Working toward a shared vision

Jeff Green is the Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Board Chairman of The Trade Desk, the world’s largest independent demand-side platform for media buying.

Green co-founded The Trade Desk in 2009. Following a successful IPO in 2016, the company has experienced rapid growth with operations across 24 markets around the world. The Trade Desk has been recognized as one of Fortune’s 100 Fastest-Growing Companies, named to the Fortune Future 50 list, and as one of Fortune’s Best Places to Work.

The American Marketing Association named Green a ’40 under 40’ emerging marketing leader. He and Co-Founder Dave Pickles were named ‘Entrepreneurs of the Year’ in 2017 by Ernst & Young.

Green has served on the Networks and Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines Committee for the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), as well as on the boards of several advertising and technology companies in the U.S. and Europe.

Green and The Trade Desk have done work for hundreds of non-profits, including Water​.org, The Charity Defense Council, Thorn, and Not Impossible.

In 2021, Green signed The Giving Pledge, committing to give away more than 90 percent of his wealth in his lifetime. Through the Jeff T. Green Family Foundation, Dataphilanthropy, he applies data science to address disparities in opportunities such as access to education and mentorship. He has established a mentorship program at California’s State University’s local outpost Cal State Channel Islands to address the student dropout rate. The program has scaled across the University of California system. Through his foundation, Green also established a new scholarship program for LGBTQ+ students via Equality Utah, a group that advocates for L.G.B.T.Q rights in Utah.

Prior to The Trade Desk, Green founded AdECN, the world’s first online advertising exchange, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2007.

Green resides in Ventura County, California.

Jay brings to his role as Chief Legal Officer of The Trade Desk over 20 years of legal experience with media and digital enterprises. Prior to joining The Trade Desk, he served as EVP & General Counsel of Univision Communications Inc.‘s Digital and News divisions. Prior to that, he was EVP & General Counsel at UCI’s English language media division, the Fusion Media Group, a multiplatform company that includes digital publishing, a cable network, studio, and home to brands like Deadspin and the Onion. An officer of UCI and its more than two dozen broadcasting networks, cable networks, digital and mobile properties and more than 120 television and radio stations, he advised senior management on strategic partnerships, new ventures, content acquisition, and distribution deals.

Jay has held a variety of senior leadership positions. He managed corporate governance
and transactions for UCI and its board of directors, served as group counsel for UCI’s
corporate development and strategic growth group, and represented all UCI divisions. Jay has also served on the boards of both El Rey Holdings, LLC — the media venture with a general cable network and advertising creative agency — and the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications. He started his career in private practice at the law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP.

Jay received his J.D. from the University of California Berkeley Law, and an M.B.A with specializations in strategy, entertainment, media, technology, and corporate finance from New York University. He also holds a bachelor’s degree cum laude in government from Harvard University.

Laura Schenkein is the Chief Financial Officer for The Trade Desk. In her role, Laura oversees the company’s financial activities including controllership, tax, treasury, ERM, financial planning & analysis, corporate development, investor relations, real estate, global compensation and financial operations. 

Prior to becoming CFO, she served in a variety of roles in financial planning and analysis at The Trade Desk including overseeing FP&A, Corporate Development, Revenue Operations, and Global Compensation. Before joining The Trade Desk, Laura worked in healthcare technology and in investment banking in New York and in management consulting in London and Washington DC. 

Laura earned her MBA in Finance and Management from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and her bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Tufts University. Laura is based in The Trade Desk’s offices in New York City.

As Chief Commercial Officer of The Trade Desk, Sims oversees The Trade Desk’s global client services organization as well as the inventory partnerships team to continue the company’s rapid growth, particularly in the area of connected TV (CTV). Sims has more than 20 years’ experience in the advertising industry, over ten of those with The Trade Desk.

Prior to his appointment as CCO, Sims served as Senior Vice President of Inventory Partnerships at The Trade Desk. In that role, Sims drove the company’s strategy and execution in creating cutting-edge supply-side collaborations with partners around the world and across multiple channels including video, audio, mobile, native and display. Sims spearheaded The Trade Desk’s growth in emerging channels like CTV and Audio, with CTV spend on The Trade Desk’s platform increasing 137% percent year-over-year from 2018 to 2019 and audio spend on the platform up 185% from 2018 to 2019. Sims has been influential in driving The Trade Desk’s continued global growth, with first-to-market integrations with many premium publishers in the past year, including Disney Advertising Sales, NBCUniversal, SlingTV, Freewheel, Spotify, and TubiTV in the U.S., TikTok and AbemaTV in the Asia Pacific region, and RakutenTV and TFI in Europe.

Additionally, Sims leads the company’s industry-shaping publisher management platform, where advertisers can transact with publishers to buy premium inventory through programmatic channels.

A recognized industry leader, Sims was named one of the 23 insiders shaping the future of TV advertising by Business Insider and he has been quoted and published in a variety of media, including Adweek, Variety, ZDNet, MediaPost and eMarketer’s ‘Behind the Numbers’ podcast. He is a frequent speaker at industry events including Cannes Lions, DMEXCO, AdvertisingWeek, IAB’s Programmatic Symposium, and Modern Marketing Summit as well as many partner events.

Sims serves on the Board of Directors for the Ad Council, an American nonprofit organization that produces, distributes, and promotes public service announcements.

Sims is an advertising technology veteran, having previously served as Director of Business Development at OpenX, and Director of Media at Spot Runner.

Sims is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and lives and works in New York City.

Jed Dederick is Chief Revenue Officer for The Trade Desk. As Chief Revenue Officer, Jed drives the company’s revenue generation and new client acquisition globally.

A recognized expert at the forefront of digital advertising innovation, Jed has been featured in media including Ad Age, Adweek, Digiday, The Drum and China Daily. He is also a frequent speaker at industry conferences including Brand Innovators, multiple Adweek and IAB events, and AdvertisingWeek NY.

Prior to this role, Jed served as The Trade Desk’s North American Head of Sales, as Regional Vice President of East Coast Sales, and years ago as the first member of The Trade Desk’s sales team. Since joining The Trade Desk in 2012, Jed has played a critical role in the company’s success and rapid growth. Jed helped create and grow The Trade Desk’s largest client partnerships and developed the company’s sales capacity including go-to-market strategy, messaging and organization.

Prior to joining The Trade Desk, Jed served in digital sales and client services roles at leading publishers including The Wall Street Journal and WebMD.

Jed is a graduate of Connecticut College where he studied music. He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife and two children.

Ian Colley serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, where he leads all aspects of global communications, editorial content, content marketing and social media for The Trade Desk worldwide.

Prior to his current role, Ian spent more than 20 years at IBM, leading communications for a range of divisions including IBM Cloud, IBM Finance, IBM Global Services and IBM Europe. Ian began his career at two New York City communications agencies, Edward Novotny & Associates and the Weiser Walek Group, where he managed communications for clients such as Goldman Sachs, Barclays Bank, Nuveen, Club Med and COMEX.

Ian is a graduate of the London School of Economics and Harvard University and is based at The Trade Desk’s New York City offices.

As Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President for The Trade Desk, Samantha Jacobson manages strategic investments and cross-functional initiatives to reinforce TTD’s position as an industry leader. She joined The Trade Desk’s Board of Directors in 2024.

Samantha joined The Trade Desk after six years at Oracle where she managed the global business development and strategy team. Prior to Oracle, Samantha was at Datalogix where she crafted partnerships with industry giants like Twitter, Pinterest, Microsoft, Google, and Apple.

Before joining Datalogix in 2013, Samantha held a variety of business development, partner management, and strategy positions at other companies such as eBay and American Express. During these roles, Samantha honed her strategy and consulting expertise working for the business leaders of various companies to help them define their path forward and understand market dynamics. She then moved to more operational roles to help implement these goals through partner management and development working with a variety of clients from restaurants to financial institutions to tech companies.

Samantha is an advocate for access to education – having previously served on the boards of the Denver Preschool Program and The New America School. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics degree from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with concentrations in Finance and Management and received her Master’s in Business Administration from Harvard Business School. In her free time, Samantha enjoys traveling, reading, and scuba diving with her husband Phil and their five children.

In her role as Chief Accounting Officer and Executive Vice President at The Trade Desk, Tahnil oversees various areas of finance from the company’s headquarters in Ventura, California. Tahnil has more than 18 years of experience, having begun her career in the audit practice of Arthur Andersen. She has subsequently taken on various accounting and finance roles in the technology industry.

Tahnil holds an undergraduate degree from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

Jeff Green is the Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Board Chairman of The Trade Desk, the world’s largest independent demand-side platform for media buying.

Green co-founded The Trade Desk in 2009. Following a successful IPO in 2016, the company has experienced rapid growth with operations across 24 markets around the world. The Trade Desk has been recognized as one of Fortune’s 100 Fastest-Growing Companies, named to the Fortune Future 50 list, and as one of Fortune’s Best Places to Work.

The American Marketing Association named Green a ’40 under 40’ emerging marketing leader. He and Co-Founder Dave Pickles were named ‘Entrepreneurs of the Year’ in 2017 by Ernst & Young.

Green has served on the Networks and Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines Committee for the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), as well as on the boards of several advertising and technology companies in the U.S. and Europe.

Green and The Trade Desk have done work for hundreds of non-profits, including Water​.org, The Charity Defense Council, Thorn, and Not Impossible.

In 2021, Green signed The Giving Pledge, committing to give away more than 90 percent of his wealth in his lifetime. Through the Jeff T. Green Family Foundation, Dataphilanthropy, he applies data science to address disparities in opportunities such as access to education and mentorship. He has established a mentorship program at California’s State University’s local outpost Cal State Channel Islands to address the student dropout rate. The program has scaled across the University of California system. Through his foundation, Green also established a new scholarship program for LGBTQ+ students via Equality Utah, a group that advocates for L.G.B.T.Q rights in Utah.

Prior to The Trade Desk, Green founded AdECN, the world’s first online advertising exchange, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2007.

Green resides in Ventura County, California.

Lise Buyer is the founder and Managing Partner of the Class V Group, a consulting firm that advises companies on initial public offerings and other market strategies.

Previously, Ms. Buyer was the Director of Business Optimization for Google where she was one of the chief architects of the company’s innovative IPO.

Before Google, Ms. Buyer had a long career in the investment industry, including years as a buy-side investor, sell-side analyst, and as a venture capitalist. Through early 2000, she was Director of the Internet/​New Media research practice for Credit Suisse First Boston. Prior to that, Ms. Buyer spent six years as an institutional investor at T. Rowe Price Associates, where she was responsible for the firms’ investments in desktop technology. She began her career on Wall Street as an analyst of both the technology and entertainment industries.

Ms. Buyer served on the board of directors for the publicly traded Greenfield Online Inc., an online survey company, until it was acquired by Microsoft.

Ms. Buyer holds a B.A. from Wellesley College and an M.B.A. from the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University. She is a past Trustee of the Nichols School, prior member of the TED Braintrust and a former Fellow of the Davos World Economic Forum.

An entrepreneur at the forefront of marketing, branding, positioning and communicating “The Next Big Thing,” Andy Cunningham has played a key role in the launch of a number of new categories including video games; personal computers; desktop publishing; digital imaging; RISC microprocessors; software as a service; very light jets; and clean tech investing. She is an expert in creating and executing marketing, branding and communication strategies that accelerate growth, increase shareholder value and advance corporate reputation. Her first book, Get to Aha!: Discover Your Positioning DNA and Dominate Your Competition, was published by McGraw-Hill Education in October 2017.

Andy came to Silicon Valley in 1983 to work for Regis McKenna and help Steve Jobs launch the Macintosh. When Steve left Apple to form NeXT and acquire Pixar, he chose Andy’s public relations agency, Cunningham Communication, to represent him. She continued to work with Steve for several years and has developed marketing, branding and communication strategies for game-changing technologies and companies ever since. 

Andy is the founder and president of Cunningham Collective, a marketing, brand and communication strategy firm dedicated to bringing innovation to market. The 10-year old firm has worked with many companies in various markets including aviation, artificial intelligence, education, information technology, big data, cloud, finance, healthcare, media/​publishing, mobile apps, search, security, semiconductors, software as a service, telecommunications, video games, crypto, cannabis, and virtual reality. 

Andy serves on the following corporate boards: Public – The Trade Desk (ad tech); Private – MixR (workplace community building software); Motiv Power Systems (electric vehicles); Specialized Bicycle Components, Inc. (bicycles and related gear); and Woodward Communications, Inc. (media and marketing services). She also serves as a trustee of The Aspen Institute; the Computer History Museum; Gray Area Foundation for the Arts; Menlo College; and ZERO1: The Art & Technology Network, an organization she founded in 2000. Andy serves on the advisory board of UNICEF. In addition, Andy serves as an advisor to AtlantisRoad Corporation (“ARC”) (aviation software for air transport); LiveEnsure (security technology for user authentication); and Signos (digital weight loss solution). She also served on the not-for-profit boards of YPO; CEO; the Peninsula Open Space Trust; and Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. Andy is an Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellow, and holds memberships in WPO, CEO, TED and Women Corporate Directors. She has taught marketing classes at Carnegie Mellon University, Harvard Business School, Menlo College, New York University, Northwestern University, San Jose State University, Santa Clara University, Stanford University and the University of Southern California. 

Andy graduated from Northwestern University and the Harvard Business School Executive Education program. She lives in Sausalito, California with her husband Rand Siegfried. 

Kate Falberg currently serves as a Board Member for multiple companies in the life sciences and technology industries and an investor.

Kate joined the board of The Trade Desk in August 2016 and currently also serves as a Director for publicly traded biotechnology companies BioMarin Pharmaceutical, Medivation, Aimmune Therapeutics and aTyr Pharma. She previously served on the boards of Halozyme Therapeutics, Ariosa Diagnostics, QLT, VISX, Fresh Del Monte and Human Genome Sciences and ESS Technology. 

Earlier in her career, Kate held several CFO and Head of Strategy and Corporate Development roles in the technology and biotechnology industries including for Applied Magnetics Corporation, Amgen and, most recently, Jazz Pharmaceuticals. Kate was an early investor in AdECN and served as CFO when the company was sold to Microsoft. Kate holds a B.A. and an M.B.A. from UCLA, is a CPA (inactive) and a UCLA Certified Director.

Gokul Rajaram invests in and advises technology companies. Mr. Rajaram served on the executive team at DoorDash until April 2024, where he lead Caviar, a premium food ordering service. Prior to DoorDash, he worked at Square, where he led several product development teams and served on Square’s executive team. Prior to Square, he served as Product Director of Ads at Facebook, where he helped Facebook transition its advertising business to become mobile-first. Earlier in his career, Rajaram served as a Product Management Director for Google AdSense, where he helped launch the product and grow it into a substantial portion of Google’s business. Rajaram holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, where he was awarded the President of India’s Gold Medal for being class valedictorian. He also holds an M.B.A. from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master of Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin.

David Wells has served as a member of our board of directors since December 2015. Mr. Wells served as the chief financial officer of Netflix, Inc., a media-services provider, for 8 years, retiring in early 2019 after nearly 15 years with the company and having served as vice president of financial planning and analysis prior to chief financial officer. Prior to Netflix, Mr. Wells served in progressive roles as a management consultant with Deloitte Consulting. Mr. Wells received a B.S. in Commerce and English from the University of Virginia and an M.B.A./M.P.P. Magna Cum Laude from the University of Chicago.

As Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President for The Trade Desk, Samantha Jacobson manages strategic investments and cross-functional initiatives to reinforce TTD’s position as an industry leader. She joined The Trade Desk’s Board of Directors in 2024.

Samantha joined The Trade Desk after six years at Oracle where she managed the global business development and strategy team. Prior to Oracle, Samantha was at Datalogix where she crafted partnerships with industry giants like Twitter, Pinterest, Microsoft, Google, and Apple.

Before joining Datalogix in 2013, Samantha held a variety of business development, partner management, and strategy positions at other companies such as eBay and American Express. During these roles, Samantha honed her strategy and consulting expertise working for the business leaders of various companies to help them define their path forward and understand market dynamics. She then moved to more operational roles to help implement these goals through partner management and development working with a variety of clients from restaurants to financial institutions to tech companies.

Samantha is an advocate for access to education – having previously served on the boards of the Denver Preschool Program and The New America School. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics degree from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with concentrations in Finance and Management and received her Master’s in Business Administration from Harvard Business School. In her free time, Samantha enjoys traveling, reading, and scuba diving with her husband Phil and their five children.

Alex Kayyal has extensive experience as an investor, operator, board member and advisor to groundbreaking technology companies. He currently serves as a partner at the venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners. 

Kayyal was previously Senior Vice President at Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) where he held various executive roles globally including Managing Partner of Salesforce Ventures. He established the firm’s presence in Europe and played a key role in expanding their global investment and acquisition footprint. 

Previously Kayyal also helped found HGP, a venture growth fund where he led the firm’s initial investment in The Trade Desk. Kayyal began his career at Merrill Lynch, advising growth-stage companies on mergers, acquisitions, and IPOs.

He holds a BA in Economics and International Relations from Boston University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.