by Lisa Utzschneider is the CEO of Integral Ad Science (IAS) and was at the forefront of the growth of digital advertising during her career working at Microsoft, Amazon, and Yahoo. She leads more than 800 global employees – providing marketers with solutions for brand safety, viewability and invalid traffic across the open web, Connected TV, and the largest social platforms in the digital ecosystem.
I started at Microsoft on the ‘ground floor’ in 1998 as an account manager and worked my way up to partner. The 10 years were formative in my career and I was fortunate to work for Joanne Bradford, a well-known media executive and one of the top sales leaders in traditional and digital media over the years.
Joanne came to run global ad sales and changed the business. What I appreciate is that she played both sides of the coin. There is an important distinction between a mentor and an executive sponsor, the leader in the room when a team is making decisions on potential leaders, talent and who in the organization could drive new business.
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Joanne tapped me when I was rising through the ad sales ranks, to move over to operations and rebuild a high performing team. What it meant was to engage with customers in a different way. In many ways, because I developed both sides of the coin in revenue generation and operations, it later set me up for my next role at Amazon.
Joanne guided me but also trusted me to figure it out. There was no defined blueprint for developing advertising operations, it was a skill set that I developed on the job and she eventually pushed me into it. In many ways, it was a job that no one else wanted because everyone loved the sales side.
Joanne was fearless, walked a mile in your shoes, understood the team on the ground, the challenges and opportunities and had a great way of connecting with employees in any time zone, any team. She would randomly call employees and say ‘Hello Joanne, how can I help you today?’ She inspired hundreds of employees at Microsoft and, I would argue, even today.
She empowered me to learn how to lead, encouraged me to take risks, taught me to be effective as a remote leader, how to develop your voice in conference calls, showed me preparedness and how to deal with people who upset me .
When I took over the team, we had two days of conducting a conference and, coming off the stage, she sat me down on the sidelines and said ‘Lisa, the sky’s the limit, you’ve got what it takes .’ The fact that she had that moment with me meant that she believed in my potential and I try to encourage this today.
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In our Microsoft leadership at the time, there was frustration throughout the team and some members who were not succeeding. I will never forget one location where Joanne took time out during the session.
We were sitting in a circle and she told us that next weekend is Mother’s Day. I didn’t know where this one was headed, but she said, ‘I want you to turn to your colleague on the right, look them in the eye and tell them out loud if they were to write a letter to their . their mother or parent about their strengths, the positive impact they have on the business and what they should be proud of as a parent, what letter would you write?’
We all had to say it out loud in turn and then we had to write it down in a note. As soon as that happened, all the tension left the room.
She sent it out to everyone’s parents and then, a week later, called them all on Mother’s Day. It was a tear-jerking moment for our parents.
The entire leadership team understood that we were so focused on this minor conflict that we needed to get over it. It was a powerful way to connect on a personal and deeper level as a leadership team. Joanne was also vulnerable as a leader and by showing that, it opened everyone else up too.
We at AIS are a high quality digital media company and our products have never been as relevant as they are today. As brands seek to navigate the digital landscape and find quality media, that’s where we lean in.
From cookie-based targeting to a cookie-free world, contextual targeting is our sweet spot. Of all the ads we process, it is tied to the ‘what’ and ‘where’ the ad ran. It’s never who he is.
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We have sophisticated solutions for brands and we make sure that they are not blocking everything, they are much more sophisticated helping publishers to drive higher yields and optimization, but also that brands know that they are quality media where they are running their ads.
Today, when we talk about talent development at AIS, if a leader puts someone forward to be a successor, my immediate question is whether they have told that person directly and what they the skills they may need.
Joanne did that to me and it was one of the reasons I am a public CEO today.
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