Retail Media
Expert Builder 

About Stephen

I’m a senior retail media and commerce media executive with more than a decade of experience building advertising and monetization businesses at the intersection of retail customer relationships, transaction & product data, and brands' desire to influence and measure shoppers' behavior. I’ve built and operated billion-dollar retail/commerce media businesses four times — at eBay, Walmart, Instacart, and Criteo — giving me in-depth experience and a rich history of mistakes that nobody else needs to make.

Most recently, I served as SVP / Managing Director of Retail Media Americas at Criteo, where I led both RMN supply and brand demand across 40+ retailers, driving more than $2 billion in annual commerce media spend across more than $100 billion in multi-category GMV. I defined the commercial strategy bridging retailer-sold and platform-sold media models, partnering closely with retail media teams at Target, Costco, Macy’s, Best Buy, Ulta, and others.

Before Criteo, I was VP / GM of Retail Media at Instacart, where I built Carrot Ads from the ground up — a sell-side platform that extended Instacart’s ad technology and brand demand relationships to 300+ grocery retailers seeking to monetize their own ecommerce, loyalty, private-label, and in-store shopping experiences. I also launched Carrot Ads on Caper Carts (an in-store digital ad platform) and Carrot Ads for Private Label (a buy-side toolset for retailers to promote their owned brands).

Prior to Instacart, I was part of the founding leadership team at Walmart Connect, serving first as VP of Sales — the first external hire brought in to help establish the business — and then as VP of Strategy & Transformation. Over five years, I helped drive 450% revenue growth and a 300% increase in advertisers, in-sourced a 350+ person organization into a new org design, and launched the Walmart DSP through a landmark partnership with The Trade Desk. I also won capital investment to extend Walmart’s retail media into physical stores across 3,900 locations.

Earlier in my career, I led eBay Advertising’s commerce media business, where I grew programmatic display revenue by 700%, implemented an early self-serve ad platform that scaled to over $700M, and launched the eBay Audience Platform — a unified CDP spanning PayPal and eBay Enterprise. I also held senior general management and product roles at CBS Interactive and CNET/ZDNet, overseeing P&L, product design, content operations, and ad-tech platforms across some of the web’s largest media brands.

As a result of that stack of experiences, the Ascendant Network awarded me its first Retail Media Network Pioneer award, and I continue to serve the influential industry organization as a Council Member.