The adtech industry is changing at lightning speed. It can be hard to keep up with the new tools in automation, location-based advertising, attribution, mergers, partnerships, and acronyms, but following these industry experts is key to keeping pace with this rapidly changing market. Follow these 5 leaders in the adtech space to stay up to date with the latest the industry has to offer.
Jennifer Lum
Chief Strategy Officer & Co-founder of Adelphic Mobile
Why Follow:
Jennifer Lum is locally recognized as tech royalty: she’s an investor, entrepreneur in residence at MIT, and founder of Adelphic Mobile - a leading mobile and cross-device DSP for agencies and brands. Lum has been a big player in the mobile world since she started at m-Qube in 2005. Her past work includes working as the Director of Digital Content Services at Verisign and VP of Advertising at iAd before starting Adelphic in 2010, thus her social circle extends to all of the first-movers in the ad tech space.
A regular speaker on the state of mobile advertising, you can also rely on her Twitter for industry trends and tidbits from the front lines, and news of recent ad tech company progress and partnerships.
Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan
CEO and Founder of Drawbridge
Why Follow:
With a Ph. D in Information Theory, Kamakshi seems like a perfect addition to the ad tech leader roster. She joined AdMob back in 2007 where she was instrumental in developing the algorithms that help make ads more relevant to users. Kamakshis has since moved on to create her own company - Drawbridge - and has set out to solve one of ad tech’s toughest problems: cross-device identification.Drawbridge’s technology, which observes exchange and network data for similarities in device ad requests, can “recognize a user’s behavioral patterns across different devices, and match them with 70%-plus accuracy” (via Fortune).
A tireless worker with a passion for machine learning, she’s also proven she can optimize scientific engineering teams for revenue goals. It's said that the benefits of Drawbridge's technology could help advertisers see a 3X campaign lift. Follow her for the scoop on how the industry is changing from a data perspective.
Allen Gannet
Founder of TrackMaven
Why Follow:
An entrepreneur and investor, Allen started Track Maven in 2012 in response to a problem he was having in keeping track of his own marketing data and competitor intelligence. Now his competitive intelligence tool is used by Martha Stewart Living, Marketo, the NBA and NPR. He’s a holistic thinker and his Twitter feed is filled with insights across industries concerning mobile, advertising and content marketing. Follow him for insights from enterprise company’s data, content marketing tips, and the occasional political news blurb.
Kirk McDonald
President of PubMatic
Why Follow:
Kirk McDonald is a seasoned media veteran with over 20 years experience working at some of the leading digital and media companies including TIME Inc., CNET and DRIVEpm. As the President of PubMatic, he’s able to apply his understanding of the power of content and technology to optimize yield for publishers. Kirk truly believes in a vision for ad tech where publishers and advertisers see an equal benefit to using exchanges.
He’s not afraid to face the competition in selling premium inventory via programmatic - his Twitter focuses where PubMatic stands in the industry as well as industry trends to watch.
Jack Marshall
Reporter at Wall Street Journal
Why Follow:
Jack Marshall covers advertising, marketing and media with a keen eye for trends and companies changing the landscape. His work at Digiday caught everyone in the ad tech community’s eye in his series “WTF Ad Tech” that gave a holistic explanation of this confusing world and almost every acronym in the industry you can think of.
He’s proven he can stay a step ahead of the game and write for an audience with varying degrees of knowledge about the space - a testament of a great journalist. Follow him on Twitter for industry news and his hilarious commentary.
