MediaMath is in the midst of replacing its single product architecture with a new sales and engineering org that’s built around enterprise software and services.
The company gradually began reorganizing a year ago, first by refocusing the engineering team around specific products. Last fall it implemented an enterprise account structure within the sales team, which was designed to create higher client engagement.
As a result of these continuing changes, the company undertook a small round of layoffs last week. It declined to specify exactly how many were let go, but said cuts expressed as a percentage of total headcount was in the “low-to-mid single digits.” MediaMath employed approximately 800 employees before the reorg.
“Given the number of people moving jobs and roles, with different roles manifesting in different units, we had some folks that no longer fit the shape and size of the new org,” CEO Joe Zawadzki said. “We’ve done some wonderful things to minimize the impact of that, which I’ll leave for another day and time.”
One big internal shift, Zawadzki noted, was the creation of product business units (PBUs), in which MediaMath employees aren’t just responsible for building the product – but for implementing it, introducing it to market, and helping clients adopt it. “It’s similar to how Google, Amazon and Oracle have taken their businesses to a multi-PBU organization that’s responsible for soup-to-nuts lifecycle and product,” Zawadzki said.
MediaMath is also migrating to regional P&Ls, which Zawadzki said will give units in North America, Latin America, EMEA, and APAC “more autonomy and dedicated resources.”
Finally, MediaMath is building a “center of excellence” for its various PBUs to dip into – an effort the company hopes will help empower them and make them individually accountable.
While other ad tech firms like Turn, Rocket Fuel, PubMatic, Collective and Centro reduced headcount last year, MediaMath was quick to distance itself from some of those peers, noting that its own structural changes had been in consideration for a year and reflected a need to accommodate clients who were thinking in terms of omnichannel marketing rather than individual silos.
A MediaMath rep further emphasized that the company had met revenue expectations and continues to hire and grow organically.
The installation of MediaMath’s new business structure isn’t yet complete, though Zawadzki said the company already knows the “shape and size” of the changes. “In the next 30 to 90 days, we’ll do the final crossing of the Ts and dotting of the Is,” he said.
“There’s an opportunity here to give local teams the ability to captain their own ship within the MediaMath fleet,” Zawadzki added. “This leads to more dedicated folks who understand what they’re doing in terms of the overall MediaMath mission, but who have more local autonomy and focus…We have to gear up to let people focus on getting stuff done, whether it’s at the product level, the regional level, or within the centers of excellence.”
