AdRoll winds back Australian operations, shifts management to Dublin
AdRoll is winding back its Australian operations with vice president for APAC, Ben Sharp leaving the company.
Mumbrella understands the company’s Sydney office and Asia-Pacific operations will now be managed by AdRoll’s Dublin-based EMEA vice-president, Marius Smyth.
“We don’t take these decisions lightly”: Tony Gabriner, CEO of Adroll
The Sydney office was the company’s second international office when it launched in 2014, with Allure founder Ben Sharp leading the local operation. At the time, the company claimed its Australian business was growing at 300% per year, with 500 customers.
Shortly after the Sydney announcement, the privately-owned retargeted advertising company raised a further $US70 million, taking total investment to over $89 million.
AdRoll’s previous Sydney staffers refused to speak to Mumbrella about the changes, instead referring inquiries to their San Francisco press office while the Sydney switchboard now diverts to the company’s US headquarters.
The company’s US public relations firm provided Mumbrella with the following statement from CEO Toby Gabriner:
“When we met as an executive team to chart our course for 2018, we developed an operational plan to focus our team on our bold new vision. It meant making some tough decisions to reduce investment in areas not aligned with that vision so that we can accelerate investment in areas that are.
“Today we are saying goodbye to some talented people who have played an important role in our success to date. This restructuring directly impacts 5% of AdRoll’s employees, specifically across our APAC offices in their sales, marketing and account management teams.
“As a team-first business, we don’t take these decisions lightly. We saw record revenue in 2017, and setting ourselves up for success in the long-run requires focus and realignment across our teams. We’re very grateful to the impacted individuals for their contributions in helping us achieve our goals, including profitability, this year.
“We are continuing to support the APAC markets, and our customers there, with on-the-ground teams. Additionally, we have goals to grow our sales team globally, aligned with our vision, as well as our R&D team by 25% year-over-year as we double down on technological innovations that give our customers the best products they need to grow.”
Mumbrella was unable to contact Ben Sharp for comment.
Word around the market is that Signal – another ad tech import – is in the process of closing down its Oz operation. Presumably that would include unwinding any alliances or deals in place, which may take some time.
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Wow, that really came out of nowhere. Any time I talked to any of the Adroll guys, it was all about growth & flying high. It will be interesting to see how they untangle all of that…
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As investors start to figure out life in a GDPR world Id expect a run on some aspects of AdTec. Without audience consent [first party publisher obtained] retargeters would see their audience reach dry up and if they manage to retain an audience they’ll have to offer publishers a better cut of the margin.
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