Michael Lehman: President, Americas

Background

Equativ has grown significantly in recent years, driven by strong underlying business performance and strategic acquisitions. In 2023, Bridgepoint acquired a majority stake to support Equativ’s continued growth and ambition to become one of the world’s leading independent supply-side platforms.

The US has always been central to that ambition. In 2024, Equativ merged with Sharethrough, the Montreal-founded ad exchange, creating one of the largest independent ad marketplaces in the world and making the Americas its most important growth market. However, the US is also the largest and most competitive ad tech markets in the world, and while buyers knew Sharethrough well, many were only beginning to discover Equativ. To turn a strong foothold into market leadership, Equativ needed a President, Americas. This hire was pivotal to owning the region’s P&L, leading a scaled commercial organisation and serving as the senior face of the business in the US.

Requirements

The successful candidate was never going to be a pure sales leader. Equativ needed someone who could run a large commercial organisation with the rigour expected of a private equity-backed business, while also being a recognised name in the US market with the relationships to open doors that had previously stayed closed.

Crucially, Equativ was looking for genuine fluency across both sides of programmatic, supply, demand, and exchange dynamics, combined with a truly global outlook and the ability to work hand in hand with a European headquarters. Erevena’s role was to identify and engage this rare combination of commercial heavyweight and industry ambassador from across the US ad tech ecosystem.

Result

Erevena identified and introduced Michael Lehman to the Equativ team, and he secured the role. Michael most recently served as President of Nativo, where he oversaw all commercial functions, including marketing and product. Before that, he spent eight and a half years at TripleLift, helping scale the business from its Series A through to its $1.4 billion acquisition by Vista Equity Partners and leading a global team across the US, Europe and Australia. He began his career in publisher development at The Rubicon Project. Michael was drawn to Equativ by a challenge he knows well: a strong product whose standing in the US market had yet to catch up with its quality. It is the same gap he closed at Nativo, where he had a major impact on the company’s growth.