Lartease Tiffith is zigging where others have zagged.
There’s been an exodus of public policy executives leaving trade organizations and heading to work in-house at one of the Big Tech platforms, mainly Facebook and Google.
But in January, Tiffith joined the Interactive Advertising Bureau as its EVP of public policy from Amazon, where he worked for more than three years.
“I see this as a pivotal moment for our industry, and I want to be out there working on behalf of the entire industry,” Tiffith says on this week’s episode of AdExchanger Talks. “At Amazon, I can do that for the company, but being at the trade association level working on behalf of hundreds of member companies and organizations, I can do this at a greater scale.”
It’s a huge job.
States have passed or are drafting their own privacy laws, lawmakers are introducing bills that could hobble the data-driven advertising ecosystem, and the Federal Trade Commission is entertaining a petition calling for rulemaking to prohibit “surveillance advertising.”
To name just a few of the items on Tiffith’s priority list.
“Obviously, I know that [the technology industry] is facing some criticism, and I think it’s fair,” Tiffith says. “But it’s starting to become the norm. And it’s overlooking all of the benefits people get from technology.”
Also in this episode: Staying on top of the many state-based data privacy laws, finding a way to work with a less business-friendly FTC and what it was like serving as senior counsel to Kamala Harris when she was a senator before becoming vice president. (They still keep in touch.)
