Back in March this year, IAB Australia announced the appointment of Adele Wieser as the chair of its Executive Technology Council (ETC). She stepped in to replace Angus Keene, will became the ETC representative on the IAB Australia board.
Mediaweek caught up with Wieser to see how the first months in the role have been for her, and what she anticipates will cause the biggest impacts on the industry in 2024.
Eight months on from her appointment, Wieser said she’s “really enjoying” her new role.
“I’m really enjoying it from the perspective of being able to lean in a lot more, and to really help Jonas [Jaanimagi] – who runs the ETC with me – drive the conversation forward and get everyone collaborating closer.
“It’s been a really interesting challenge in terms of having not sat in a chair position before, so it’s been a great learning and growth opportunity. But I’m loving the collaboration across the ETC.”
With so many projects on the go at once, Wieser points to the IAB Australia Mentorship Program as one of the projects that she and the team are holding their heads “very high” about.
“When we look at the mentorship program, it was launched in June 2019 – we’ve seen an incredible number of mentor pairings run through over the half year cycles that we do. This one, I think, has been one of those standout projects for the IAB and for the ETC, in terms of a number of the senior leaders in the industry leaning in to grow the next layer of leadership for us.
“We’re incredibly proud of it, it’s been one of those initiatives that has really changed our industry for the better.”
Outside of the mentorship program, other IAB projects include the annual Industry Talent Report and ACCC Transparency review.
“We’re doing really well, from the IAB perspective in general, in terms of advocating for the needs of the industry,” said Wieser.
“The work that we do day in and day out with the ETC is really around ensuring that we can inform, educate, and advocate for our industry as these key decisions are being made.
“Many companies have the ability to feed into these processes individually. But also, we’re providing the voice of the larger industry through the IAB – and the ETC is that technological centre of excellence in a way for those discussions.”
When asked where, exactly, the IAB and ETC would be focussing their attention over the next 12 months or so, Wieser said that the focus of the organisation “doesn’t really change”.
“A lot of the focus continues to be around moving the market forward from a standards and transparency perspective. We’ll also continue to lean and support very heavily the regulatory affairs, discussions that are happening with the ACCC and the Attorney General’s department, etc. The career development and community engagement will continue from the mentorship perspective.
“The one thing that I suspect many of my other ETC members are excited for is the end-of-year pantomime that the IAB is running in conjunction with Unltd. It’s going to be an absolute blast, we love to have a bit of fun and kick off our heels. Also, the fact that we can all rally behind such an incredible cause is something to be celebrated.”
Outside of her role as ETC Chair, Wieser also works as Regional MD APAC at Index Exchange, a role she said involves “overseeing the company’s operations, strategic direction, and future growth opportunities.”
Looking ahead through the Index Exchange lens, Wieser predicts that there will be a lot of upheaval in 2024, but remains “so optimistic” for the year ahead.
“There is a lot of change that is upon us – we look to one of the fundamental changes in our industry, the third party cookie deprecation that is slated to start moving next year. It’s just one of those pivotal moments for our industry. There is a very large portion of the market that is still leveraging Chrome environments, and as a third party cookies start to go away, we’re going to see a fairly sizable change towards how addressability starts to look for media buyers.
“There’s also an incredible surge in growth around streaming TV environments. We’re not only seeing our local partners growing their supply footprint and their user engagement, but you’ve got this diversification of new entrants coming in and offerings coming to market as well. Where we’ve seen the market grow very, very, very rapidly into the streaming TV space, I believe we’re going to continue to see that transpire over the next year, as well.”
The post “There is a lot of change:” Adele Wieser on her first months as Chair of IAB’s ETC appeared first on Mediaweek.