The digital media and marketing industry is supported by a small army of individual investors, chairs and advisors. In our series, The Connectors, we interview these people, discovering what they’re making their next bet on, which technologies, approaches, partnerships, leaders and teams they believe will supercharge the next generation of positive change in our industry.
Gerry D’Angelo is an advisory board member to portfolio of companies, and Senior Advisor at McKinsey & Co. Previously, Vice President, Global Media at Procter & Gamble. He also served as Chair of the World Federation of Advertisers’ Media Forum, and founding member of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media.
What are you most proud of in the advisory/chair/investor part of your career?
I’m most proud of being the voice of the customer in the room. I spent most of my corporate career on the client side, being pitched to, and now I can help go-to-market propositions be clearer and more compelling.
A lot of my work in my post-P&G retirement advisory roles has come through recommendations and people reaching out because of initial gestures of generosity I made earlier in my career,whether it was helping someone relocate to a new city or just taking the time to offer some career advice.
Those small moments can pay dividends down the line.
What has your biggest mistake been, and what did you learn from it?
Mistaking that my value should be linked to time,measuring it in days per month,when in reality, my value is linked to my experience and personal network gained over three decades of corporate work.
It’s about what you bring to the table in terms of insights, relationships, and strategic thinking, not just the number of hours you commit.
What technology, innovation, or way of thinking excites you most?
With identity resolution set to become ever more complex, I’m most excited by the prospect of AI-derived and optimized creative and contextual signals as the next drivers of advertising effectiveness.
The industry is heading towards a major transformation, and the ability to adapt to new signals will be key.
How do you decide what companies to get involved with? What factors determine how deep that investment gets?
Two things: People and Product.
I’m fortunate in that I can be selective about the companies I work with, and there needs to be good chemistry with the teams and a product with a clear and compelling rationale. I also believe in recognizing when luck plays a role,sometimes you’re in the right place at the right time, and the key is to spot those opportunities and act on them.
In the early days of social media, a few people in my team pointed out how big it would become, and I made sure to empower them and get up to speed myself. That decision had a significant impact on my career, eventually leading to managing some of the biggest partnerships in the world when I was at P&G.
Working within such a fast-moving industry, how important are lessons from the past?
Tactics may change, but customer obsession remains constant.
You always need to be able to step back and recognize the signals around you. Luck plays a huge part in everyone’s career,both good and bad. What matters is how you respond to it. If you have a stroke of good luck, you need to recognize it and capitalize on it. Conversely, if you find yourself in a job that’s a bad fit, don’t hesitate,get out as quickly as possible.
I often think about an analogy from nature: the Arctic fox that steals gulls’ eggs and buries them in different places. You don’t know which one will save you from hunger later, but you make sure to put them away.
The same goes for career relationships,small acts of generosity, like taking a few minutes to help someone with their job search or mentoring someone early in their career, can come back in ways you don’t expect.
What is your one piece of advice for someone looking to emulate your success?
Start early and pay it forward.
Small gestures of kindness,mentoring, recommendations, introductions,early in your career pay dividends later. It doesn’t cost you anything to be polite to people or to take a few minutes to help someone, and you never know where that might lead.
What is your biggest hope and fear for our industry and its impact on society and the world?
We are about to go through the most disruptive cycles of innovation that we have ever witnessed.
My biggest hope is that we don’t break too many things along the way, and my fear is that we will. With the pace of change in technology, particularly AI and digital identity, we have to be mindful of unintended consequences while embracing progress.
