IAB UK appoints new Head of Ad Tech

Nicholls most recently worked at Mediahub (IPG) and Dentsu where she was focused on future-proofing clients’ ad tech stacks and reworking measurement and targeting frameworks. 

With the industry now in its last full year before the deprecation of third-party cookies, Nicholls will be leading our work on identity to help members prepare for the upcoming changes. Other key focuses will include evolving the Gold Standard, contributing to cross-industry work to improve supply chain transparency and developing industry best-practice guidance to address emerging challenges in the ad tech space. 

Nicholls replaces Tina Lakhani, who will now split her time between IAB UK and IAB Tech Lab as an Ad Tech Consultant. Lakhani’s remit includes increasing collaboration between IAB UK and Tech Lab and ensuring that IAB UK members are aware of the suite of tools available to them via Tech Lab. The Ad Tech team has also recently hired a new Ad Tech Assistant, Orianne Baker-Brown, and is in the process of hiring an Ad Tech Manager. 

Commenting on the new hires, Tim Elkington, Chief Digital Officer at IAB UK, said: “Out of everything that we do at the IAB, our ad tech work is among our most important outputs. This area is fast evolving, so we need to ensure that we’re hiring the best people to help us meet the challenges to come, represent our members’ interests and, ultimately, help us create a better, more sustainable industry. I’m confident that we’re better equipped than ever to do that.” 

Nicholls added: “Our ad tech members are facing diverse and complex challenges - anyone thinking there is only one simple solution for everyone isn’t paying full attention. I’m looking forward to applying my intimate, practical knowledge of ad ops and ad tech to my role at the IAB as we work with our members to improve transparency, set shared standards and evolve digital advertising in an increasingly privacy-conscious era.”