Meet our Board Members, Advisors and Department Leads

Donald joined Bidstack in November 2018 and chairs our board. He is a solicitor and has practiced corporate law for almost 30 years. Between 2013 and 2015 he was on the board of Progility Plc and, prior to that, was a corporate partner of a global law firm. He is a former Director and Chairman of the Quoted Companies Alliance, the UK not-for-profit organisation dedicated to promoting the cause of smaller quoted companies.

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. James leads the business as a whole and is responsible for the company's direction, growth, development, and vision.

With 10 years international, commercial and startup experience under his belt, Fran joined the team in 2015 as our CTO. He is responsible for Bidstack’s entire tech ecosystem, overseeing product development, product delivery, innovation and growth. Fran was heavily involved in the company’s successful pivot into native in-game advertising in 2017, evolving our tech stack to meet the demands of both gaming and advertising clients.

Lisa joined Bidstack in May 2020 with c.15 years experience most recently at WPP a FTSE 100 where she led investor relations and Jefferies where she was an equity analyst heading up coverage for European Media and Internet. Lisa oversees the day to day operations for Bidstack and works closely with the management team on strategy, corporate and business development. Lisa graduated from the University of Technology, Sydney in 2006 and is a qualified Chartered Accountant.

Bryan is a tech, media and gaming veteran who adds a great deal of experience and knowhow to our advisory team. He became a Bidstack advisor in October 2019 and brings more than 25 years of leadership experience from his time with Electronic Arts (EA). There he played a key role in their IPO, oversaw global business development efforts, served as their CFO and COO and headed up their Global Operations team. Bryan currently serves as the CEO of Gatepath and serves on the board of directors for three businesses.

Glen has been COO of Fnatic Ltd, widely regarded as one of the biggest brands and most successful esports teams, since January 2019. He will be launching Kaizan.ai, an AI start up that augments the intelligence of teams later this year. Previously Glen was a founder and CEO of programmatic marketing company Affectv and, prior to that, a member of the founding team at Struq, an advertising personalisation platform, which was acquired by Quantcast in 2014. Glen joined Bidstack's advisory board in August 2020. He brings considerable experience to the Company including strong relationships across the sector and among the investor community.

Katherine Hays joined Bidstack as a Strategic Advisor in April 2021. Having Co-Founded Massive Inc., acquired by Microsoft in 2006, Katherine will help us with the wisdom, network and experience she acquired when creating the first generation of native in-game advertising. An entrepreneur, global business leader, and board director/advisor, Katherine is recognised as one of the world’s most forward-looking trailblazers in digital transformation, adding a proven track record in advertising, media, entertainment and gaming to the Bidstack team. Katherine has mentored hundreds of other entrepreneurs and is a frequent guest speaker at The Harvard Business School, Columbia University, Princeton University, Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, and MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

Andrew joined our advisory board in February 2020 adding extensive experience and knowledge of the gaming industry. Andrew began his career with Sony in Tokyo and served as CMO, Co-CEO and group CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) Europe before leading as President and Group CEO of SIE Inc between 2013-2017. House is credited with helping Sony’s PlayStation reach a mainstream audience, and was responsible for driving the record-breaking launch of the PS4 in 2013.

Mike brings more than 30 years video games industry experience to our team. He spent eight years at SEGA, latterly as CEO of SEGA Europe and America. For 5 years prior to SEGA, he was Sales and Marketing Director on the Board of Codemasters, the award­ winning British developer and publisher of high quality racing games. Mike was Sales and Marketing Director at Nintendo for 5 years, responsible for hardware and software. Mike is currently an Investment Director at AIM listed Mercia Technologies PLC, where he is Head of Digital & Digital Entertainment.

Will joined our advisory board in April 2019 adding experience and knowledge of both gaming and advertising. He previously served as the CEO of AdColony, a video advertising platform reaching over one billion consumers globally. Before AdColony Will was the Senior Vice President of Global Brand Management at Activision Blizzard for 13 years, growing franchises such as Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Guitar Hero and Call of Duty. He also spent five years at The Walt Disney Company, helping launch Disney Interactive and some of its games such as Aladdin, Lion King and Toy Story. He is currently the President of Los Angeles based Omaze who offer once-in-a-lifetime experiences to raise funds and awareness for good causes.

Sonalee is an accomplished leader who brings over 25 years of global capital markets and operational experience in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications industries, both as an advisor and senior executive. Sonalee currently serves as SVP of Corporate Development (M&A and Integration) and Investor Relations at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), a Fortune 500 technology company. Prior to HPE, Sonalee held senior leadership roles at several global investment banks, including Barclays Capital, Goldman Sachs and Jefferies International where she was most recently Managing Director, Global Capital Markets. Sonalee graduated from McGill University (Montreal) and lives in California (Silicon Valley).

Jon is a serial entrepreneur who has successfully launched and sold multiple companies spanning technology, media and gaming. His career has included stints as Founder and CEO of GameSpot, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Media for IGN Entertainment and President of Omek Interactive. He also served as CEO of Double Fusion, an in‑game advertising company, as President of GameSpy and as CEO of Hawkes Remotes. He joined our Advisory Board in May 2019 to help develop both the demand and supply side of our business.

Nav is a highly experienced lawyer and business development expert immersed in the video games industry. After qualifying as a lawyer with national law firm Pinsent Masons, he spent 6 years as Head of Legal at Codemasters and 3 years as General Counsel at Mastertronic. Following a further 3 years practising law as Co-Head of Interactive Entertainment for Osborne Clarke and, subsequently, as Head of Computer Games for Wiggin, Nav spent 2 years as a commercial director for Microsoft. In addition to his video game consultancy "Navatron", he is currently a Director at an esports company, an Advisor to a number of games companies and Video Games Sector Principal for an M&A advisory firm.

Joel is the Director of Partnerships, EMEA, at major digital advertising business The Trade Desk. He joined our Advisory Board in 2019 to offer expert insight into the programmatic advertising landscape. He oversees The Trade Desk’s supply-side strategy and activation across EMEA, working with both local and global partners on strategic development. He has over 10 years experience working on supply partnerships at businesses including AOL, Criteo, and AudienceScience, and regularly contributes thought leadership pieces to well known trade publications.

Pete adds 20+ years of experience to our advisory group. He currently oversees the global ad agency partnerships for the Jeff Bezos owned news organization, The Washington Post. Prior to that he built and managed Spotify’s first-ever global partnership with advertising giant WPP, and was a key member of the early-stage management team of independent British tailoring start-up, A Suit That Fits.

Ian Hetherington has over 30 years experience as an entrepreneur, founder and investor in the video game and digital sectors. In 1985, he co-founded the video game developer and publisher, Psygnosis. The business was acquired by Sony in 1993, which saw Ian appointed as the Joint Managing Director of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, a position he held for 5 years. He subsequently founded and invested in both Evolution Studios and RealTime Worlds Ltd and was Chairman of BigBig Studios, which was acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment in 2007. He continues to work with a diverse range of businesses in areas such as 3D mapping, simulation, machine learning, analytics, autonomous vehicles and machine processable real world data.

After qualifying with Deloitte in 1994, John worked with Sony, advertising agencies and the BBC before concentrating on online, multi-media businesses. He was CFO and COO of DCD Media plc for five years until 2011 and CFO of Progility Plc from 2012 to 2015, growing the business from a £12 million to £60 million turnover. Since leaving Progility John worked as a consultant CFO for a number of entities in UK, Europe and Hong Kong, and joined Bidstack in 2018 as CFO, providing leadership, direction and management to our Finance and Accounting teams.

Bhavesh joined Bidstack in 2020, bringing over 14 years of financial experience gained in high-growth technology enterprises, and comes with a proven track record in building and leading high-performing finance functions that support ambitious expansion. Before joining Bidstack, Bhavesh was Head of Finance for Reward Insight Ltd, a technology platform powering loyalty programmes for banks across EMEA, where he oversaw revenue growth from £2m to £30m. Verisk Financial (NASDAQ: VRSK), a leading data analytics provider, acquired a strategic stake in Reward in 2020. At Bidstack, Bhavesh oversees and provides leadership on the Finance and Accounting functions of Group, and is an associate of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (ACMA).

Dave joined Bidstack in 2020, bringing more than a decade of commercial, media, competition, technology and privacy law experience to the team. Dave previously held senior leadership team positions within is previous in-house roles including Sony DADC International following his time in private practice, where he advised a diverse portfolio of technology, media and e-commerce start-ups. Dave oversees the Legal, HR and Business Operations functions of the group.

Lewis is a media, agency and adtech veteran. In 2008 he joined WPP to build the industry's first trading desk from the ground up which over a 4 year period culminated in the Xaxis brand launch. He then joined adap.tv in 2012 to bring programmatic (DSP/SSP/exchange) video to the EMEA region. Adap.tv was bought by AOL in 2014, a year later AOL was bought by Verizon. He joined Bidstack in 2019 to lead the growth of our sales efforts internationally. He is responsible for the global demand and supply side of the business, encompassing agencies, trade desks, clients direct, broader strategic partnerships and also publisher title acquisitions.

Alex joins Bidstack after 5 years at EA where he led sales marketing strategy across the company’s Mobile, HD and Competitive Gaming portfolios, and was most recently the Head of Commercial Partnerships for the EA SPORTS Madden NFL Franchise. On Madden NFL, Alex drove 360 partnership programs with major brands such as Gillette, Verizon, Oakley, Snickers, Campbell’s Chunky, and most notably, Pizza hut – brokering first-ever virtual stadium rights deal in history. At Bidstack, Alex will continue to push the boundaries of innovation in gaming and esports through strategic partnerships with brands, publishers, and licensed properties in the world of sport.

Alan has over 10 years of AdTech experience. As a digital native, he started his AdTech career in 2011 building Native Ad Servers, SSPs and DSPs with PowerLinks, which led to the wider scale and growth of Native as a media channel. He joined iClick to help scale their international presence scale in another growth sector, the digital Chinese market. In helping to deliver a scalable platform for this market iClick subsequently was listed on the Nasdaq. He then joined Grapeshot to help with the go-to-market efforts for cookieless technology just before GDPR entered into force. Grapeshot was then sold to Oracle where Alan was the Commercialisation Director in EMEA prior to joining Bidstack as Senior Product Manager. He is now the VP of Products across Bidstack Group and leads the efforts in delivering scalable products and services fuelling Bidstack’s growth and dominance in the AdTech Gaming sector.

With 10 years commercial experience in programmatic advertising and emerging media channels, Yasin has conceptualised and implemented the programmatic strategies for a number of start-ups and traditional publishers, including Newsweek. Having also spent some time at the Association for Online Publishers (AOP), he has also been a pivotal figure in solving the problems of our ad tech ecosystem. Yasin joined Bidstack in early 2020 and is responsible for growing Bidstack's programmatic offering globally.

Lauren has extensive experience working with global brands and agencies, developing strategies to deliver their objectives. She joined CBS Outdoor in 2005 working with commercial teams at WPP and Publicis. In 2009 she joined JCDecaux helping to productise their premium inventory for clients. She then led a number of cross agency accounts selling all of JCDecaux's portfolio before moving to the Head of Digital role to drive the change from analogue to digital OOH. She has worked on a number of high profile campaigns at the cutting edge of DOOH technology. In 2018 she moved to JCDecaux International division to scale the roll out of digital and new technology across the worlds' biggest brands in global markets. She joined Bidstack in 2021 to lead the client and agency EMEA team and is responsible for demand side sales and creating brand strategy and innovative solutions for clients new to gaming. Lauren is a member and mentor at Bloom UK and a Women in gaming ambassador.

Antoine is specialised in the Digital Environment, Gaming and Ad-Tech industry. In 2016, he joined the French ad-exchange Mozoo, to develop Surikate in Europe, the direct performance arm of the business (UA), with leading apps and games. Due to a significant growth, the business acquired AdinCube in 2017, a leading ad-mediation for gaming app developers, where Antoine's expertise has been used to secure publisher partnerships across the EMEA region. Adincude was bought by Ogury in 2018, where Antoine successfully built the gaming publisher portfolio from the ground over a 3 year period. He joined Bidstack in 2021 to lead and scale up publisher partnerships growth globally, and is responsible for the global supply side of the business and publisher title acquisitions.

With more than 8 years creative experience, Will joined the Bidstack team in 2018 having worked with leading brands including Unilever, Red Bull, 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. As Creative Director, Will keeps his finger firmly on the pulse to make sure that our products can fully embrace new technologies as the gaming scene evolves.

Lewis joined Bidstack in July 2018 and helped to redefine the company’s brand identity and messaging as the company pivoted into gaming and floated onto the London Stock Exchange. With over 13 years of international experience in commercial and marketing roles, Lewis has led teams across the UK, Ireland and The Netherlands. He is responsible for overseeing our digital marketing, research, insights and guiding the company’s ambitious growth plans alongside our leadership team.

Jenny brings 10 years of digital media experience to the team, having previously worked across ad operations, campaign management, client services and account management. Jenny joined Bidstack in October 2020, and is responsible for ensuring clients and publisher partners receive the best level of service from running campaigns to the smooth onboarding of our tech.

Jev is Bidstack's Technical Product Director, and a member of our Tech Leadership group in Riga, bringing more than 8 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.

With more than 10 years of development experience, Kirill is Bidstack's Technical Director and a key member 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.

Artūrs brings over 10 years of valuable development experience to our Tech Leadership Group based in Riga. He specialises in producing code and is responsible for developing our tech stack.

Grace joined Bidstack in 2018, adding 7 years of media and adtech experience to the team. She leads the Client Services and Operations teams at Bidstack, making sure that campaigns run smoothly and 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 clients and partners.