Tom Laband

Tom Laband is best known as the founder and CEO of Chalice Custom Algorithms, a company he built to address a persistent gap in programmatic advertising: the inability of standard DSP bidding logic to accommodate the nuanced, business-specific optimization goals of sophisticated advertisers. By offering custom algorithm development as a service, Laband has carved out a distinctive niche in the AdTech ecosystem, enabling brands and agencies to deploy machine learning models tailored precisely to their KPIs rather than relying on black-box platform defaults. Under Laband's leadership, Chalice has become a recognized technical innovator in the programmatic space, working with agencies and brands to build and deploy custom bidding algorithms that integrate directly with major DSPs. His approach reflects a broader industry trend toward algorithmic transparency and advertiser control, positioning Chalice as a counterweight to the opacity often associated with walled garden and platform-native optimization tools. Laband brings hands-on expertise in machine learning applied to media buying, and has been an active voice in industry conversations around algorithmic accountability, custom bidding, and the evolving role of data science in programmatic advertising. His work sits at the intersection of engineering and media strategy, making him a notable operator-innovator in the modern AdTech landscape.

• Founded Chalice Custom Algorithms, one of the first companies to commercialize custom bidding algorithm development as a managed service for programmatic advertisers
• Established Chalice as a recognized technical innovator in programmatic advertising by enabling advertisers to deploy ML models directly within major DSP environments