AUDIENCES Expands Sales Leadership with Two Strategic Hires to Drive Commercial Growth
London, UK - 7th January 2025 – AUDIENCES, the market leader in in-cloud first-party data activation software, today announced the appointment of two senior Sales Directors as it accelerates commercial growth in response to rising demand for privacy-first data activation.
Aleks Polubinski and Jonny Austin join the growing AUDIENCES commercial team, bringing over 25 years of combined experience across programmatic advertising, data technology, and audience activation. Led by Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer Matt Wilkinson, they will work alongside Sales Directors Kalpana Jayaram and Nicola Webb to scale adoption across the UK and international markets.
The appointments reflect AUDIENCES’ continued momentum as brands seek a new activation model for first-party data. One that delivers real-time performance while keeping data fully under the brand’s control.
Already partnering with leading brands including Pets at Home, SAGA, and Becton Dickinson, and working alongside cloud platforms such as Snowflake, Databricks, Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft Azure, AUDIENCES is redefining how organisations activate customer data without exposing it to external processors or intermediaries.
Matt Wilkinson, Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer, commented “I’m really excited to welcome Aleks and Jonny to AUDIENCES,” said Matt Wilkinson. “They’re joining an experienced team of seasoned professionals who are deeply knowledgeable about data and the challenges brands face when activating first-party data. Just as importantly, they share our belief that there is a better, more responsible way to do this. Their experience strengthens the team we’ve built and reinforces our mission to change how data activation is done.”
Deep industry expertise strengthens go-to-market execution
Aleks Polubinski, Sales Director, brings more than 12 years of experience across the programmatic ecosystem, spanning both supply and demand-side platforms including AOL, Yahoo, and Equativ. Most recently leading publisher sales and curation at Equativ, Aleks has also developed deep expertise in data and addressability through his time at LiveRamp.
“What attracted me to AUDIENCES is how is focused on 1st party data and the untapped value there is in it across all parts of the media ecosystem, I believe this to be the case also with publishers” said Aleks Polubinski. “Having worked closely with publishers throughout my career, I understand how critical first-party data has become, not just for performance, but the unique audiences that they want to create sustainable commercial opportunities from. By allowing publishers to activate their data directly from their own cloud infrastructure, without intermediaries or data leakage, AUDIENCES gives them a way to unlock new revenue while staying in control. That’s essential for supporting high-quality, independent journalism, and it’s why this approach really matters.”
Jonny Austin, Sales Director, joins with more than 13 years of experience across martech and adtech platforms including Lifesight, Adsquare, and Lotame. He has worked extensively with brands and partners to turn complex data strategies into scalable commercial outcomes, with expertise spanning go-to-market strategy, measurement, and enterprise sales leadership.
“AUDIENCES offers brands a completely new way to activate their data. One that’s simple, transparent, and built for how modern organisations operate. There’s no data movement, no typical SaaS consumption-based costs, and no operational drag. Just real-time activation through a single fixed annual fee. It’s a model that finally makes first-party data activation commercially and practically viable, and I’m excited to bring that story to brands.”
Meeting growing market demand
The expansion follows AUDIENCES’ recent leadership appointments and £2.1 million investment round, led by FirstPartyCapital with continued support from Haatch.
AUDIENCES is deployed entirely within a brand’s existing cloud infrastructure, including Snowflake, Databricks, Google BigQuery, AWS, and Microsoft Azure. Customer data never leaves the organisation, and AUDIENCES does not act as a data processor which removes the privacy, security, and operational risks associated with traditional models.
With its strengthened commercial leadership, AUDIENCES is accelerating adoption of a new activation model, one that allows brands and data owners to activate first-party data in real time, inside their own cloud environments, without data movement or third-party risk.
On announcing the news, Hugh Stevens, Managing Director EMEA of AUDIENCES said “Despite years of investment, only around 3% of first-party data is activated by brands today. The other 97% is constrained by legacy activation models that weren’t designed for today’s privacy and performance demands. Aleks and Jonny bring the expertise required to help organisations break free from that limitation and activate their data in real time. Their arrival strengthens AUDIENCES’ ability to lead the market toward a fundamentally better way of working.”
