In this series, Between Gigs, Julie Anne Longano of Peeps Consulting chats with industry leaders who have suddenly found themselves on the market, in between gigs and asks them for advice. It’s a rare and insightful point in their careers where they can talk openly and honestly as themselves. Next up is Milan Blazevic.
Julie Anne Longano: Milan, welcome to In Between Gigs. You’re basically the surfing pro of the industry for riding the digital wave of the last decade and a half… I mean from ad ops at SCA to Head of Programmatic at Paramount that is quite a ride. Can you tell us about what it was like having a career in digital media that grew in such close alignment with digital growth itself?
Milan Blazevic: It’s been a fun, slightly chaotic ride. I started in ad ops at Southern Cross Austereo when digital was still the new kid that a lot of traditional media people politely ignored. From there I moved into strategy and commercial roles, then to the UK, and transformation work at Paramount.
One moment I still laugh about is landing in London and having my old boss, Adam Furness, pull me aside and say, “Get into programmatic. I don’t fully know what it is yet, but I’m starting to see it’s the future.” He was right of course. Looking back, my career has grown up alongside the industry from pure ops into trading and strategy, then into platform building, agency enablement and large-scale technology transformation. The consistent theme has been taking complicated things and trying to make them simpler and more useful. Sometimes successfully.
JAL: You had four years over the other side of the pond, what’s your advice for youngsters thinking of heading over to the UK and working in the industry?
MB: Do it, but go in with your eyes open and a slightly thicker skin. The UK market is faster, more competitive, and you’ll be surrounded by people who’ve been doing this at scale for a long time. That accelerates your learning in a way that’s hard to get at home.
The upside is the pace and the calibre of work. The downside is the cost of living and how easy it is to become another anonymous face in a big organisation if you don’t actively build relationships. My advice is simple: go with a clear learning goal. The people who get the most out of it treat it like a deliberate career move rather than a two-year working holiday with better pubs.
JAL: You left Paramount in March this year, how are you finding the market and what’s your advice to people who find themselves between gigs for a few months?
MB: I left Paramount in March. For the first time in my career I actually took a proper break. My son was born earlier this year and I wanted to be around for that stretch, something I hadn’t really given myself permission to do before. It’s been a good reset, even if it’s felt slightly unnatural not having a work laptop permanently attached to my body.
The senior market is selective right now and things move slower than anyone would like. My advice to anyone between gigs is to stay visible, keep relationships warm, and use the time to get clear on what you actually want next. The gap can feel uncomfortable, but it can also be useful if you treat it like a deliberate pause rather than a waiting room.
JAL: Tell us about your dream next gig… this is your pitch moment Milan.
MB: I’ve always been the person brought in to make the complex simple and, ideally, a bit more compelling. Whether it was rebuilding platforms, enabling agencies, or turning technology into something that actually drives better commercial outcomes, that’s the work I enjoy most.
My ideal next role is one where I can keep doing that at scale transforming technology and operating models so agencies and businesses can deliver better results. I like getting my hands stuck into the detail, finding practical solutions, and working with smart people who make me sharper. I’m less interested in pure sales roles and more interested in building something that actually scales and still works six months later.
As we do in this series we spend exactly one question talking about your view on Ai’s impact in our industry; I suppose it’s especially relevant in programmatic so tell us about that
AI is already doing useful things, better forecasting, smarter optimisation, and taking a fair chunk of the repetitive operational work off people’s plates. That’s the easy part to like.
The more interesting shift is what it does to us. As the manual work drops away, the real value moves toward judgement, partnership, and understanding the commercial implications of what the technology is spitting out. The risk is we start treating the tools like magic black boxes and stop asking good questions.
The people and companies who’ll do best are the ones who use AI to free themselves up for better problem-solving, not just to do the same work slightly cheaper and with less thinking.
JAL: You’re a big champion of people in our industry and you tend to lead by raising other people up, any other advice on being a great leader in our industry?
MB: I’ve always thought the best leaders in our industry raise other people up rather than trying to be the smartest person in every meeting. Create a bit of clarity when things are messy, give people real ownership, and back them when they take sensible risks. Stay close enough to the work that you can still get your hands dirty when needed, but far enough that your team can actually grow. And never forget this is still a relationship business how you treat people has a longer half-life than most campaigns.
JAL: As it’s the rare time you really get to share your POV when it’s not owned by a parent company; what are some changes you’d like to see media owner/publisher side?
MB: I’d love to see more genuine investment in making the product and technology actually match the pitch. Too often the commercial conversation runs a few steps ahead of what the platform can reliably deliver. The best media owners treat technology transformation and agency enablement as core to the relationship, not as something the “tech people” will sort out later.
JAL: Same question for media agency side… what are some changes you’d like to see?
MB: A bit more curiosity about how publisher platforms and data actually work, rather than treating everything as short-term inventory to be traded. The agencies that take the time to properly understand the tools create better outcomes for their clients and, funnily enough, better long-term partnerships.
JAL: Any big issues you think our industry is facing that we need to collectively focus on and prioritise?
MB: We still spend an enormous amount of energy on complexity that doesn’t create much value. Between fragmented tech stacks, overlapping measurement, and short-term trading behaviour, too much effort goes into managing the system rather than improving outcomes. The result is a quiet but steady wastage of time, of budget, and of opportunity.
My mum never let any leftovers go to waste, and I’ve always carried a bit of that mindset. In our industry we talk a lot about efficiency, but we still tolerate a surprising amount of leakage between technology investment and actual commercial return.
If we got more serious about simplifying the path between the two, and treated every dollar of tech and media investment like it had to earn its place, we’d transform both how the technology works and the ROI it delivers
