Sonal Patel leaves Appnexus to take on programmatic president role at Dentsu Aegis APAC

Prior to joining Dentsu Aegis Network, Patel led the Appnexus business in Asia Pacific as managing director of Singapore and vice president for Asia Pacific. Speaking to The Drum in 2016, Patel took an early stance on ethics in ad tech and its work around machine learning.

Reporting into Sunil Yadav, president of Amplifi Asia Pacific, Patel will start her role in late April 2018.

Yadav, said: “Where our business is heading – which is towards being traded using algorithms and platforms, powered by data, it is critical to upscale and take lead in our programmatic capability when it comes to planning, strategising, advising and managing our clients. Sonal is a long time senior leader in the industry and we are excited to welcome her to our team to drive this agenda in the region.”

Prior to Appnexus, Patel also held senior roles across some of the biggest names in media and ad tech. She managed sales in Southeast Asia and India for Google's DoubleClick, worked at Buddy Media, which was later acquired by Salesforce and managed business development at Twitter for programmatic real-time in-app mobile bidding.

Patel, said: “It is an exciting time to join Dentsu Aegis Network. I’ve seen its programmatic capability grow rapidly in the past four years and am confident of its abilities to create even higher value services for clients.”

Patel’s exit from Appnexus has been amicable and Samir Shergill, VP, global markets, AppNexus even issued a thank you along with the announcement: "The transition to Dentsu Aegis is an exciting opportunity for Sonal, as investment in premium programmatic technology expands in Asia Pacific. We look forward to strengthening our valued relationship with Dentsu Aegis in the months to come."