Life at Aditude: Cory Mahoney

Cory Mahoney, Director of Ad Ops and Client Success, describes a typical day in his life working remotely from New York.

Meet the Aditude Team: Can you introduce yourself and describe your role at Aditude? 
Hi! I’m Cory, Director of Ad Ops and Client Success. I've been here a while, so I’ve had the opportunity to wear many hats. I handle all publisher onboarding, wrapper creation and maintenance, split test launching, bidder adding and removals, invoicing, etc. I also directly manage all of our SSP relationships and most of our publisher relationships. 

Day in the Life: What does a typical day look like for you at Aditude? Walk us through your daily responsibilities.
My day-to-day activities vary widely, but there are some things that are fairly consistent. I begin each day by reviewing emails and Slack messages from publishers, SSPs, and coworkers I missed while sleeping, then I dive into revenue reporting for the previous day. If the previous day’s performance raises any concerns, that sets my journey for the morning to look into why and how we can fix it.

After that, there’s usually no shortage of publisher questions and requests throughout the day. It can feel a little bit like whack-a-mole as each of them reaches out for myriad needs, but, for me, that’s infinitely preferable to twiddling my thumbs, looking for something to populate my time. On the rare occasions that things are quiet, I like to look into data to find performance optimizations or further revenue opportunities for our clients. There’s always something to be seen if you’re willing to look! 

Your Journey to Aditude: How did you end up working at Aditude? What inspired you to join the team?
Working with Jared at our previous company, I watched how publishers reacted to his expertise firsthand. It was consistent - conversations with Jared were a light bulb moments for many publishers. He made things fall into place for them and could explain complex, convoluted concepts from the ad ops world and translate them to how they impact the publishers’ bottom lines. I wanted to be a part of those revelatory conversations, but I was shuffling around the same buzzwords as every other third-party vendor. I asked our bosses to restructure our team so I could work with Jared and learn directly from him, and then he left and started Aditude… Six months later, Jared texted me asking if I’d be open to helping him manage the clients he’d onboarded in that time. I haven’t looked back since. :) 

Favorite Projects: What has been your most exciting or rewarding project at Aditude so far?
Honestly, everything has been pretty exciting. I had no idea what the future would look like for me or Aditude when I first joined or if there even would be a future. If I could tell 2019 Cory that we’d be listed on the Inc. 5000, raise $15M in our Series A, or acquire other companies, he’d shoot me a mean side-eye glance. Yet here we are! I am so proud to be a part of this. 

Challenges & Solutions: What are some common challenges you face in your role, and how do you overcome them?
The most common challenges for me tend to be when publishers request something we’ve done before but with a twist. I like trying to figure out how to adapt our existing code to meet the ever-adapting needs and requests that our publishers have for us. I’m not good at it, but I’m getting better, and I find it rewarding! 

Team Collaboration: How does collaboration with other team members affect your work?
The previous question leads into this perfectly—usually, when I struggle to figure out how to adapt existing code, our developers are incredible at stepping in to help me navigate. This happens nearly daily, to be honest. Our developers also love to optimize my workflow—they will ask about my processes and then look for ways to “button-ize them,” aka make this process something I can achieve by simply clicking a button.

I feel like each department helps the others out a lot here—our developers are perpetually trying to improve my workflows, our rev ops team is always looking to make optimizations and dive more deeply into complicated issues that I don’t always have the bandwidth to look into, and our product team is always looking for ways they can proactively support everyone else’s needs through product innovations. 

Career Advice: What advice would you give someone looking to pursue a similar career?
Be open, be collaborative, and be willing to work your butt off! I had no experience with ad ops until I joined Aditude, so I feel pretty strongly that you don’t need to have a proven track record in a specific industry or job function to be successful as long as you’re able to listen to your boss and your team and understand what your company is trying to achieve. Most importantly, you’re willing to do the work to get there. 

Tech & Trends: What emerging technologies or trends are you most excited about in the programmatic advertising space?
Our industry gets hooked on whatever trend is buzziest right now, but what excites me most is the unknowability of the future in this space. In 2024, many hot topics are about AI and a cookieless future, but I’m just as curious to know what the next hot topics are that we can’t see coming right now and what their impacts are.

Memorable Moments: Share a memorable or funny moment you've had while working at Aditude.
DISNEY WORLD! I thought it sounded crazy and silly that our company offsite was going to be at Disney World, but it’s SO MUCH FUN and a truly incredible way to bond as a team. Once you ride Ratatouille with me, we’re friends for life. 

Future Goals: Where do you see yourself and Aditude heading in the next few years? Any exciting plans or visions for the future?
Look, my name is Cory, not Raven, and I can’t see the future. Readers of a particular generation hopefully understand that reference. I have no idea where I see myself or Aditude in the next few years. I’m incredibly confident of a few things: I will still be here at Aditude, and Aditude will still be on this surreally beautiful upward trajectory.