Adtech startup Cake.Shop has appointed Rhiannon Brown as commercial director.
The addition comes as the business looks to scale its independent, transparent digital advertising services across Australia.
The Sydney-based company, founded by Luke Hills and Georgia Woodburne, said Brown will work closely with the founders to strengthen its proposition for advertisers and independent agencies seeking greater transparency and control in programmatic media buying.
Brown’s past experiences
Brown joins Cake.Shop after seven years as NSW sales director at MIQ.
She brings 17 years of experience across the Australian media market, spanning print, out-of-home and digital, with previous roles at Fairfax Media and Carsales.
Her mandate will focus on expanding Cake.Shop’s service suite across brands and agencies, while supporting the creation of in-house or hybrid media trading models.
“I decided to join Cake.Shop because I want to help agencies and brands secure better control over their ad spend and systems,” Brown said.
“A big chunk of the independent market in Australia still runs operations and billing through external infrastructure or via outsourced platforms. This means brands are seeing their marketing budgets wasted which has a direct impact on their growth.”
Founded in 2023, Cake.Shop offers a self-service platform, managed infrastructure and trading services, alongside advisory and support.
The company positions itself as an alternative to what it describes as opaque or “black box” programmatic models.
Co-founder comments
Hills said brands and agencies are increasingly seeking flexibility and visibility in their media operations.
“The advertising market currently has limited clarity on how to achieve profitable performance, because of the black box nature of many technology offerings, and this is leading to low returns and media wastage,” Hills said.
“Our ambitions are to more actively demonstrate the Cake.Shop value proposition to independent agencies, publishers and challenger brands, and make programmatic media a more appealing investment.”
Building a modular adtech stack
As part of its next growth phase, Cake.Shop plans to launch a new technology layer this year that connects buying, billing, automation and reporting.
The company said the modular stack will allow agencies to adopt components on a plug-in basis, without long-term contract commitments.
Top Image: Rhiannon Brown