The Revenue Room™, by H2K Labs The Revenue Room™ with Will Lee, CEO, Adweek
Dec 19, 2024
Will Lee, CEO of Adweek and former NPR COO who transforms legacy media into product- and data-driven businesses. He discusses the Omnicom-IPG deal and industry turbulence. He explains Adweek’s four pillars, evolving revenue mix toward intelligence products, AI’s role in operations, and experiments with partners to unlock historical and real-time insights.
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Early Library Discovery Shaped Career Path
- Will Lee first discovered Adweek at age 11 in a library and it shaped his career interest in advertising.
- That early exposure made Adweek a lifelong touchpoint and motivated him to lead the 45-year-old brand as a startup-with-a-head-start.
Listen And Build Stakeholder Buy-In
- Engage stakeholders relentlessly when launching transformative products to build buy-in across the ecosystem.
- Lee used deep listening and data-backed arguments with NPR member stations and industry groups to launch the NPR Network.
Flywheel From Overlapping Audiences
- Adweek's audience spans agencies, marketers, adtech, and publishers, creating a unique buy-side/sell-side overlap.
- That mix enables a flywheel: readers consume editorial, attend events, join community, and buy intelligence from the same brand.