As Oracle Advertising nears shutdown deadline, ad tech companies are competing to recruit its staff

Though most ad tech firms looking to hoover up business and talent have been coy about whom and how many Oracle employees they’ve been hiring, IAS chief executive officer Lisa Utzschneider said her company has hired over 20 former Oracle Advertising staffers since June, when Oracle announced it would shutter its advertising arm.

IAS, she said, has been keen to “get the athletes on the bus and then figure out which seats they’re going to sit in.”

Oracle’s abrupt announcement that it would shutter its advertising business was accompanied by hundreds of job losses, with some 900 executives laid off.

“They [Oracle] have a very strong reputation for great talent in the market,” Utzschneider said. But IAS isn’t the only company to have picked up former Oracle employees.

Nick Reid, EMEA managing director of DoubleVerify, confirmed that his firm has also been hiring former Oracle talent. “We’re always out looking for great talent, and we’ll consistently look to build our business and culture with that talent. There were, and are, great people within Oracle,” he said. Reid declined to share how many Oracle staffers had been brought on board.

Experian Marketing Services, the advertising and marketing arm of financial data firm Experian, has hired three ex-staffers since Oracle announced it was winding down its ad business in June. Chris Feo, Experian’s chief business officer, who did not share the precise positions the company had hired for, said the staffers were appointed to “revenue generating” sales and client-facing roles that were open when Oracle announced the shutdown.

“There was an onslaught of talent that was no longer passively looking, was aggressively looking,” said Feo, who noted that Experian has made a habit in recent years of hiring ex-Oracle staff — having hired “over 20” in the last three years.

According to Utzschneider, IAS’ hiring push hasn’t just been an effort to scoop up talented ad tech operators looking for their next gig — it’s been a key part of its effort to compete for former Oracle clients.

“We’ve been engaged in dozens and dozens of RFPs, both [for clients] within the Moat measurement business and also Grapeshot, which was Oracle’s contextual targeting business,” she told Digiday. “I personally have sat in on these RFPs and pitches, and the feedback I kept hearing and the questions [that kept] coming up were: How are you going to support all of this incoming business? How are you going to ensure the integrations happen on time? How are you going to take on this much volume?”

“After hearing that feedback directly from the prospective customers, that’s when I realized we need to beef up our support. That’s when we realized we want to hire Oracle employees,” she said.

The business has been targeting the client rosters of Grapeshot and Moat, Oracle’s contextual targeting and measurement businesses, a cause Utzschneider said recent hires had aided.

“It is very helpful that we have Oracle employees in the IAS house because they understand the Oracle product portfolio, the technology, the level of service … [it’s important] to have that perspective as these clients join IAS, [to ensure] that the onboarding is seamless and that these clients want to stay with IAS for a long time,” said Utzschneider.

She added that the company would look to hire more former Oracle employees down the line.

“We are constantly looking for new talent and strong talent … and as we continue to hire, the former Oracle employees are absolutely a pool that we could tap into, both in the U.S. and in Europe,” Utzschneider said.