Xandr's Ben John: Engineering the Organization

Of all that he builds John was one of the architects behind AppNexus an internet technology company that ATampampT acquired in 2018 as the technology platform for its advertising and analytics company Xandramp160 He joined AppNexus six years ago and helms the 700 person team of employees and consultants that creates and manages technology offerings like Xandr39s recently launched Community and their suite of digital advertising toolsamp160 His mission is to build what he and Xandr39s leadership call the advertising platform of the future and he credits his early experience building his own company and focusing directly on customer needs for shaping his quotpragmaticquot management styleAs a part of this management style John is always thinking about what motivates the talented engineers in his organization to get up for work every day and open their terminals to start building great softwareamp160 Based on his experience he says it39s all about giving them the opportunity to solve complex problems in a fun and educational environmentamp160 Whether it39s applying machine learning and data science techniques with large data sets and businessdriven use cases or building global platform solutions for the world39s largest advertisers publishers and agencies John strives to create a highperformance culture of collaboration and learningOne challenge that John and the rest of Xandr39s leadership team faced with the acquisition was delivering a unified vision as laid out by Xandr and ATampampT39s senior leadership without compromising quality for customers or AppNexus39 revenue and strategic goals for 2019amp160 John knew of other companies merging together and winding up with teams and platforms in silos trying to build similar products and competing against one another rather than collaboratingamp160 For Xandr leadership this was to be avoidedamp160 quotOur approach was to use the assets we had in the most efficient way possible By leveraging existing components teams and platforms no time can be wastedquot he saidAccording to John tone is critical to successful team managementamp160 quotWe have real and open conversations with people about what is expected of themquot he explainedamp160 quotSet the tone that you value progress over perfection and encourage your team to start making headwayamp160 Being open to failures and ideas help move the business forwardquotamp160 And he added words count so he and the other leaders in his group have been careful to use the right onesamp160 quotIt39s easy to use words like 39us39 and 39you39 when you39re bringing groups together but if you say it like that that39s how your mind starts thinking about itquot he saidamp160 quotUsing inclusive terminology is just a small part of our overarching effort to create one team one culture and one platformquotBeyond leading the XandrAppNexus technology teams across 30 offices and 19 countries John also sponsors the company39s Tech for Good initiative part of Xandr Impact a program dedicated to creating a global community within the company around civic participation and positive social changeamp160 Xandr39s Tech for Good team uses engineering as well as techoperations resources and platform inventory to support nonprofit partnersamp160Part of that initiative is the Xandr Public Service Announcement PSA program which works with nonprofit organizations to serve free online advertisements that benefit the greater communityamp160 One example is the 25 million impressions served for Democracy Works a nonprofit focused on upgrading the infrastructure for elections and providing voters with the information they need to register and vote easily helping to drive record participation in the 2018 midterm electionamp160 Other examples include an integration with the Federation of Internet Alerts to serve alerts for child abductions avalanches flashfloods other severe weather events and other critical publicsafety alertsamp160 Overall John39s social impact team says that since 2016 the platform has served 1178 billion PSA impressions resulting in 604 million clicksI asked John about diversity and inclusion in his organization subjects close to his heartamp160 As an adjunct instructor at NYU focusing on big data and machine learning John thinks about hiring in ways that others might not pointing out that quothumans tend to hire people like them in terms of gender ethnicity age background skills ability the worksquotSometimes I get the feedback 39Oh the person does not suit our culture39amp160 When I hear that I ask 39How do you define our cultureamp160 What specifically doesn39t fit39amp160 When we zoom in on those questions we39re able to build the right team that includes all the different types of people we needquot he continuedamp160 quotIf we don39t focus on that hiring becomes like a machine learning classification problemsamp160 Who you hire will be based on the sample datasetamp160 Who is doing the hiringquotHe pointed out that for an organization that seeks to provide innovative solutions building teams composed of people with varying backgrounds experiences and styles is critical to the development of more rich and complex insights to inform short and longterm strategiesamp160 quotThere are introverts extroverts people who are very pushy and people who are really shy but who all have good ideasquot he saidamp160 quotLeaders have to put the right mix of people togetherquotamp160 At its core his team recognizes that attracting recruiting and retaining a more diverse workforce and cultivating a global inclusive culture will produce better business outcomes and solutionsquotWith people if I explain why half my job is donequot John concludedamp160 quotThe key is focusing on the right problem and tasking the right people with finding the solutionquotClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Xandr's Ben John: Engineering the Organization

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Kathy Newberger

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Xandr's Ben John: Engineering the Organization

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