Fordham Gabelli School of Business

Montclair State University

Pontiac Intelligence LLC is a digital media buying platform with state of the art AI capability at its core. It's designed to auto optimize small budgeted campaigns focusing on hyper local mobile digital display advertising.  Pontiac provides fully automated advertising infrastructure for agencies and marketers. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Programmatic Mechanics.

I co-founded Pontiac to fill the need for stronger and faster optimization. Pontiac provides that by building our proprietary algorithms. As its leader, I manage its operations and budget, and I set the strategic direction and road map for growth. 

I've worked closely with internal development team to build out a Self Service Demand Side Platform (DSP) on top of Appnexus bidders using our own front-end implementation and artificial intelligence logic. 

I've also been responsible for overseeing the development of our full marketing collateral suite, including a new website build. I also drive our market positioning strategy.

I'm proud of developing and growing a company that provides the most efficient and highest ROI for our clients, and fills the ability to tell the optimization story through detailed feedback.

Pontiac Intelligence

Co-Founder, CFO ► High-Growth Leadership | Talent Development | Strategic Roadmapping

Programmatic Mechanics is an independent media trading desk. We've assembled the ideal combination of proprietary technology, licensed technology and human talent for executing programmatic advertising campaigns. 

My initial participation involved investing in the business and providing critical strategic and operational insight to the core managing member team, guiding them in delivering profitable performance annually. Key to this, however, was being able to put together our CEO and CTO. Their talent combination led to the development of a unique product that fills a market need and allows our clients to better optimize their campaigns.

In 2016 I joined the company as President and COO to accelerate growth, manage payroll and oversee financial management. 15 people grew to 27 people. One of my first achievements was to expand our sales organization nationally. Our first-year results in this endeavor realized 50%+ top line growth.

I'm also responsible for our developing and evolving our marketing strategy. I've completely revised and updated our marketing collateral, including a new website build, an LOC establishment and DSP vendor engagement.

As we've grown, so have our needs for new internal processes. To this end, I've established our operational framework for various elements, including sales planning, recruitment, budgeting and financial reporting. 

I'm very proud of the work we do and the way we're changing the industry. Our sole mandate is our clients' success, and we provide that through transparency and smart talent that drives our superior outcomes. 

If you'd like to learn more about Programmatic and how we can optimize your advertising strategy, let's connect.

Programmatic Mechanics

Co-Founder, CFO ► Strategic Leadership | Marketing Collateral Development | Market Positioning

Varick Media Management (VMM) is a media management, buying, and optimization trade desk that targets and delivers audiences. VMM delivers media solutions across the entire digital ecosystem.

I was charged with growing the business, and did so radically by implementing a "data culture" atmosphere in order to expand and diversify our client base. This led to over 400% growth in both revenue and EBITDA within 3 years, while maintaining 60% net operating margins. 

I established 7 new operating groups and invested in talent, growing our FTEs from 7 to 60. I built our in-house programmatic trading team for the procurement and optimization of RTB media via the various DSP and Exchange marketplaces. 

I also launched our programmatic media sales organization that focused on acquiring non-holding company businesses from both independent and Big-4 agencies. This involved building relationships and working closely with our holding company's financial and M&A units.

Another group I established was our Data Science practice, which I created to conduct deep log level analysis for campaign optimization using Impala-SQL/C++ and Spark-Scala libraries through R. 

I was responsible for initiating the development of VMM's proprietary Hadoop Data Management Platform, as well as multiple API integrations with various DSPs to build out VMM's buy-side UI.

I'm proud of the growth I was able to achieve in a short period of time, and I'm also proud in my ability to find and develop the talent that provided this growth and was able to achieve my strategic vision.

Varick Media Management

President

LucidMedia is a demand-side platform (DSP) for display advertising management and targeting that delivers optimized, direct response and brand advertising campaigns to advertisers and their interactive agencies.

I joined LucidMedia because I had read about new technologies that gave new approaches to buying digital media in real-time.  I knew this would revolutionize the industry, and I wanted to be part of that revolution. LucidMedia's business proposition excited me, and I jumped at the chance to be Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) to build the business.

I was responsible for development and build of all marketing and promotional materials for the DSP technology product, build the sales team and take this product to market. This included building the messaging for the business and executing a solutions-oriented Go-to-Market strategy with semantic USP positioning, sales collateral and in-market promotion. 

In executing our launch, I managed, mentored and grew a remotely-based national performance-driven sales team that had a 50%+ close rate on their agency deals pitches.

I also drove our goal setting and revenue plan process with our CFO across all revenue lines, building our revenue plan and budget in close alignment with our product road map and marketing requirements. I worked closely with our Product team to identify sustainable revenue opportunities leveraging our Audience Network and Verified Inventory programs.

In the first year, I ramped the revenue from zero to $8MM. I'm proud to have exceeded expectations even with tight capital constraints and a dismal ad sales environment during the Great Recession.

LucidMedia Networks Inc.

Chief Revenue Officer ► Go-to-Market Strategies | Sales Force Development | Revenue Plan Creation

Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) has the largest global commercial database in the world that its clients use to build relationships. HOOVER'S is a global database that allows companies to leverage data and analytics to provide a faster path from prospect to profitable relationship.

After D&B acquired HOOVER'S, it hired me to come in and improve the ad business of HOOVER'S website, which was a new type of business line for them. I was able to help them understand the advertising world and grow it to more than twice as much revenue during my tenure. 

As the "Interactive Ad Sales Evangelist" member of our Senior Management Team, I created, recruited, managed and motivated a 5-member remote sales team and a 5-member operations team. I hired exceptional talent and developed them to become some of the best people I've ever worked with. Along with team management, I developed effective team processes to maximize efficiencies and focus on revenue building. 

I drove robust new product development initiatives targeting both innovative and client driven opportunities. My initiatives realized 27% of incremental revenue over plan performance in 2005.

Additionally, I was on one of the teams that evaluated acquisitions for D&B and provided thought leadership and strategic direction for potential targets, acquisitions and integrations. This work included the acquisition of AllBusiness.com.

Paul Rostkowski