Member Spotlight: Rob Leach - General Manager Kargo APAC

Every now and then we like to highlight a new IAB New Zealand Member we think our community will find interesting. Today we meet Rob Leach, General Manager of Kargo APAC.

Please give us some historical background about APAC & Kargo as a company:

As the only media marketplace with 100% premium supply, as measured by Adalytics and Jounce in 2025, Kargo creates memorable advertising experiences that go beyond the first impression to captivate consumer attention. With a suite of exclusive, full-funnel advertising solutions, Kargo is the choice for leading brands looking to drive meaningful customer connections across mobile, desktop, connected television, and social. Focused on performance, Kargo helps the world’s largest advertisers achieve incremental brand lift and higher returns on ad spend. For publishers, Kargo’s proprietary platform maximises revenue per impression through unique creative and targeting solutions. Founded in 2003, Kargo is a global company headquartered in New York with offices in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Dallas, Sydney, and Auckland.

Do you have a hero product or service that you're most proud of? 

Where to start? I am proud of all our technology and all of our products: I am really proud that Kargo has officially become one of the first ad tech businesses to be certified CarbonNeutral®; also, according to Jounce and Adalytics, the Kargo SSP is the cleanest scaled SSP available - no MFA sites and no unsafe content - that is a source of great pride to me; Kargo's unique CTV and OLV formats deliver amazing results and I am certainly proud of them; Kargo's Branded Take Over (think Home Page Takeover across multiple URLs simultaneously) is a remarkable technological feat that really delivers; but the one that I am really proud of and that is going to knock your socks off when it launches next month in APAC is Spotlight. This completely unique user generated ad slot creates new monetisable inventory for our publishers and is already producing results in the US that have never previously been seen in the display advertising environment.

Tell us a bit about your company's mission and vision:

In a nutshell, Kargo aims to put the art into Adtech. Our goal is to continue to create unique, proprietary ad units that captivate, but never aggravate consumers. In doing this we want to help premium publishers monetise their inventory more effectively whilst, at the same time, delivering amazing ROAS for advertisers. And we want to make it all very easy and light touch for our partners by delivering seamless display, video and commerce solutions across mobile, tablets, desktop and CTV.

If you can invite three people, dead or alive, to dinner who would they be? 

Amor Towles, just to listen to his linguistic brilliance; Peter Ustinov, the best raconteur I have ever heard with the most unbelievable true stories; my brother Johnny, very sadly no longer with us, but he would keep the conversation flowing for sure!

What's the best piece of advice you've ever received, or like to share with others? 

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". I am one of five brothers and my Mum used to drum this into us, adding that kindness and a smile help make the world a much better place!

To find out more about Kargo and what their team is up to check out their website here