In the 31 years since the first banner ad appeared, ad tech has become essential to global commerce, directly employing 1.54 million people and generating $974 billion in revenue in the United States. This contributes to an overall digital economy valued at nearly $5 trillion, representing 18% of the nation’s GDP.
Yet, despite ad tech’s importance, little attention has been paid to what qualities enterprise leaders must possess today to ensure their companies’ continued growth.
Nearly 10,000 companies operate under ad tech’s banner, with more than 400 new ones launching annually. They encompass dozens of specialties now central to marketing and media, from supply forecasting to privacy assurance to cross-platform integration. The sector has endured decades of instability, false starts, consolidations and technological disruptions. The most destabilizing wave yet – artificial intelligence – is already reshaping the industry, forcing Fortune 500 firms to work with companies that didn’t exist 18 months ago.
As ad tech OGs ourselves – Ann created one of digital media and marketing’s first specialized executive recruiting firms, and Randall led the IAB for 15 years – we set out to uncover how the next generation of executives will drive growth amid a surge of disruption. We spoke to a score of ad tech leaders – including IAS CEO Lisa Utzschneider, MediaMath Founder Joe Zawadzki, Reddit COO Jen Wong, Amazon VP of Video Advertising Krishan Bhatia, Index Exchange CEO Andrew Casale and more – to uncover seven competencies essential for the success of the next generation of ad tech leadership.
1. Product fluency
For next-generation executives, product expertise is central to everything ad tech companies and their customers do.
This represents the most fundamental deviation from traditional advertising leadership. Historically, advertising executives viewed technology as back-office systems rather than core strategy. Early ad tech was often criticized as building features rather than companies, relying on slight technical variations of existing offerings. Today, product and company strategy have become indistinguishable.
2. Mastering market dynamics
In 2007, US digital advertising revenue totaled only $21.2 billion. This insularity impeded growth and contributed to numerous false starts. (Remember deep-packet inspection? Or blockchain programmatic?)
Today, 75% of all US advertising – $250 billion in spend – transmits over the internet. The higher stakes require contemporary leaders to possess a keen understanding of industry structure and dynamics that predecessors lacked. Leaders must comprehend the totality of economics between ad buyers and sellers and how money flows through the system.
3. Partnership mentality
Publishers, agencies, brands and technology firms have historically existed in interdependent but exclusive silos.
Today, all marketing sectors unite around a common fuel: data produced by supply-chain technologies. Moving from direct ad inventory sales toward recurring revenues built on data integration has diminished the importance of “golf-course relationships” in favor of substantive forms of cooperation and coopetition.
Regardless of their specialization, most companies are now in the data business. But companies must protect proprietary data while using it collaboratively for mutual benefit.
4. Regulatory acumen
After two decades of minimal government oversight, data breaches and privacy failures have transformed ad tech into a regulated industry. The European Union’s 2018 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) led to 144 countries implementing national data privacy laws covering 6.64 billion people. Twenty US states now have comprehensive data privacy laws.
This regulatory environment represents a profound departure from ad tech’s past, when most companies neglected policy expertise and legal compliance. Contemporary leaders routinely receive extensive questionnaires from global regulators and must qualify potential partners’ adherence to ethical and regulatory norms.
5. Scale sensibility
Next-generation leaders aren’t required to have large-platform backgrounds. However, Big Tech experience provides invaluable training in elevating global businesses. They learn executive presence, profit and loss management and how to achieve goals at billion-dollar scale.
Many earlier ad tech founders aimed to sell companies to consolidators rather than build enduring enterprises. This cash-out objective once dominated the industry, producing complex marketplaces filled with doppelganger startups offering similar products.
This period ended approximately three years ago when large platforms reduced M&A activity, forcing VC and private equity firms to require revenue growth paths from portfolio companies. Next-generation leaders should keep these new expectations in mind rather than following the industry’s old exit-focused playbook.
6. Perpetual learning mindset
Technology evolves too rapidly for reliance on historical knowledge alone. Learning agility extends beyond technical knowledge to regulatory environments, privacy frameworks and global market dynamics.
Constant change requires leaders who are comfortable with ambiguity, even as they maintain strategic direction. Such centeredness helps performance: Leaders who are self-aware about their own limitations and abilities will staff teams capable of continuous learning.
7. Grit
With AI reshaping the industry, current workflows such as media planning, campaign activation and creative processes are being enhanced and automated. Large marketers are implementing AI tools for customer segmentation, experience management, creative assembly and optimization and much more.
The AI transformation creates new abstraction layers, making previously complex tasks easier while reducing human staffing requirements. However, fundamental questions remain about agent-first experiences, engineering requirements and humans’ role in marketing.
Absent clear playbooks, grit has emerged as the seventh essential quality. Unlike the sector’s cash-out period, today’s leaders must navigate innovation uncertainty, rally staff into gray zones and shape plans knowing they’ll evolve rapidly.
These seven competencies – product fluency, mastering market dynamics, partnership mentality, regulatory acumen, scale sensibility, perpetual learning mindset and grit – define the leadership requirements for ad tech’s next generation as the industry faces its most transformative period yet.
“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.
Follow Ann Blinkhorn, Randall Rothenberg and AdExchanger on LinkedIn. A longer version of this column can be found at https://www.blinkhorn.us/insights.
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