James Draper
Founder and CEO
James founded Bidstack in 2015 utilising more than 15 years of commercial experience to launch his own business. Since the initial launch he has seen the company grow from a one man operation to an international business which trades on the London stock exchange. Under his stewardship, Bidstack became the first ever Crowdcube funded company to go public, and he pivoted the business into gaming in 2017. Day to day, James leads the business as a whole and is responsible for the companies direction, growth, development, and vision.
Strengths: Fundraising, storytelling, and creativity (oh and karting).
Weaknesses: Invitations to retro gaming bars, motor sports, and Project Cars 2.
Francesco Petruzzelli
CTO
With 10 years of commercial, startup, and international business experience under his belt, Fran joined the team in 2015 as our CTO. He is responsible for Bidstack’s entire tech ecosystem and oversees product development, product delivery, innovation, and growth. Fran was heavily involved in the company’s successful pivot into native in-game advertising; evolving our tech stack to meet the demands of both gaming and advertising clients.
Strengths: Tech, innovation, and being the office FIFA champion.
Weaknesses: Drones, Street Fighter II, Amaretto, and being the self declared office FIFA champion.
John McIntosh
CFO
John joined the team in 2018 and brings more than 20 years of financial leadership to the role. John leads on all things finance and provides leadership, direction, and management to our finance and accounting teams. He provides strategic advice to the executive management team and advises on our long-term business and financial planning.
Strengths: Finance, assessing risk and skiing.
Weaknesses: Rugby, football and skiing off piste (ouch).
Lewis Sherlock
Vice President of Sales
Lewis is a veteran of both media and adtech having held roles at AOL, Oath, Verizon, and Xaxis. He joined Bidstack in 2019 to lead and grow our sales efforts internationally. He is responsible for the global demand side of the business, encompassing agencies, trade desks, clients direct, and broader strategic partnerships. Lewis will help to shape our strategy and develop our positioning as we tackle the programmatic landscape, helping advertisers to reach the gaming audience.
Strengths: Relationship building, commercial strategy, and snowboarding.
Weaknesses: Music festivals, paddle boarding, and thinking I’m still 20 when snowboarding.
Matt West
Sales Director
Matt joined Bidstack in 2018 to spearhead our sales efforts and brought with him 12 years of experience from across the media landscape. He is responsible for raising the profile of Bidstack amongst agency groups, developing our sales strategy, and educating the advertising industry on the power and reach of gaming.
Strengths: Business development, presenting, and dressing like a geography teacher.
Weaknesses: Not tall enough for the Vampire Ride at Chessington Park, Football Manager, and retro gaming.
Alex Ginn
Senior Sales Manager
Alex joined the team in 2018 bringing 8 years of commercial sales experience from the world of media to the role. He leads on meeting brands and agencies, and educating them about Bidstack’s product, reach, and innovative technology. Alex is passionate about activating new partnerships that elevate brands by putting them in front of an incredibly valuable new audience.
Strengths: Partnerships, gaming, and he’s in the top 1% of Pokemon Go Master players.
Weaknesses: Good hair conditioner, all things Japanese, and anything related to the Dragon Ball series.
Stefan Adamczyk
VP Business Development
Stefan has more than 20 years of business development experience than spans advertising, media, and gaming, and joined the team in early 2019. He is responsible for driving commercial activity on both the supply and demand sides of the business, and specialises in mobile game ad development.
Strengths: Adapts quickly to changing market and business needs, in-game advertising, and a dab hand on the BBQ.
Weaknesses: Red wine, Manchester United, and French cuisine.
Grace Cooke
Head of Client Services and Operations
Grace joined the team in 2018, adding 7 years of media and adtech experience to the team. Grace leads the client services and operations team at Bidstack, ensuring campaigns run smoothly and that clients receive the highest level of customer service. Grace plays a key role in shaping our operational strategy and in building long lasting relationships with our clients and partners.
Strengths: Creative client solutions, organisation, and being the resident office DJ.
Weaknesses: Pick n’ mix, reading film plots before watching them, and garage music.
Vanessa Yu
Marketing Director
Vanessa joined Bidstack in 2019 to head up our Marketing and Insights department. She adds more than 10 years marketing experience spanning education, events, and advertising. She is responsible for overseeing all of our marketing activities, including PR and comms, social media, content, events, research, memberships, and partnerships.
Strengths: Strong negotiating skills, brand vision, and office netball champion.
Weaknesses: The Marvel cinematic universe, G&Ts, and resorting to button mashing on Tekken and Street Fighter.
Lewis Hadley
Head of Strategy and Insight
Lewis joined Bidstack in July 2018 and has more than 10 years of international experience in business development, marketing, and partnership roles. He heads up the research and insights channels of the marketing function. He also supports senior management on a broad range of activities to help grow the business.
Strengths: Building relationships, calm demeanour, unbeatable at Mario Kart (Switch).
Weaknesses: Craft beer, retro video games, and spending far too much time on fantasy football.
Rob Dagwell
Head of Esports
Rob came on board in 2017 and is our go-to person for all things esports. Rob oversees and leads on our esports strategy, undertakes research and analysis on the gaming market, and provides input to our supply team on titles to be added to our roster. Rob also keeps the team abreast of the key trends, topics, and emerging stories in gaming and esports.
Strengths: Esports, gaming, and pub quizzes.
Weaknesses: Arsenal FC, overconfidence in his ability as a fantasy football manager, and Call of Duty (20 days+ of game time on most Call of Duty titles).
Petros Gazelidis
Marketing and Insight Executive
Petros joined Bidstack at the end of 2018 after writing his masters dissertation (in Sports Business and Leadership Marketing and Market Research) on Bidstack and working as a QA tester for Football Manager. He is responsible for supporting all marketing and insights activities and specialises in video production and editing, social media, research, and comms.
Strengths: Creative thinking, communication, and all things Football Manager.
Weaknesses: Never watched Game of Thrones, football (Liverpool FC), and FIFA.
Will Stewart
Creative Director
Will has more than 7 years of creative experience and joined the team in 2018 after working with the likes of Unilever, Redbull, Verizon, Vodafone, OKO, Nos TV and Oncue. He is responsible for leading our growing design team and building a bold, confident brand that captures the excitement of what we do. Will is our creative lead and keeps his finger on the pulse to make sure that our products can fully embrace new technologies as the gaming scene evolves.
Strengths: Creativity, spending endless hours studying gaming and esports, storytelling, and his powerful eyebrows!
Weaknesses: Travel, kitting out tiny vans into liveable homes, and pastel de nata.
Chris Mizen
Digital Designer
Chris joined the team at the end of 2018 and brings 6 years of creative experience to the role. He is responsible for designing our client-facing ad management tool and ensuring that Bidstack’s branding looks great across all areas. Chris works closely with the Products team and our Tech team in Riga.
Strengths: UI design, attention to detail, once competed in an International sporting event (roller speed skating aged 10 and 11).
Weaknesses: Ping Pong, FIFA, and giving up on international sporting events (I didn’t do very well).
Austeja Skudaite
Junior Designer
Austeja kicked off her design career recently and joined our growing design team. She is responsible for supporting the senior design team, producing marketing collateral, and working with the wider teams across the business.
Strengths: Creativity, learning, experiencing new things, and having no sense of fear or embarrassment.
Weaknesses: Wine! Red wine, any food made with rice, and films.
Adriana D'Angelo
Head of Compliance
Addy is our legal guru and heads up the Compliance team at Bidstack. Her background in Law has helped to create the functional structure that a growing business needs. Addy has played a key role in developing our fully comprehensive, responsible advertising policies and our creative compliance processes. Her work ensures that ads served by Bidstack set the standard for advertising in the native in-game environment.
Strengths: Attention to detail, organisation, stocking the office snack cupboard.
Weaknesses: Dogs, unsuccessful petitions for office dogs, and Arsenal FC ('North London is red!').
Alyona Cimbalyuk
HR Manager and Office Manager Riga
Alyona joined the team in 2019 and is the HR and Office Manager in our Riga office. She is responsible for developing and implementing HR strategies, office efficiency, employee relations, and managing the recruitment and selection process for our growing tech team.
Strengths: Organisation, people skills, and travel.
Weaknesses: Seeking adventures, exploring, and sneakers.
Moritz Natalini
Head of Products
After coming through the ranks at the likes of Yahoo, Sky, King and Activision Blizzard over an 11 year period, Moritz joined the Bidstack team in 2019 to lead our product development team. He is responsible for our product strategy, vision, and development. Moritz is the main point of contact for internal stakeholders and external customers when it comes to product development.
Strengths: Agile, long term vision, and efficiency (half Italian, half German).
Weaknesses: Call of Duty, proper pizza, and his own “mamma mia” food (half Italian, half German).
Jev Fokins
Tech Lead
Jev is a member of our tech team leadership group in Riga and brings more than 6 years of development experience to the role. He is responsible for roadmapping our tech, coordinating and organising the tech team, and overseeing the delivery of our innovative tech products.
Strengths: Tech, development, and speaking Russian.
Weaknesses: Jaffa Cakes, Manchester United, and being mistaken for Kimi Raikkonen.
Kirill Morozov
Tech Lead
With more than 9 years of development experience, Kirill is an important part of the tech leadership group in our Riga office. He is responsible for software development and mapping the tech architecture of our products. Kirill specialises in Google’s cloud platform and likes to explore innovative new technologies that can improve our offering.
Strengths: Unflappably calm, learning about new technologies, and naming dogs (he has a dog named Mr Zucchini).
Weaknesses: Sleep, memes, and choosing mods for games (specifically Skyrim and Fallout).
Artūrs Lataks
Tech Lead
Artūrs is the final member of our tech leadership group based in Riga and he brings 8 years of vital development experience to the team. He is a certified scrum master and is responsible for developing our tech stack, specialising in producing code.
Strengths: Coding, tech, and table tennis.
Weaknesses: Beer, kendama, and skateboarding.
Oleg Ionin
Software Developer
Oleg joined our tech team in mid-2018 and has 2 years of tech development experience under his belt. He is responsible for translating designs into frontend code, developing new features, maintaining and supporting existing code, and driving performance improvements in our products.
Strengths: Creative thinking, performing under pressure, and travel.
Weaknesses: Board games, good music, and French red wine.
Sergej Gorbačenko
Frontend Developer
Sergej has been a part of the Bidstack team since 2017 and adds more than 7 years of development experience to the team. He is a self-taught frontend developer and is responsible for all things client-facing.
Strengths: Development, punctuality, and being the Riga office fighting games champion.
Weaknesses: Gaming, gyming, and being unable to beat Jev at FIFA.
Olha Havryliuk
Web Developer
Olha joined the team in early 2019 and brings 4 years of frontend development experience to the role. She looks after the client facing elements of our products and specialises in creating clean, valid, responsive, cross-browsing front end code.
Strengths: Computer science, ability to switch between projects quickly, and the ability to swap 8 hours sleep for a CSGO gaming marathon!
Weaknesses: NES, snowboarding, and cooking.
