Mark Walker, co-founder and CEO, Direct Digital Holdings & Keith Smith, co-founder and President, Direct Digital Holdings, join Cheddar News to discuss the meaning behind launching just the ninth black-owned company to ever go public in the U.S., how Black History has impacted their careers, and how they plan to grow the company.

Mark Walker, co-founder and CEO, Direct Digital Holdings &amp; Keith Smith, co-founder and President, Direct Digital Holdings, join Cheddar News to discuss the meaning behind launching just the ninth black-owned company to ever go public in the U.S., how Black History has impacted their careers, and how they plan to grow the company.

Closing Bell

Diversity in the Ad Tech Space from the Co-Founders of Direct Digital Holdings

This segment is brought to you by Jpmorgan Chase, celebrating black culture and our communities every day. And we are celebrating black history and culture all month long on cheddar news today, we're excited to feature two trailblazers behind Direct Digital Holdings. It's a fast growing player in the programmatic ad space and just the night the black owned company ever list on a U. S. Stock exchange. So joining me now from the NASDAQ is Mark walker Ceo, Direct Digital Holdings and keith smith co founder and president of the company guys. It's great to have you. Thanks for joining. Great to be here. Thank you. Thank you for having us, Mark, we'll start with you. I want to hear more about the company and how you are trying to capitalize on opportunities with underrepresented Mark. Multicultural communities around the country. Yeah, absolutely. The way we capture multicultural audiences is we focus on two things. One we help companies buy and sell media and we leverage technology to do it. But our primary focus is working with multicultural publishers, connecting them into the programmatic ecosystem. What that means is we spend a lot of time, energy and effort ensuring that smaller publishers that might have 3 to 5 million unique visitors are able to tap into the $250 billion marketplace and capture some of the revenue that comes in. That's been our mission since we started in 2018 and we're excited to continue it, keith. I want to bring you in here as well. What is the company's status as the ninth black owned business listed on a major U. S. Stock exchange? That is an impressive achievement. What does that mean to you? I gotta tell you um even we were surprised when we first started down this path and discovered were the ninth black owned company to ever go this route. And so it's an enormous accomplishment. We hope it's paving the way for future companies, black owned companies to access capital through the public markets. Uh we continue to see the benefits of getting our story in the marketplace with our goal of closing that digital divide that exists between african americans and the rest of the world. So um doing it as 1/9 on black owned ninth, black owned company has been incredible. Thank you. It really is impressive. Mark. I know your company unicorn status and the ad tech space for diversity. Also impressive. Why is that important to you and how the company operates? Yeah, it's very simple why diversity matters and how we operate. When you look at our board, when you look at our leadership team and when you look at our management team, it's a majority minority organization um from soup to nuts, what it means is part of our growth. And the fact that we've been able to grow 100 to 130% year over year is because when you bring diverse minds, you bring a diverse group of people together. You get outsized performance and outside results were strictly focused on fundamentals and we're focused on top revenue growth and we're focused on making sure that we're able to deliver double digit Ibarra. And the fact that we have been a diverse own organization as well. Majority minority organization has actually been able to deliver on that result and that's what we're incredibly proud of. Well, of course we are celebrating Black History month all month long and keith in terms of your own professional journey, in terms of this month, how Black history month has made an impact on you. Talk to me more about that, the impact on you and the company. Sure, I mean as you know, february is the month in which we celebrate black excellence. And so just like everyone before me, my path has been about observing those that have come before me and paved the way and opened many, many doors and so uh from my background to come up in uh in through investment finance and ultimately um own part of direct digital with my partner, Mark has been tremendous. Our hope is that one day will be highlighted in the month of february, talking about doors that we've opened on the digital front uh for those to come. So it's it's a huge impact. Mark, let's talk about the future, how you want to grow this business and what's next. Yeah, absolutely. I think when you look at the digital landscape and what's next. I think the impact that ai is actually gonna have on the space is gonna be monumental. We're looking at starting to make investments in that front um specific specifically because we are a technology company and we think that that those type of investments within artificial intelligence and how we can leverage it inside of the programmatic space and specifically with inside of our technology is gonna help fuel our growth for the remainder of 2023 2024. Alright guys, congratulations. Such an honor to have you on the show today. That's Mark Walker Ceo of Direct digital Holdings and keith smith, a co founder and president of Direct Digital Holdings. We appreciate it. Well, Jpmorgan Chase is committed to advancing racial and social equity, visit jpmorgan Chase dot com slash ABP to learn more.