Guest · Attention and context
Marcus Startzel
CEO, GumGum
A former nuclear submarine officer turned Amazon alumnus and now GumGum CEO, Startzel argues advertising's next edge is understanding a person's mindset in the moment.
About
Marcus Startzel is CEO of GumGum, the advertising technology company he describes as almost 20 years old and rooted in computer vision and contextual AI. Appointed just before Cannes last year, he is repositioning the business around what it calls mindset: reaching people when they are both relevant to a brand and receptive to its ad.
Startzel's career began outside advertising entirely. He trained at the Naval Academy at Annapolis and served as a nuclear submarine officer, an experience he credits for his leadership creed, ship, shipmate, self, and for a belief in flat, inclusive organisations where good ideas do not only come from the top. He went on to spend time at Amazon, a company whose obsession with the customer he says shaped how he now runs a business.
He took the top job at GumGum just before Cannes last year and is coming up on one year in the role. Startzel inherited what he describes as strong raw materials: the Mindset Graph, contextual computer vision and attention prediction from the acquired business Playground XYZ. Finding the company heavily concentrated in display advertising, a small fraction of where brands actually spend by his account, he has pushed GumGum to meet customers omnichannel and to make mindset, rather than audience, the organising idea of its go-to-market.
Career12 years
- 2025 to now GumGum CEO
- 2024 to 2025 Amazon Director, Global AdTech Organization
- 2019 to 2023 WBX Commerce CEO
- 2014 to 2018 AppNexus CRO
Show earlier roles: MediaGlu
- 2014 MediaGlu Chairman & CEO
How Marcus thinks3 convictions
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Start with the customer
Startzel returns to the customer so often he jokes listeners will notice. Drawing on his time at Amazon, he insists the direction of a business comes from customers, not from internal history or bias. Product, technology and go-to-market all follow from understanding what customers are trying to achieve.
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Bias to growth
Startzel frames GumGum as a growth opportunity and says he is drawn to growth businesses by temperament. He argues the company is leading the mindset race and that a wave of investment into AI makes now the moment to press that advantage. For him, focus, not more people or products, is what unlocks growth.
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Listen before you speak
As a new CEO, Startzel spent his first year listening to the team and customers before making big changes. He warns that everyone arrives with their own bias from a lifetime of experience, so leaders should listen first and learn before acting, especially on decisions about people. Speed matters, but not at the expense of getting the human decisions right.
