Outdoor buying platform Site Tour relocates to UK leading to shake up in local operation
Leading Australian outdoor advertising buying platform Site Tour is shifting its headquarters to London in a move that will see a major shake up in its local operations, Mumbrella can reveal.
The move comes at a sensitive time in the outdoor programmatic space with the company one of around 20 throwing its hat into the ring for the Outdoor Media Association (OMA)’s tender for an automated transaction platform. Should the OMA go with a different provider for its automation platform that product would be a major competitor to Site Tour, and would have cross-industry endorsement.
Changes locally include chief commercial officer Vicki Lyon and senior software engineer Robin Green are departing, while others including head of research Greg von Nessi and chief technology officer Andrew Done currently in discussions with management about their roles.
The company currently employs between 10 and 15 people in Australia, but general manager of Australia/New Zealand Steve Geelan declined to specify how many positions would be lost here saying: “There is going to be a natural impact as we continue to shape our business to deliver the best product and best service to our customers, we will grow our business and teams in each market to do so.”
However he denied the relocation had been driven by fears the company might lose market share should it not win the OMA tender stating: “The relocation was planned before the OMA tender. It is more the interest from Europe and North America that has pulled us over there.
“We just couldn’t operate over there from here.”
Site Tour founder and CEO Michael Scruby had already moved to the UK and touted a number of senior appointments including former Havas Arena Global CEO, Steve Booth who takes the role of executive director, Graham Golding who takes the role of CFO and Andrew Mitchell who will be head of product.
The company’s product is used by a number of major media agencies in Australia, including Omnicom and IPG Mediabrands agencies, and the company also has a major contract with Australia’s largest telco Telstra to automate and trade outdoor advertising on its phone box and other properties.
Lyon is a former managing director of programmatic exchange Spotxchange.
Nic Christensen
Site Tour was so massively helpful to me when I was buying OOH – especially for brands that had huge spends and a national presence. Saved me a crap load of time.
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