Ozone, the digital advertising platform, recently announced the appointment of Danny Geelan to the newly created role of Head of Commercial Trading. Formerly Head of HoldCo Agency Sales, Geelan’s new remit will see him taking overarching responsibility for managing and scaling partnerships across all UK agencies.
NDA spoke to Geelan to find out more…
Tell me about your new role and the sort of thing that’s likely to take up most of your time?
My new role is Head of Commercial Trading, where I’ll be responsible for deepening the relationships we have with our agency partners and ensuring we consistently deliver on what we promise.
It’s an exciting time as we onboard new partners, grow our existing relationships, while I also have the opportunity to expand my remit across holding companies, independents and regional agencies. Most of my time will be spent working closely with the key people delivering these partnerships, forming a continuous feedback loop between our clients and the team here at Ozone.
How did your own professional background lead you to this role?
Over the last two decades, I’ve had the opportunity to work with some incredible people, products and partners – including my time on the publisher side at The Express and Mail Metro Media. Media remains a great industry because of the people within it, which is why relationships are such a fundamental part of this role.
I’ve also always had a knack for numbers, so I’ve naturally stayed very close to the commercial side of the business throughout my career. That, combined with a genuine love of learning – which has always been a driving force for my career moves – culminates perfectly in this role.
As an added bonus, I realised that every brand I’ve previously worked at (all seven of them) is already part of the Ozone audience platform, which makes this role feel like a natural fit.
What are the biggest items on your agenda this year?
This year, our focus is on making our partnerships more meaningful. That means moving beyond purely commercial relationships and leaning into our technical, data and measurement capabilities.
A key priority on my agenda is deeper integration with our agency partners’ own platforms – making it as seamless as possible for them to access the breadth of audience insights available across Ozone’s platform.
Finally, we’re doubling down on measurement. We’ll continue to work more closely with our partners to uncover deeper customer insights and help them drive growth.
What kind of support are Ozone’s partners and clients looking for at the moment?
Across many partner meetings, the same core themes and challenges keep emerging. Clients are looking for support across measurement, addressability and creative – areas where our platform is well positioned to deliver.
Our positioning as an alternative and complement to the major tech and social platforms has been met very positively by our customers, especially at a time when many marketers are facing fatigue and declining audience engagement in these spaces.
Whether it’s incremental audiences – delivered at levels seen across the major platforms – or standout creative that reflects the premium environments of our publisher partners, we have made sure that the needs of brands and agencies are at the top of our agenda.
How, in your opinion, will AI transform the Commercial Trading landscape in 2026?
AI is of course transforming everything right now. In a world where it’s becoming harder for readers to know what’s real and what isn’t, the role of trusted, audience-led content – like that on the Ozone platform – becomes even more important.
We’re currently in a testing phase to see how our partners can benefit from the ‘agentic web’ and the latest AdCP framework. My hope is that this AI push actually creates more commercial opportunities for human-crafted content, rather than replacing it.
And on a more practical note, while the glamorous side of commercial roles usually involves endless spreadsheets, I’m genuinely excited about AI taking on more of those manual tasks! If it can cut down the time spent on this, it frees me up to focus on the more creative and strategic parts of the role that actually move the needle for clients.
What does success look like for Ozone this year?
We’re looking at 2026 with a lot of optimism, mostly because we’re now seeing the fruits of all the development work we put in last year.
We’ve seen incredible momentum with Premium World, our multi-market solution – growing from just five markets to over thirty in 2025, with more being onboarded every week. This follows the successful launch of our audience platform in the US last October, and we’re focused on continuing that global expansion.
Without giving too much away, you can expect even more platform development to deliver what brands need – largely focused on audience insight and advertising outcomes. It’s going to be a very exciting year that will only bolster further the strength of our unique audience platform.
