Sophie Toth

Sophie: Connecting the Systems Behind Modern Digital Advertising

A publisher can have valuable audiences, strong content, advanced advertising technology and multiple demand partners, yet still struggle to turn those assets into a well-functioning commercial ecosystem. For Sophie, the reason is often found between the systems rather than within them.

With more than a decade of experience across programmatic advertising, AdTech, digital media and publishing, Sophie has built her career around understanding these connections. Her experience with organizations including The Economist Group, Euronews NBC and Rakuten Viber has taken her across programmatic strategy, monetization, technology partnerships, advertising products and digital transformation. Over time, this experience has shaped her approach to solving business challenges by looking beyond individual platforms and examining how the wider ecosystem works together.

Throughout her career, Sophie has helped small publishers and independent agencies navigate their digital journeys as an independent consultant. Her work focuses on understanding how technology, data, audiences, inventory and commercial strategies fit together. She takes a technology-independent approach, beginning with the business, its existing assets and the problems that need to be solved rather than recommending a particular platform or vendor.

Her philosophy is simple: “Understand first. Simplify second. Build third.”

Leading Through Curiosity and Connection

Sophie’s professional approach has been shaped by curiosity, honesty and connectivity. These qualities have allowed her to work across different areas of the advertising ecosystem while developing an understanding that extends beyond a single function.

She believes professionals become more effective when they understand what happens outside their immediate responsibilities. Programmatic specialists should understand data and commercial strategy. Technology professionals should understand customers. AdOps teams should understand broader business objectives. This wider perspective helps teams make better decisions and recognize opportunities that might otherwise remain hidden.

This approach also influences how Sophie addresses organizational challenges. Instead of immediately adding another tool or partner, she examines where teams are disconnected, where data is underused and where existing systems create unnecessary friction.

The approach is particularly relevant in an industry where businesses can accumulate platforms and integrations without addressing the underlying structure. Sophie sees effective leadership as the ability to create clarity, ask better questions and connect people and functions around a shared objective. Her focus is on helping organizations make better use of what they already have before investing in more technology.

Making AdTech Work as One Ecosystem

Sophie’s experience spans publishers, AdTech, programmatic advertising, audience strategy, data and monetization. Her work has included programmatic architecture, Google Ad Manager strategy, monetization audits, AdTech optimization, first-party data activation, demand partner evaluation, yield strategy, reporting and digital transformation.

The central objective is not technology for its own sake. It is to build systems that are transparent, practical and commercially meaningful.

At Rakuten Viber, Sophie led the migration of an advertising technology operation into the Viber ecosystem within three months, coordinating multiple internal and external departments. Following an audit, she also identified an opportunity for a self-service platform integration and initiated the development of the solution.

At Euronews NBC, she helped develop a broader digital advertising operation from a basic programmatic setup. This involved connecting global programmatic strategy, technology partners and advertising products while working across AdOps, Product, Commercial and Legal teams.

She also initiated a programmatic-led IPM network rather than relying on an inefficient pre-allocated setup. Her experience with audience extension campaigns gave her insight into both the seller and buyer sides of the advertising market, helping her understand the different priorities that influence advertising performance and commercial decisions.

These milestones reflect a recurring strength in Sophie’s career: recognizing relationships between functions that are often managed separately. She understands that advertising technology delivers its greatest value when its individual components support a common business goal.

Finding Direction Through Change

Not every stage of Sophie’s career followed a predictable path. Career changes, organizational restructures and challenging professional experiences encouraged her to reconsider what she wanted from her work and how she could make the greatest contribution.

Rather than allowing these experiences to define her limits, she used them to reassess her direction. A significant change came when she began viewing her professional identity through her knowledge and problem-solving ability rather than through a particular job title.

This shift also influenced her work as an independent consultant. By supporting small publishers and agencies in their digital development, she has been able to apply her experience to different business needs, helping organizations understand their technology choices, improve their advertising operations and identify opportunities for growth.

Her work outside AdTech reflects the same interest in people, knowledge and meaningful connections. Sophie co-founded TWIPN, a professional community supporting women across programmatic and digital advertising. What began as an idea developed into a community of thousands, demonstrating the value of knowledge sharing, professional relationships and mutual support.

She later pursued a Level 7 coaching qualification and created The Self Coaching, a personal project centered on self-awareness, personal development and the decisions that influence individual direction.

Although these activities serve different purposes, Sophie sees a common thread connecting them. Each involves understanding people or systems, identifying what is missing and finding better ways to connect the pieces.

A More Thoughtful Approach to AI and Growth

Sophie takes a measured view of the industry’s growing focus on artificial intelligence. She believes the rush to adopt AI can sometimes create another layer of complexity instead of solving an existing problem.

Her preference is to first understand the technology, identify where it genuinely adds value and then use it with purpose. This approach reflects her wider view of digital transformation: new tools should address real needs, support clear objectives and improve the way people work.

She expects the digital media ecosystem to continue changing. Publishers will become increasingly data-driven, retailers will develop their roles as media owners, and physical environments will create new forms of digital advertising inventory.

AI is also likely to play a larger role in advertising operations and technology. However, Sophie does not believe organizations with the largest technology stacks will automatically lead the market. The stronger position will belong to those that understand how their technology, audiences, data and commercial strategies work together.

Retail media particularly interests her because it brings several of these developments together. Retailers already have audiences, customer data and physical environments, creating opportunities to develop sophisticated media ecosystems. Turning these assets into sustainable advertising businesses, however, requires more than access to technology. It demands a clear strategy, sound data practices and an understanding of how different parts of the business can work together.

For Sophie, this is where experience and thoughtful planning remain essential. Organizations need to understand their current position before deciding which tools, partnerships or new revenue models will help them move forward.

Building Impact Beyond Technology

For Sophie, professional success is not limited to commercial results. Her work with TWIPN reflects her interest in creating stronger professional communities, while The Self Coaching allows her to explore the human side of change and personal growth.

This balance is central to her vision for the future. She wants to continue contributing through work that combines architecture, transformation and meaningful problem-solving, bringing her experience to organizations where her knowledge and approach can make a practical difference. She also values professional environments that encourage trust, collaboration and the freedom to challenge existing ways of working.

Kindness is another value she refuses to separate from professional success. Her belief that “kindness is not a weakness” reflects her view that strong careers do not have to come at the cost of humanity. Technical expertise and commercial results matter, but so do the relationships that make progress possible.

Her advice to those entering the industry follows the same principle. Rather than becoming overly focused on titles, professionals should focus on understanding. They should learn beyond their own roles, build genuine relationships, share knowledge and remain curious about how the wider industry operates.

Sophie does not see success as a single corporate climb with one fixed destination. It can take the form of a new role, a consulting engagement, a professional community or a personal project that creates value for others. Each experience can offer a different opportunity to learn, contribute and develop.

Across the different chapters of her career, one idea continues to connect the pieces: understand what matters, identify what is disconnected and create something more meaningful from it. In an industry built on increasingly complex systems, the ability to simplify, connect and make technology work for people remains one of the most valuable forms of expertise.

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