Value Over Volume, With NYT's Courtney Glaze

SPEAKER_1 (0:12)

Welcome to AdExchanger Talks, the podcast devoted to examining the issues and trends in advertising and marketing technology that matter most to you.

Sarah Sluice (0:24)

Today's episode is sponsored by Basis, the leading intelligent operating system for autonomous advertising. Its enterprise AI solution transforms campaign briefs into strategies and media plans that integrate directly into omni-channel activation. You can learn more at basis.com.

Allison Schiff (0:48)

I'm Allison Schiff, Editor-in-Chief of AdExchanger, and I love the news. I love the people who write it and the people who help keep it alive and thriving. My guest this week, Courtney Glaze, is VP of Revenue Operations at The New York Times, and she knows a thing or two about that. We'll talk about making advertising work across a portfolio that spans journalism, games, cooking and sports without losing sight of the reader experience, how the Times chooses its ad tech partners, why programmatic needs to be about value over volume, using AI to help revenue teams spend less time assembling reports and more time understanding them, plus lots of other good stuff. But first, I'd like to take a moment to tell you about our upcoming Top Women in Media and Ad Tech event.

Join us on the evening of November 3rd in New York City as we celebrate the leaders, innovators, and builders moving advertising and media technology forward. The awards gala will take place at the Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers, honoring an extraordinary group of women across AI, commerce media, privacy, programmatic, measurement, and CTV. See you there.

Courtney, welcome to the podcast.

Courtney Glaze (1:56)

Allison, thank you so much for having me.

Allison Schiff (1:59)

So what is one thing about you that not a lot of other people already know, and it could be anything?

Courtney Glaze (2:07)

I am wildly competitive.

You really see my competitive nature come out when I'm playing games or sports. I'm from Michigan. I come from a big tennis family. My siblings and I all played competitively growing up. But that's something people don't know because it's not really how I present at work. Certainly, running a revenue operations function, it's like the definition of collaborative and supportive and a team player. So I'm kind of outing myself here as exposing my competitive nature.

Allison Schiff (2:41)

Right. When a board game comes out, it's like, I will decimate you.

Courtney Glaze (2:44)

Exactly. Exactly.

Allison Schiff (2:46)

My husband is like that. He is also kind of like that in life, so it tracks. But when we play mahjong, you need four people typically to play mahjong, but you can play with two and he's gotten very into it.

My mom and I taught him and he's absolutely vicious. When we play mahjong together.

Courtney Glaze (3:03)

I get it. I get it. I've dabbled in mahjong. It feels like it's taken off recently.

Allison Schiff (3:09)

Well, I want to say two things. One, I just feel compelled to say that I was playing it before it got really cool, before it was cool. My mom spends time in Boca Raton. She has a condo there. She lives there half the year. And I learned from old Jewish ladies. So I just want that cred because it has gotten really trendy.

Courtney Glaze (3:27)

You absolutely can have the cred for that.

Allison Schiff (3:29)

The other thing is, and I've talked about this with a few people, there are folks in AdTech who play Mahjong. I think that we should have some kind of AdTech Mahjong League or regular get-together.

If anyone's interested in that, drop me a line.

Courtney Glaze (3:45)

I love that.

One of the employee resource groups at The Times organizes a weekly game. So you'll have some interest from our building.

Allison Schiff (3:56)

If I promise to adhere to Chatham House rules, can I come?

Courtney Glaze (4:01)

You're more than welcome.

Allison Schiff (4:03)

So I want to do a quick career rewind on you, because you started at The Wall Street Journal, you did digital strategy and operations for four years, 2013 to 2017 Then you went to Vox Media, very different vibes for seven years, and you ended up as the SVP of commercial operations. And then September 2024, just around two years ago, you joined The Grey Lady, The New York Times as VP of revenue operations with a focus on programmatic. And I will say the title VP of revenue operations, dot dot dot, with a focus on programmatic, makes you like the perfect guest for for AdExchanger Talks because we love talking to publishers about their programmatic strategy. And we're going to get deeply into the old weeds on that. But before we do, what is it about news brands that attracts you to them? Or is that just where your career path happened to take you? I will say myself, I didn't particularly love online advertising or know anything about it. I just happened to write about marketing at one job and then ended up at AdExchanger because that was something that I knew a bit about having gotten a job writing about it. And so you sort of end up unintentionally specializing. But I kind of feel like you might have a passion for for media.