Joni Joyner: My Time at Adbank

We are very fortunate to have had a great talent like Joni on the team for the past few months and wish her continued success.

Below is a brief interview we did to provide some insight into Joni’s time at Adbank and what’s next with her move back on to the advisor board.

Tell us about your journey with Adbank, Joni.

I first joined Adbank as an advisor in February based on the recommendation of a fellow Adbank advisor Jon Walsh. Shortly afterwards I decide to make a major move across the country, and during this time studied the business of blockchain at Oxford.

I became very passionate about becoming part of a blockchain company full time and after moving to Toronto I jumped into a full time role at Adbank in August to help the team figure out the product vision and next phase of growth. My M.O. was always to work with the co-founding team on taking their market feedback, pilot leads, pipeline and creating the perfect AdTech net-new blockchain capability solution to build out the product vision. After Adbank launched 1.0, we needed to buckle down on R&D to take the product to the next phase and round out the ADB ecosystem.

Working with the tech team specifically Fode, Conor and the development partners was very fun as we explored several ways to solve problems.

We were lucky to have very clear feedback from advisors, consultants, agency partners and a year’s worth of marketplace data gathered by the Adbank team. This made defining the problem statements for product development very easy.

The reality became that I could see the major benefit of my time at Adbank becoming more limited after delivering the roadmap and I could add the most value to multiple projects while still staying connected to Adbank as an advisor and as a fellow board member at the IAB Blockchain Committee. I am passionate about blockchain technology and look forward to continuing the journey with Adbank.

What was the journey like taking the original Adbank vision and bringing in your 15 years of AdTech experience in house?

It was great to be valued as the expert on AdTech and have the cooperation of the cofounders to truly bring my skills to the table and rework the Adbank plan. They had so much input on requests from the market and that allowed me to objectively critique the development so far and alter the plan to best capitalize on the global advertising market.

I’ve seen every corner of the industry from the software side, product development, ad networks, agency and corporate over the last 15 years in Canada, the US, Europe and Australia. I brought everything I know to the table and spent a great deal of time researching how blockchain could best benefit this space.

What are some highlights from your time on the team?

• Founding the IAB blockchain council
• Working with the IAB tech labs globally to join the blockchain committee
• Trips to NYC for advertising industry dinner, UN summit and Adweek Elevate
• Defining what I believe is a great 1–2 product vision aligned with the original vision from the team

Can you give us a sneak peek of the new vision?

I am passionate about several aspects of how blockchain will disrupt digital advertising including data sovereignty and 3 user involvement in the ecosystem.

There has been a substantial focus on creating the groundwork for a self-sustaining decentralized ecosystem, not just another ad tech platform. We want to provide tools advertisers, publishers and consumers will use to drive desire for adoption.

The ability for Adbank 1.0 to achieve transparency between advertiser and publisher is like nothing the industry has seen and we will continue to push the envelope on this.

What’s next for you?

Life can be messy and while I will miss the beautiful autumn colours, I will not miss the 2 hour each way commute to the Collingwood office :P.

I’ll be trying to enjoy more of Toronto and working on a data identity project very close to my home. I’ll continue to work with the core executive team on seeing out the project vision as an active advisor and close friend of the team.

Note From CEO Jon Gillham

“Joni is without a doubt one of those ‘all stars’ and her ability to come in add massive value, communicate clearly and build on the original vision has been amazing. We were fortunate to have her as an advisor, even more fortunate to have her apply her considerable talent/energy at a critical phase of the project and still more fortunate to have her interested long term in the project as an ongoing advisor. Although we were initially unsure if the plan was for a short term or long term engagement (my hope was originally long term) it became clear that her unique talents were best applied to help set the next vision and team re-alignment then support again as an active advisor.” — Jon Gillham, CEO of Adbank