Greg and Geoff unpack Google's latest ad tech remedies and what they could mean for competition, interoperability, and the future of programmatic.

Does an "open" exchange actually create more competition? And what does Google's continued dominance tell us about where the market is heading?

Have a perspective, a topic, or a story you think belongs on Leadership In? Email us leadershipinpodcast (at) gmail (dot) com. 

Ken Rona, Chief AI Officer at JWX, joins Greg and Geoff to share a glimpse under the hood of JWX's AI transformation.

Ken shares how projects that once took a year are now taking four weeks, why getting people to work differently is the harder part, and where he thinks AI is taking the ad tech stack.

Plus a quick look at Ken's unlikely path from rock-band sound engineer to Chief AI Officer.

And check out Ken's Refacto newsletter.

If you’re thinking about becoming an independent  consultant, this episode is for you.

Geoff and Greg trade the usual interview format for a three-way roundtable with fellow independent consultant James Deaker, aka The Yield Doctor, founder of Korukea Media. James spent decades in pricing and yield leadership roles at Yahoo, Verizon, and Microsoft before going independent, and he currently splits his time consulting for clients including Lyft.

Solo or team? Consultant, advisor, or fractional? How is AI impacting consulting? The three compare notes and share their honest pros, cons, and best advice for anyone thinking about making the leap.

Resources mentioned:

• David A. Fields Consulting

• MyLance / Bradley Jacobs

• Fractionals United

In every guest interview, Greg and Geoff ask guests what they want their legacy to be. 

This week, they reflect on the life and legacy of Dolly Parton, a talented musician, actor, comedian, entrepreneur and philanthropist. And someone who wanted to be remembered for books. 

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library - https://imaginationlibrary.com/

Geoff and Greg sit down with Pamela Slea, Chief Executive Officer at Boltive, a digital security and privacy compliance company, who took the top job after building a career across Google, Criteo, AppNexus, Index Exchange, and InMobi.

Pamela shares how she built her career starting from a Google temp job, how she never really had a mentor pulling her through the ranks, and how she's steering a small, AI-native team through the shift from programmatic to agentic transactions. Plus her take on where the industry got consumer privacy wrong the first time, and why she's not afraid to hire her own best friend.

The Open Exchange welcomes our first guest: adtech executive, investor and advisor Lewis Rothkopf joins Greg and Geoff to make the case that the best technology is invisible, and that the industry should spend less time on the plumbing and more on the outcomes it enables.

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With VideoAmp and Nielsen One's departure from Media Rating Council (MRC) accreditation, Greg and Geoff trace the MRC's roots back to the 1963 Harris Committee hearings and ask what its self-regulatory model means today, in a market where measurement companies increasingly resemble media businesses and AI raises new questions about who (or what) gets audited.

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Greg and Geoff unpack Walmart's acquisition of Vibe.co and what it signals about the race to build and scale commerce media marketplaces across formats, advertiser segments and geographies.

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Greg and Geoff sit down with Ali Manning, Chief Operating Officer at Chalice, who co-founded one of adtech's hottest AI companies after senior roles at Google and Snap.

Ali shares how being underestimated became her edge, why she rejected advice to smile less and talk slower, and what it means to build a company culture where people can show up as themselves. Plus her take on why the industry needs to stop talking about what AI will do and start showing what it already has.

Greg and Geoff talk non-traditional owners circling media assets, the tension between content investment and financial metrics, and what PE is about to find out.

Walmart Connect, Bending Spoons, and People Inc. are rewriting who owns the system. The metric translation problem every CMO already knows is now PE's problem too.

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