Brady Gadberry, Senior Vice President and Head of Data Products, Acxiom

Describe your career to date

As Senior Vice President and Head of Data Products at Acxiom, I lead our efforts to create a broad portfolio of data products to help marketers better understand and engage with their customers and prospects. My team’s solutions include a wide variety of data types from traditional demographic data all the way to advanced syndicated and custom audiences.  

I have always been a data nerd and joined Acxiom for the first time in 1998 in the financial services sector, delivering custom data solutions. Through the years, I have led key integrations with Acxiom’s flagship identity and data products across the US and Europe.  
With a deep belief in the role data plays in helping businesses grow and connect with people, I entered the start-up arena and co-founded SpotRight, an audience analytics and custom audience modeling company. After growing the company for four years, SpotRight was acquired by Wiland, a marketing data and audience company, where I spent three years leading their syndicated and custom digital audience products.   

I returned to Acxiom in 2022 for my dream job running the company’s data business. A strong data foundation has never been more important as it’s the fuel for a world transformed by artificial intelligence (AI). One of my favorite things about my role is helping people truly understand the impact of ethical data creation and use to grow their business.  

What challenges do you see for data in the year ahead that will have an impact on your clients and on the industry as a whole?  

We will see continued uncertainty within the adtech ecosystem regarding cookie deprecation and the resulting impact on addressability and measurement. Even though Google continues to kick the removal date down the road, we see clients exploring and readying for the inevitable. 

Meanwhile, the compliance landscape continues to be incredibly fragmented, as the US still has no national data privacy law. Brands are left to comply with a patchwork of state laws, taking a toll on business strategy and resources. 

Finally, there have never been more martech and adtech ecosystem partners, making interoperability difficult. Brands will win by having a cohesive, data-driven customer experience strategy, regardless of the technology. 

How are you developing the data literacy of a) your own organization and b) your clients? 

We have developed a series of data university coursework to provide ongoing advanced learning for Acxiom associates. In a data-first world, training and certification is a requirement. 

We are also doing primary research on topics that impact our clients, and not only sharing that thought leadership, but doing on-site workshops to educate and explore together. Finally, we have a Data for Good program to contribute data and data services to organizations that are making a difference in our world. 

How are you preparing your organization and your clients for AI adoption and change management? 

We have long been on the leading edge of leveraging AI to analyze and model at hyperscale, within our own data products and in the custom data solutions we provide to clients. 

Today, we are deploying our AI data sandboxes and platforms across our clients and IPG agency partners, while at the same time working with leading martech providers to infuse AI systems with privacy-compliant data. It is critical that AI is grounded in ethical, clean, and real-world data; it is the only way responsible innovation happens. 

We are using AI to make data more accessible, understandable, and actionable for non-technical users because speed to insights means speed to revenue.  

Brady Gadberry
has been included in:
  • 100 Enablers 2024 (USA)

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