There is an old saying in the advertising business that creative directors want to win awards and chief executives want to win at compensation. The latest evidence suggests the latter remains in robust health.
Jeff Green, the chief executive of the Trade Desk, earned more than any other leader of a publicly traded advertising technology company last year, according to a review of regulatory filings compiled by the executive intelligence firm Equilar and examined by Adweek. The margin, by all accounts, was not close.
The dataset encompassed 22 companies, of which 15 were advertising technology concerns like AppLovin and Criteo, with the remaining seven being agency holding companies including Omnicom and Publicis. (One imagines the holding company chiefs, long accustomed to being the best-compensated people in any room containing advertising professionals, viewing the comparison with mixed feelings.)
Mr. Green's position atop the rankings reflects the Trade Desk's continued prominence in the programmatic advertising sector, where it has positioned itself as an independent alternative to the walled gardens operated by Google and Meta. The company, based in Ventura, Calif., has been publicly traded since 2016 and has grown considerably since then, a trajectory that has proven remunerative for its founder.
Compensation levels across the sector remained relatively stable compared with the previous year, the data indicated, though several significant outliers reshuffled the standings. The filings did not specify whether any executives had complained about their positions in the rankings, though history suggests such conversations tend to occur in private, often with compensation consultants present.
The annual ritual of comparing executive pay packages serves as a reminder that while the advertising industry spends considerable energy debating the future of cookies, the future of television and the future of artificial intelligence, certain fundamentals remain unchanged. Chief among them: the people running these companies continue to be paid handsomely for doing so.
Original story published in adweek.com: "The Trade Desk's Jeff Green Made More Than Any Other Adtech CEO Last Year"