MD of AOL Australia and New Zealand, Mitch Waters, will leave the business for a role at demand-side platform (DSP) The Trade Desk, AdNews can reveal.
Waters has been in the top Sydney-based position at AOL for nearly two years, but had been within the company in its various forms for five years. He joined Adap.tv in 2012 and remained within the programmatic TV element of the business through the US$405 million AOL acquisition in 2013 and the Verizon Communications buy out in 2015.
Waters will join as The Trade Desk's Sydney-based commercial director Doireann Ó Brádaigh leaves the business. She arrived in 2013 and was tasked specifically with the launch of the Australian division. It's unclear where Ó Brádaigh is now going and what exactly Waters' role at the business will entail.
In September last year, The Trade Desk had its first day of trading on NASDAQ and closed 68.61% up on its IPO price, valuing the company at close to US$1 billion. Many say its stellar debut was a signal that ad tech firms' lacklustre stock market performance in recent times could turn around.
There was a flurry of ad tech IPOs in 2013 and early 2014 but the ad tech space took a kicking in 2015 after falling stock prices throughout the year. Ad tech IPOs have largely ceased since mid-2014, which led to much speculation about the state of the entire sector. The only pure ad tech player worth more than US$1 billion is French-based performance advertising company Criteo, which has a valuation north of US$2 billion.
In other ad tech moves this year, AdNews revealed Xaxis boss Esther Carlsen would leave for Acxiom MD role; AppNexus' Dave Osborn is returning to US and REA, and Jonas Jaanimagi would be joining the IAB.
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