Lead Not Lag Measures
Joseph Worswick leads EMEA commercial operations and global sustainability at OpenX, the omni-channel SSP. He came up through Unanimis and a decade at MiQ, and arrived at OpenX because he wanted to get closer to the supply side of the industry and the data that lives there. He holds two hats and is clear that both matter.
“OpenX makes decisions because they are the right thing, not because revenue demands it. The reason I love our industry is there is so much opportunity to innovate.”
Joseph Worswick is VP of EMEA and Global Head of Sustainability at OpenX, the global omni-channel supply-side platform and one of the founding partners of AdNet Zero. He joined OpenX in April 2023 after four years on the US West Coast building MiQ’s presence there, having previously served as Joint Managing Director of MiQ UK. Before MiQ, he spent over five years at Unanimis, the digital advertising network where he began his career as a graduate.
Joseph started his career at Unanimis, the ad network that was part of the same ecosystem as what became OpenX, and spent a decade at MiQ from Group Account Director to Head of Sales UK to Joint MD. He moved to Los Angeles in 2019 to launch MiQ’s West Coast business as Regional VP. When assessing his next move, he used a framework his uncle gave him: three lists covering what he was good at, what he was passionate about, and what environmental factors outside work mattered to him. OpenX ticked all three.
At OpenX, his sustainability remit operates on two levels: internally, chairing a working group on corporate sustainability, and externally, educating the market on what brands and agencies can do to make their advertising more sustainable. OpenX was among the first ad networks to achieve carbon neutral certification, and the company’s Green P&P initiative makes the sustainability footprint of its programmatic operations transparent to buyers and publishers. On the commercial side, OpenX’s complete eradication of MFA from its exchange and its decision five years ago to stop onboarding resellers are the most cited examples of quality-first decisions made before revenue pressure arrived.
“You can learn a lot about our industry. But the attitude to care has to come with the person.”
“Five years ago we stopped onboarding resellers and eradicated MFA from our exchange. Those decisions cost us short-term.”
Joseph’s clearest illustration of OpenX’s decision-making is in sequence: the decision to stop onboarding resellers was made before the revenue consequences were clear, and the decision to eradicate MFA was made before industry pressure arrived. His point is that quality-first decisions only remain quality-first if they are made in advance of the moment when they become commercially inconvenient. The companies that defer these decisions until buyers demand them end up making them on worse terms, after the damage has been done.
“When you walk into a room and talk about sustainability, you get two reactions. And someone is sceptical.”
Joseph is precise about what he means when he describes OpenX’s sustainability work. It is not a positioning exercise. The Green P&P initiative makes the carbon footprint of programmatic operations transparent to buyers and publishers so they can make informed decisions. AdNet Zero provides an industry framework. The legislation coming over the next two years will require brands to report on their carbon footprint, and advertising will be part of that. Joseph’s view is that the companies doing this work now are making a business decision, not a reputational one.
“A lag measure is the result. Control your controllables.”
Joseph credits a US sales leader at MiQ for the lead-versus-lag framework that has stayed with him throughout his career. A lag measure is a result. It cannot be controlled, only observed. A lead measure is an input that reliably produces results and can be actively managed. Meetings attended, briefs received, win rate on proposals: these are the things a sales leader can influence every day. The end-of-quarter number is a consequence of those inputs, not a lever in its own right. Managing a team through lead measures rather than lag measures changes the entire psychology of the work.
Stay close to the conversation.
New leaders and insights. No noise.