The Trade Desk to cut 15% of global workforce in restructuring

CEO Jeff Green said the job cuts are about preparing for growth, not financial trouble, as the adtech giant revealed a $1.5bn cash pile in the 10 years since its IPO. The Trade Desk is cutting around 15% of its global workforce as the adtech company reorganises its business into smaller, more focused teams. The cuts take effect today (4 September) and will affect employees worldwide. The company has not disclosed how many roles will be lost in individual markets. In a message to staff, CEO Jeff Green said the decision was difficult but would allow the company to operate with greater 'agility, focus, ownership, and speed'. Green stressed that the cuts were not driven by financial weakness. The company has around $1.5bn in cash and no debt, while revenue has grown from $202m in the year of its 2016 IPO to more than $2.9bn last year. He said the company had continued to grow in its most recent quarter and described the restructuring as a move to prepare The Trade Desk for its 'next phase of growth'. In a post on LinkedIn, Green said: 'We didn't take this decision lightly. The people leaving helped build this company into what it is, and, in the process, revolutionised the industry around the importance of the open internet. 'They'll always be counted among TTD alumni, and I'm forever grateful for them and their many contributions.' The company will continue investing in partnerships across data, media and retail, as it seeks to strengthen its proposition to advertisers and agencies. Green said the new structure would organise employees into smaller teams, with the aim of giving them greater responsibility and enabling the business to move faster. The changes mark a significant workforce reduction for a company that has historically positioned its people as one of its key strengths, but TTD said it remained focused on innovation and supporting the future of the open internet. Green shared the full notes to employees with The Current, a publication owned by TTD. Founded in 2009 by Green and Dave Pickles, TTD was built to give advertisers an independent way to buy digital media programmatically across the open internet, rather than relying on the closed ecosystems of companies such as Google and Meta. It has since grown into the world's largest independent demand-side platform (DSP), connecting buyers with huge volumes of display, video, audio and connected-TV inventory. In recent years it has faced several challenges. Earlier this year, Publicis resolved a high-profile dispute over adtech fees with the platform, following a disagreement over fee transparency and paid features. The holdco had paused recommending TTD to clients after a third-party audit in March, but the two companies subsequently reached an agreement and renewed their partnership, with Publicis once again recommending the platform. Last week, TTD launched Kokai Zuma, a new iteration of its Kokai platform. First introduced in 2023, Kokai facilitates the planning, buying and measurement of advertising across the open web. The Zuma release is intended to make TTD's Kokai easier to navigate, learn and use by bringing together new agentic AI capabilities with a simplified measurement framework. This story first appeared on Performance Marketing World.