Rachel Smith

Rachel Smith is a senior strategy executive at Publicis Media Exchange (PMX), the centralized trading and investment arm of Publicis Groupe, where she oversees programmatic strategy and ad tech partnerships across the agency's global portfolio. Her work sits at the intersection of media buying at scale and the rapidly evolving ad tech ecosystem, making her a key figure in how one of the world's largest holding companies navigates programmatic transformation. With an estimated 15 or more years in the industry, Smith has built expertise in trading desk operations, programmatic buying, and the complex vendor and platform relationships that underpin large-scale media investment. Her role at PMX places her at the center of decisions affecting billions of dollars in media spend, including how the agency adapts to identity resolution challenges, the deprecation of third-party cookies, and the rise of retail media and CTV programmatic channels. As a strategy leader within a major holding company trading desk, Smith represents a class of operators who shape industry norms through the sheer scale of their buying power and partnership decisions. Her influence extends beyond internal strategy to how ad tech vendors and publishers align their roadmaps with agency priorities.

• Appointed Global Chief Strategy Officer at Publicis Media Exchange, overseeing programmatic strategy across one of the world's largest agency holding company trading desks
• Developed and scaled ad tech partnership frameworks influencing multi-billion dollar programmatic media investment decisions