Iotec CEO Paul Wright exits amid strategy reset and Platform360 acquisition
Following a sweeping period of change in the business, Iotec chief executive Paul Wright has departed.
The confirmation of Wright’s departure comes amid Iotec’s purchase of native ad service Platform360
Wright’s exit comes amid Iotec’s purchase of native ad service Platform360 and over 30 redundancies in its Plymouth office as it puts focus on the London arm.
It is understood that the company is to replace the role “in time”, however in the interim chairman Steve Hyde will take on his duties. Speaking to The Drum, Hyde said it is considering a management restructure.
“[It] gave us an opportunity to talk with Paul about what the future holds,” explained Hyde of the changes to the business. The chairman said its leaders and Wright “came to an agreement” that the latter would step down to pursue his “great many interests."
He added: “This is an opportunity for him to pursue those more avidly, so we came to an agreement that it would be right and proper for Paul to step down to pursue those interests, and the company will progress quite aggressively in terms of growth."
The Drum reached out to Wright for further information but he was unable to comment. He is understood to have left of his own accord.
Focus on London office
Since joining in 2016, Wright - the former EMEA and APAC director of Apple's digital ad platform iAd - has led the charge in positioning Iotec as an ‘ethical ad tech consultancy’.
The firm works with media agencies, and directly with advertisers to help them extract value from their media buys. It also has its own adtech stack, which includes machine learning algorithms and a self-serve platform that lets brands and agencies buy across display, mobile and video.
However, the past 12 months have seen a shift in strategy for the adtech side of the business, with Hyde confirming that company has dismantled its internal bidding engine technology to instead outsource those capabilities to programmatic cloud company Beeswax.
This “efficiency” has resulted in the closure “for all intents and purposes” of the Plymouth office – resulting in “30-plus” redundancies in the engineering and development team.
“The office in London is the one that’s being driven” the exec added, saying the continued focus of the business would now be on providing a “transparent and very clean, self-serve provision for clients”.
The Drum understands that Iotec’s own AI tech, which is used by the likes of OMD, iCrossing, GroupM and Havas, will power this demand-side offering.
Acquisition of Platform360
Hyde said it will “aggressively grow” the firm through a combination of organic process and further acquisition. The takeover of native advertising business Platform360 for an undisclosed has been engineered to aid Iotec in this mission.
It offers a ‘virtual marketplace’ that lets publishers sell premium native and content space to brands which will now be embedded into Iotec’s offering.
The business will continue to trade under its current name and Platform360 and will continue to be led by co-founders Oliver Low, Andrew Mole and Alex Rosen.
"It's the first of a number of significant initiatives that we're rapidly getting on with," added Hyde.
"We've done this quickly and we'll be running the next set of iniatives rapidly over the next few months."
To support this ambition, the company also said it has has added Eric Newnham, formerly of Kinetic and Talon and an Iotec investor, to its board of directors.