GroupM has announced the promotion of Nicola Lewis to CEO of Finecast, WPP’s addressable TV company operated by GroupM, effective immediately.
Lewis will be responsible for the strategy and operations of Finecast, including working with local markets to execute global strategies and set growth targets all aimed at making clients’ TV advertising more relevant and effective to their consumers. Lewis will be based in Europe.
Prior to joining Finecast, Lewis was chief investment officer of GroupM Australia where she was responsible for driving innovation and leading commercial growth. During her time as CIO, she played a pivotal role in the launch of Finecast Australia. Throughout her career, she has focused extensively on developing new partnerships across the industry ecosystem to make advertising work better for people, publishers, and advertisers
Finecast was created to enable advertisers to precision-target viewers across multiple on demand, linear and live streaming TV environments. The business provides clients with a single access point to the TV ecosystem with standardised measurement to bring clarity on the real impact of addressable TV on an ad campaign.
“As we invest in building the industry’s leading performance capabilities at GroupM, Finecast will continue to play a critical role in how we deliver addressable, relevant and performance-first campaigns for our clients,” said Christian Juhl, GroupM’s Global CEO. “Nicola’s proven leadership abilities and success in growing Finecast’s business to date make her the ideal person to lead the business into its next era of growth and innovation.”
A highly respected media executive with extensive experience across all channels and digital integrations, Lewis was most recently Finecast’s first global chief growth officer where she led engagement with agencies and clients and built partnerships with media owners worldwide. In this role, she was instrumental in driving Finecast’s rapid growth by enabling addressable TV transformation, developing and deploying go-to-market strategies, client engagement plans and delivering growth in sales and billings. As a result, the business reached its 2021 annual growth target in record time.
“We believe in a future where media and creative are fused together to deliver more relevant experiences for consumers as well as accurate measurement and continuous growth for our clients,” said Lewis. “As the TV advertising ecosystem evolves, one of the biggest beneficiaries will be brands with audience-first addressable strategies. Finecast is perfectly positioned to help clients capitalise on this change and, through our continued collaboration with media vendors, create a robust ecosystem set up for the future of TV. I’m excited about where we’re headed and the ways in which our growth will continue to benefit both clients and consumers as we introduce addressable TV capabilities to more and more local markets.”
