SINGAPORE – US advertising technology giant The Trade Desk (TTD) has retrenched 15 per cent of its workforce globally, including some employees in Singapore.
Its founder and chief executive Jeff Green announced the layoffs in an email to his staff on Sept 3. The email was also published on ad tech news platform The Current – owned by TTD.
Affected employees left the firm on Sept 4.
“This was a difficult decision that we have not taken lightly,” he said in the email.
While retrenchment is “a common practice in big tech, this has not been a common practice at TTD. We don’t expect it to become one,” he added.
TTD is headquartered in Ventura, California, and has offices around the world including Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Jakarta, Seoul, Shenzhen and Taipei.
The company operates a self-service platform that allows firms to buy and place targeted digital ads automatically across the internet, so they do not have to contact individual websites directly.
It had over 3,500 employees worldwide before the latest job cuts.
Jobs platform LinkedIn suggests that TTD has over 140 employees in Singapore. As at Sept 7, the platform shows a Singapore-based job opening for a senior director of business development for Asia-Pacific.
On Sept 4 and 5, LinkedIn users who identified themselves as TTD employees in Singapore spoke about the layoff in public posts.
“Today I say goodbye to 6 years of adventure and growth at The Trade Desk,” said one user who identified herself as an employee in creative strategy and operations.
Another user who identified herself as an employee in client services said she was made redundant on Sept 4. “I guess there’s a first time for everything.”
The layoff came after TTD’s disappointing financial guidance, which put pressure on its stock price.
During the recent earnings call, Green said: “Our revenue growth is below our expectations and below the standard we hold ourselves to.”
But he stressed that the company has approximately US$1.5 billion (S$1.9 billion) in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, and no debt on its balance sheet. This allows the company to invest in strategic areas such as artificial intelligence and media measurement tools.
He also said the company will focus on streamlining its operations. “We want our teams to be organised into smaller pods and smaller scrums, but with greater focus,” he added.
The Straits Times has contacted TTD for the number of employees affected in Singapore.
