital role in the evolution of the Ad tech industry. As an emerging field, such success stories motivate other entrepreneurs to try their hand at brilliance.
