Lisa Utzschneider
CEO, Integral Ad Science
“It's something that really matters to a team... how their leader shows up. That I'm optimistic, that I'm transparent, and that I'm as vulnerable as they are.”
Summary
In this episode of Leadership Matters, Alan and CEO of Integral Ad Science (IAS), Lisa Utzschneider, sit down and talk about leadership and what Lisa stands for as a leader, including innovation, accountability, inclusivity, and a bias for action.
Growing up in a household in Massachusetts, Lisa was instilled with a belief at an early age in hard work and the ability to reach the sky's limit. After graduating from Bates College, Lisa joined the Peace Corps where she saw first-hand the value of having a global perspective and giving back. This ethos saturates Lisa’s leadership style today at IAS.
Listen in to hear more about how the COVID-19 pandemic has shaped IAS, prompting new methods of communication and driving a deeper connection between Lisa and her team, as well as testing her leadership as a CEO.
Mentions & Resources in this Episode
Learn more about IAS at integralads.com
Learn more about The Ad Council at AdCouncil.org
Guest Bio
Lisa Utzschneider is the Chief Executive Officer of Integral Ad Science and a member of the company’s board of directors. Lisa joined IAS as CEO in January 2019, bringing more than 20 years of digital advertising expertise and tech-industry leadership experience to the role.
Prior to joining IAS, Lisa was Chief Revenue Officer at Yahoo where she oversaw the company’s global sales organization and provided solutions for advertisers worldwide. Lisa served as CRO until the acquisition of Yahoo by Verizon in June 2017.
Previously, Lisa was Amazon’s Vice President of Global Advertising Sales, where she developed the company’s global advertising business through product, marketing, sales, and operations strategies, driving consistent revenue growth. Prior to Amazon, Lisa spent 10 years at Microsoft culminating in her role as General Manager of the national sales and service teams where she focused on driving revenue for the company’s top online advertising accounts. She also developed the U.S. advertising go-to-market strategy.
Lisa serves as a board member for the Ad Council, Bates College, and Greenwich Academy.
Follow Lisa on LinkedIn.
Clips from this Episode
On how IAS is helping marketers and digital advertisers during the COVID-19 pandemic
How IAS is using "Precision Advertising" to better serve customers
Episode Transcription
Alan Fleischmann
This is Sirius XM Radio, you're listening to Leadership Matters. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. And I'm here with my good friend, Lisa Utzschneider, who is the CEO of IAS. And we're going to tell you a little bit more about that shortly. Lisa is a leader in advertising, technology, space. She's the CEO of Integral Ad Science, a global technology company that offers data and solutions to establish a safer, more effective advertising ecosystem. Her journey is what excites me the most. Not only what she's doing today, which she's going to tell us about. It's also the fact that she has held significant positions throughout the tech world, and the media world, for that matter. She was the Chief Revenue Officer at Yahoo, leading the company's sales organization globally until the acquisition of Yahoo by Verizon in mid 2017. Actually, June 2017. Prior to joining Yahoo, Lisa worked at Amazon as the Vice President of global advertising sales, where she developed the company's global advertising business through product marketing, sales, and operations strategies. Before her work at Amazon, she spent 10 years at Microsoft leading strategic and organizational advertising initiatives and product development, sales and online industry standards that created an increased customer satisfaction and revenue growth across Microsoft. She's been on the board of the Ad Council, and IAB, as well as a member of IADs Executive Committee. He's a current trustee at Bates College and has been honored in Adweek 50, Business Insider's Most Powerful Women in Mobile Advertising, New York's Business Journal's Women of Influence, and Working Mother's 50 Most Powerful Moms. Lisa holds a bachelor's degree from Bates College and a master's degree in Public Administration from New York University. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and two daughters. And she'll tell us a little bit about them as well. So Lisa, lots of talk about today. We're gonna have some fun. I really want our listeners to really get to know you, what you're doing right now. You know, a little bit more about IAS, its purpose and its values. And then really talk about your journey a little bit because I, when I get from interacting with our listeners is they're looking not only for CEOs who inspire from what they do, but also what they represent and what they aspire for others. So we're gonna get into that a little bit today, too, because you're the perfect person to have a conversation with. So welcome.
Lisa Utzchneider
Thanks, Alan. Thanks for having me. Great to be here.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that you're here. So let's talk a little bit. IAS is one of the companies that probably touches everything we read about, but we probably don't know much about it. So if you could kind of walk us through a little bit of what IAS is how you work with brands, how you work with publishers, companies like Facebook, and Google and others. And tell us a little bit about the company. And then we'll go from there.
Lisa Utzchneider
Sure, so IAS, Integral Ad Science, we're a digital ad verification company, we're an independent company, we've been around for 10 years. I joined IAS as CEO, January of 2019. Hard to believe it's been over a year. And basically what IAS does three things we verify if a digital ad was viewed. So think about, you know, if Alan, you're watching YouTube, and you see a Coke ad run, you know, did you see the ad? Was it viewed? Was it viewed by human or bot, we're able to verify, detect any fraud activity. And the third thing we do is we verify if that Coke ad ran adjacent to brand safe, brand suitable content. And especially during now, during these unprecedented times with COVID, brand safety and brand suitability is definitely top of mind for our marketers. As I mentioned, we've been around for 10 years, we're global. We are based in 13 markets around the world. We have over 700 employees, and we were acquired by VISTA Equity Partners, a global private equity firm. Let's see, about 18 months ago.
Alan Fleischmann
Wow. You know, one of the things that struck me when I was in your offices last, you have this, I guess, this value statement that you've had on the walls in different places, and about how you innovate, you do the right thing. You're accountable. And I noticed also not only you one team, which I think I'd love to hear how you're doing that during COVID. But that you're also customer obsessed. And I love the word obsessed. That's right, I got that right. That was the values that you had on the wall.
Lisa Utzchneider
I'm impressed Alan. So we, earlier this year, we decided as a leadership team, it seemed like the right time to reshape, rewrite our company values. So we took pen to paper, and we drafted a dozen company values, and we share them out with the company. And all employees voted, give us your top six. And so we landed on the top six, and the company values include, We innovate. So given we're in the verification business, it's heavy data in tech, we process a lot of data every day. Innovation is the core of everything that we do. We're accountable. We're accountable to each other, we're accountable to our customers. We are absolutely one team and we try to be as inclusive as possible. As a company, we do the right thing. We're customer obsessed, and we have bias for action, because speed matters Alan.
Alan Fleischmann
And what was your reaction when you all came together? And then and I guess this is the same statement that you use at any office, I guess around the world. Culturally, it's translated, I imagine.
Lisa Utzchneider
Oh, it absolutely translates and especially now and I know we've talked a lot over the last couple of weeks about, you know, living and working in this unusual time where we're all working from home. You know, for us at IAS, ironically, it's been a big unifier for the company and for employees. The fact that we're all home together, we're in our homes, you know, we're vulnerable with each other, we see everything. You name it, I have seen it. In living rooms, you see the kids coming in and out, the dogs coming in and out. And you know, it's brought us together as a team. And the other thing I've seen about working from home, it's the great equalizer because everyone on that zoom call, everyone has a seat at the table, right? Everyone can turn their video on. They can turn the audio on, they have a voice and it's been very interesting to see that just how our organization's coming together.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, I remember being also in your office around the time that Italy was being struck much more powerfully at that time, but it really hadn't really had its full, or at least even even the early phases of an effect here yet in the United States. But Italy was already in full force, the pandemic. And you were doing some pretty interesting cultural things to kind of let your colleagues in Italy know that, you know, headquarters was in there with them as well as the rest of the company around the world.
Lisa Utzchneider
Yeah, so we saw, like I said, we have a global organization. So we saw COVID coming first in APAC. I remember when our team in Tokyo, they started working from home. And then it moved to EMEA. We have teams in Modena and Milan, Italy. We acquired a contextual intelligence technology last fall, which is based in Modena. That's why we have quite a presence in Italy. And our Italian team, they started working from home several weeks before us. And what they established was they started doing coffee meetups, and anyone could dial into the virtual coffee, which I've done several times. I've had a blast. But they've one rule. That when you get on, you cannot discuss COVID. You can't talk about the virus. And so they talk about things like you know, I got on, they want to know, my latest recipes. What have I been cooking? They wanted to tell me they miss pizza, you know, they just share what's going on with their families. And I've been so inspired by teams like the team in Milan, you know, how they're coming together as a team, how they're building culture, how they're motivating one another. And, you know, we'll all get through this. But they really have been a source of inspiration for me and for our broader team.
Alan Fleischmann
And other things you've done, too, I noticed. What is the thing about hats?
Lisa Utzchneider
Yeah, I've got my hat on. Right now, I've got—I always have now. Now, I've got my Paris hat. I have a whole—in my office, I now have a whole desk of hats. In our global Town Hall this morning, I could put on my top hat. I put some flowers on it for spring. Could put that on for you, Alan. But we have this theme of hats on. And it was March 13, where globally we all started working from home. And one thing that I realized pretty quickly as our senior leadership teamm that we would start doing daily stand up so every single morning, you know part of the Agile process, eight thirty in the morning, we are all meeting every single day as a team. Especially because we've never done this, everyone working from home. And so the first day I put my hat on and started a little bit of this trend that we're all in it with our hats on. And now across the company globally, everyone shows up in hats, head gear, emojis on their head, motorcycle helmets, bike helmets. I was on an APAC call last night at 10pm. And I was going to get on the call and thinking, I can't believe I'm putting a hat back on at 10 o'clock at night. I went on, you know, it's over 50 employees. There they are. Hats on. Energized, ready to roll. So it's this hats on theme. And it's a way we show up for one another. It's a way we all start the day as a leadership team. We put our hats on, we're ready to work and be together. And the other thing I've found that in our house so as you know, we have two young girls here and our girls know when mom has her hat onm mom's at work. So when I come down for dinner every night, it's okay, mom, time to take your hat off. And everyone's gotten accustomed to my hat.
Alan Fleischmann
I love the idea too because it's fun. It's inspiring. But it's also a reminder that you're working harder at home than you probably ever have collectively as a team. Hats on is kind of like that the modern day version of rolling up our sleeves. You know.
Lisa Utzchneider
Right. We have our hats on.
Alan Fleischmann
That's very, very cool. Tell us a little bit about your family and your journey growing up. Because I know you come from a very big family.
Lisa Utzchneider
Sure. So I grew up in New England in Massachusetts, and I'm one of nine children. So six brothers, two sisters, number eight of nine. Very active household. We've talked about this in the past too. Very active, very competitive, lively. And you know, very much a strong German work ethic, right, with the last name like Utzscneider, but also raised with the belief that the sky's the limit, right? That anything is possible if you put your mind to it. And it's something that I've carried with me to this day is just that strong work ethic and also that sense of optimism that you can do anything if you put your mind to it.
Alan Fleischmann
That's very cool. The big family dynamic, I'm sure is a big part of who you are and how you look at the world as well. You're listening to Leadership Matters on Sirius XM, I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. And I'm here with my good friend, Lisa Utzschneider. I say Utzschneider, you say Utzschneider. It's more German sounding.
Lisa Utzchneider
Right. And Alan, you speak German?
Alan Fleischmann
Good, more German. Who is the CEO of IAS. And she's talking to us a little bit about her background, her perspectives on leadership, and the industry that she is a leader in. You started your your kind of journey post college, I guess, in the Peace Corps. You were in Bulgaria?
Lisa Utzchneider
Yes. So I graduate from Bates College. Go Bates. And I knew that coming out of Bates, there were a few things I knew. I knew I wanted to go to graduate school. But I also knew that I wanted to experience the world. And I wanted to find an experience where I could spend a year or two living in a culture internationally, where you're a part of the community, you're making an impact, you're giving back. And I knew back then, which I was pretty young coming out of college, but I just knew it would be an experience where it's the closest you come to an international culture that you ever will in your life. And I was fortunate enough to be selected for Eastern Europe in Bulgaria. We were the first group of Americans going in after the wall fell. And I taught English at a math and science school, just south of Sofia and Blagoevgrad.
Alan Fleischmann
How did that experience influence you overall on your journey and your decisions after that? And also today?
Lisa Utzchneider
I would say there are a few things about that Peace Corps experience. And there's one in particular I've been thinking about a lot recently. And the first is global matters, right? So I'm just such a believer. And I've tried to carry this with me throughout my career that, you know, thinking about things globally, ensuring that you're connecting to international countries and cultures, you know, identifying the common threads throughout international cultures, when you're building businesses. Spending time, internationally, really matters. So just that global matters. And it's just so easy to end up in a career where you're in the US. It's very use US centric, and you're not just thinking about diverse, broader perspectives, right. The second thing I learned from the Peace Corps is giving back. The importance of giving back, of making an impact. There's so much I did as a Peace Corps volunteer beyond teaching English. So things like, I remember vividly, showing up in that school, broken windows, limited supplies, they didn't even have a library. Two years later, had enough books donated to build a library, right? Getting things like softball equipment, teaching girls, coaching girls softball, who had never picked up a bat, never hit a ball, never done anything athletically. So that importance of giving back has always stayed with me. And then the third part of the Peace Corps experience I've always thought about throughout my career, but I've really been thinking about during COVID is the training in the Peace Corps is best in class. And there's one thing they taught us at the Peace Corps is it's a two year commitment. But they taught us those last three months of your two years, that's the lasting impression that you will leave on the community that you spent two years with, the students that you have taught, they will remember you for your last three months. And so make sure that the way you leave a country is as strong as how you arrived. And as a leader, I think about that a lot during COVID that how I show up every day not even as a leader, as a human being, how I show up to my family every single day, how I show up as a leader to my team, I've got my hat on. I've got my attitude, good, you know, rock solid ready to roll for the day. It's something that really matters to a team, like how their leader shows up that you know, I'm optimistic, that I'm transparent, that I'm as vulnerable as they are. And so that's what I've taken with me from the Peace Corps, I always think about those last three months really matter and how to make a lasting impact.
Alan Fleischmann
And be consistent, I guess about it as well. Right. So sometimes people feel like, you know, they're optimistic today to kind of put the, you know, enough fuel in the tank, but they don't realize, especially when you're the leader, you know, to show that vulnerability, that optimism, that pragmatism every day.
Lisa Utzchneider
Yep, you show up every single day. And that you're consistent every day. And you know, also that having certain sort of patterns or, you know, the daily stand up, where you have daily activities you're doing every day, they're consistent, and that you're reliable, and they're predictable. And then you're doing it together as a team.
Alan Fleischmann
That's great. What do you do for yourself, though? Here you are, you're running a major global company, you've got two kids at home, you're married, you're at home, you're not, you don't have your normal escape, of going to the office or offices or being on airplanes or in meetings all day outside your home. Where's the privatized release? And how do you get it and is it needed?
Lisa Utzchneider
So I do a few things. So I've always been an early bird. I wake up early. I was doing it when I was commuting. I do it now. So I get up early. I usually work out. So I've got Peloton in the house, love my Peloton, love my Ally Love. Anyone wants to ride with me, let me know. But I do that and stretch. And I'm just such a big believer in the importance of exercise. And then typically what I do is, I might have to catch up on some email or do some reading. And then what I love is I get to have breakfast, make breakfast, have breakfast with our family, and our girls, which typically, when I'm commuting, I don't get to do. So that's important in the morning and then I work a full day. And then I've been trying at night, at dusk, to walk at least get outside, get some fresh air, physical activity. And then, you know, eat dinner with my family. And then I get to tuck in our girls and I read to them.
Alan Fleischmann
That's awesome. That's awesome. You're listening to Leadership Matters on Sirius XM. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. I'm here with Lisa Utzschneider. And we're talking about leadership. And you as a CEO, as a mom, as a colleague, and how you're juggling things, not only everyday, but certainly during the pandemic as well. Along the same lines, you were named one of the country's 50 Most Powerful Moms in Working Mother Magazine five years ago. You were still Yahoo. I have two teenage daughters in my house, as you know, both girls as well. So I know that parenting while working from home is a challenge, can be a challenge. We were just talking about how you manage to make sure that there's some quality time, both mentally and physically in your day. People are asking about that, in general, like how do you juggle a high powered job? And if you were—and I would argue that it's harder for women than men because my take on this often is there's a guilt factor sometimes when a mom doesn't show up, whereas I don't think dad's always feel it. I think, you know, I don't know why, whether it's a societal thing. But I think there's more—I think moms juggle more than dads. Even though I'm a very hands on dad, very much in the arena. I was the first, you know, person to diaper my kids when they needed diapering. I mean, I was all in. I still feel like there's more pressure on women than men. And then women make choices more than men and you don't see, certainly in tech, you don't see as many women CEOs at all. And the fact that you've managed to do it, you're gonna be the first probably to tell me, you can't do it all. Or you can't do it all perfectly every day. But how do you do it, actually? And what would you say to not only women who aspire to be CEOs, but men who aspire to have their spouses become CEOs?
Lisa Utzchneider
I would say a few things. So I remember years ago, I was speaking with another senior female executive about how was she doing it. She had two kids, she had a huge job. And what she taught me was just the importance of rituals, and planning things ahead with your kids. And it might be like the simplest thing, but it's something I've done over the years. And it's something that I continue to do during COVID, right? So things like—it matters to kids and especially if you're working a lot. You talk about here's the thing we're going to do. So things like family movie night Friday nights. I have made pancakes and eaten pancakes on Saturday morning for a good decade. Now I don't even like pancakes, right. But knowing that we're making the pancakes with mom on Saturday morning, things like reading Little Women with my 11 year old now. She looks forward to that every single night. She knows, I will be in her bedroom reading the book, tucking her in. So the importance of rituals, that matters. I also think that—and especially working from home, it's been interesting that all of a sudden, with employees, they're opening up their homes, but they're also opening up personally. Like what's going on with their family, trying to juggle kids, they've kids in and out of school, they might not have help at home, they're trying to do it all. And now we're having very, very open conversations, like how to make this work, and how to get rid of the guilt. How to try to be productive with the time you have, and it's perfectly okay and you are supported if you need to go spend time with your family. And that's something that has really unified us as a team is my being open and sharing it and the team sharing back. And then the other thing, and Alan, you might roll your eyes, but I'm a huge believer in giving kids chores. Yeah, and you know, it's another form of ritual, but especially now where everyone needs to roll up their sleeves, and lend a hand and help. And, you know, we have two girls 11 and 4, and in their own ways, especially the 11 year old, has really stepped up and she's really helping around the house.
Alan Fleischmann
That's really good, you know. Because I think, again, rituals and consistency, and we got all help each other, it's actually changed our dynamic in our family quite a bit, where everybody kind of feels like, you know, I'll take that on, you take this on. That never happened so much before. It's certainly happening much, much more. Now. Let's talk a little bit about the advertising industry, because that would be a big mistake if we don't dive into it. And I know that this is a big—you mentioned it earlier, it's a big issue, you know, where ad blocking is an issue throught media. And it's and there are other things that you—you're on the board of Ad Council. And you're about collaborating and making sure that information is authentic. And then precise advertising is a big part of what you're doing, precision advertising. You know, with all that's going on right now with, you know, everyone being afraid of health and issues like that. And everyone trying to figure out what is the best way to get their messaging across in a way that's hopefully authentic and real. What are you doing at IAS and what are you leading in that space that actually is helping, you know, those consumers, customers get their messages out, but consumers themselves to believing it.
Lisa Utzchneider
So, at IAS, so our customer base, we're both the buy side and the sell side. So our customers are advertisers, agencies, the publishers. As you mentioned before, we work with the platforms, including Google, Facebook, Amazon, DSPs. And there are a bunch of things we're doing now during COVID, both to help marketers and then I think help the broader digital ad industry. So with marketers, there's a very active debate happening right now about how brands, they really care about the type of content that their brands run adjacent to. And when COVID hit, many marketers, they either stopped advertising, or they said, you know what, we want to block the content related to COVID, right. But there's a lot of COVID news, like it's very important that consumers are informed about COVID, it's important for publishers and newspapers to be able to publish that content, to be able to bring the advertising revenue in so that they can continue to publish that content. So there has been a healthy debate about this. Keyword blocking and adjacency to COVID content. And one thing at IAS that we've been doing is, you know very, we're very focused on educating both the publishers and the marketers about our precise technology. And the fact that we're able to offer technology through machine learning and AI that looks both at the semantics of the page and the sentiment. And so what that means is we would never say to a marketer, block all news related to COVID. That's what I call a blunt instrument. But there are marketers who might say, you know what, I'm not comfortable with running my brand next to COVID content that's about the death toll, or about death. But what I am comfortable is running next to content about infectious diseases. And so that's where we're really focused on educating the whole marketplace about our technology, about the precision of our technology, and the tools that we offer. The other thing that we're doing is investing in research. So we just released a second study that talks about consumer's perception of brands that run adjacent to COVID News. And consumers they're more comfortable with advertising relating to health, pharmaceuticals, CPG, running against that content versus things like travel. And so that's the type of education that we've been doing.
Alan Fleischmann
I can see that advancing now because of, I mean, in essence, it's this idea of precision advertising that I frankly, because you've invested in the artificial intelligence and machine learning over these years, allows you to do something probably that very few companies can do. But the idea that you can actually have this as truth in not only advertising, but truth in where your customer is going to see you, is new. Right? And you couldn't have done this a few years ago. Do you think that the COVID pandemic, in many ways because of the complexity of where we are right now, is advancing that? Is that one of the reasons why, for example, when you hear so many companies constricting right now, I'm hearing about your company, I'm hearing about growth. Is that an area of growth, because of that?
Lisa Utzchneider
I would say that the growth is the more sophisticated the technology and the machine learning and the AI. The more sophisticated and precise we can be on areas of content that brands are comfortable running adjacent to, the more that we invest in research, educating the broader community about here's consumers perception, here's the content and the brand adjacency, that they're very comfortable to, you know, to see that brand adjacent to. I think it's a win-win for the industry. And I think both investing in the tech and investing in the research is really important. And then the other thing that you had mentioned is the Ad Council. So the Ad Council plays a critical role, in general, but also during COVID in ensuring that consumers are educated about things like the CDC, WHO, content about COVID, how to stay healthy. And that's something that IAS has been directly partner with the Ad Council to ensure that this type of content and messaging is getting out to the broader consumer base.
Alan Fleischmann
As a company that is growing, which is so refreshing and great to hear when you're dealing with, you know, the news about a virus every day. And certainly the pandemic is challenging our economy as a global company that's growing. And you're thinking about those young people who are coming out of college, or are those, you know, mid career professionals are looking at transitioning. What are the qualities that you're looking for right now the most? And what are the things that you would want people to expect of themselves as they're coming into what is frankly going to be a very tough marketplace for hiring to know that there are companies like you out there, and there's certain qualities you're looking for, what are those qualities?
Lisa Utzchneider
I would, say so we're absolutely still hiring. I was actually—I met with a bunch of our new hires earlier this week, virtually. We're hiring out of college. So there are new employees. This is their first time job right out of school, and they're starting virtually and remotely, which is interesting. But the characteristics and qualities that we look for, I mean, they're directly tied to the company values that I spoke to before. So things like accountability, bias for action, customer obsession, like how they've demonstrated these things in the past. But I would also say that we look for talent that, they're very comfortable, and they thrive in environments that move very fast, right? Bias for action. Rocketship growth, high velocity. I'd also say very comfortable with, what I call, whiteboard, right? So we don't have a blueprint on exactly how our business will evolve. And I love finding high potential talent who can come in, you hand them the marker, you point to the whiteboard, and you say directionally, this is where we want to go in OTT and CTV. What are your thoughts, right? And there are employees who just say, No, give me the playbook and the blueprint, and I'm good to go. But there are others who will grab that marker out of your hand, right to the white, you know, run to the whiteboard, and write out what they think CTV will look like. And that's the type of talent that we'd like to attract at IAS.
Alan Fleischmann
That's very exciting, actually. So I'm looking forward to spending more time with you and getting your name out there more, because you represent, obviously a very extraordinary industry, in advertising. Certainly in tech and enterprise software. But you also are a great role model, not only for the, you know, for being a woman in tech, which there are just so few CEOs and women in tech, anyway. But you're global and you are building a culture for all that really does transcend borders. So, Lisa, it is a pleasure having you on the show today, and I'm looking forward to more. Hope you come back again, this is Leadership Matters on Sirius XM. This is Alan Fleischmann. I've been here with Lisa Utzschneider, who is the CEO of IAS and a real pioneer in so many spaces, and certainly in the way you juggle, and you're juggling through COVID. So thank you so much for being on the show today.
Lisa Utzchneider
Thank you Alan for having me and be safe.
