Director, Inventory Business Operations and Strategy

The Trade Desk is a global technology company and the world’s leading independent platform for digital advertising, with nearly 4,000 employees across more than 30 offices. Our technology helps advertisers reach the right audiences across the open internet — from streaming TV and podcasts to mobile apps, news, and more.

Advertising powers the content people love. By making it more transparent, effective, and responsible, we help support trusted journalism, quality entertainment, and creators worldwide. The world’s brands and agencies rely on us to reach their customers and grow their businesses responsibly.

The scale of our platform brings unique technical challenges — from processing massive datasets in real time to building systems that operate reliably on a global scale. When you work here, your impact is worldwide. We welcome diverse perspectives, encourage curiosity, and build teams that learn from one another. If you’re driven to solve meaningful challenges, we’d love to meet you.

About the Role

The Director, Inventory Business Operations and Strategy role exists to build and scale the Inventory org, the approaches, and the work the org does. It is not a catch-all for things the SVP of Inventory Partnerships does not have time for. This person becomes a nexus: a high-trust, cross-functional operator who helps other teams do their work more successfully without doing it for them.

In practice, that means being a translation layer. When Product is trying to understand what Inventory is actually after, they come here first. When a cross-functional initiative is losing coherence, this person provides the context and clarity that gets it back on track. The leverage this role creates is organization, and it compounds over time.

This role carries a dotted line to the Sr Director of Business Operations and operates with high agency across a genuinely interdisciplinary scope: Inventory, Product, Sales, and GTM.

What You’ll Do

Core Mandate

• Iterate on and launch new approaches to how the team operates, how it engages cross-functionally, and how it brings new products and frameworks to life

• Become the connective tissue across Inventory, Product, Sales, and GTM, providing clarity and context so other teams can move forward without unnecessary escalation

• Reduce SVP dependencies by ensuring clear ownership, shared context, and consistent principles across functions (not by gatekeeping but by enabling)

• Serve as a liaison between Inventory and Sales/GTM, ensuring both sides have the context they need to move quickly and Inventory’s priorities shape how commercial teams position

• Partner with Business Operations on planning cycles, goal setting, and the rhythm of the business to keep Inventory’s priorities sharp and well represented

• Drive self-directed analysis into the strategic questions that matter most, proactively investigating why key business metrics are where they are, what would need to change to move them, and what headwinds or tailwinds the org should be anticipating

• Serve as a knowledge aggregator for the org, synthesizing what the team knows across functions into a living base of context that others can draw on, reducing information loss and repeated ramp up

Priority Projects

• Build Leverage for VP Direct Reports: Systematize what is consuming their time, create repeatable operating structure, and surface what is stuck before it becomes an escalation

• Streamline Exec Brief and Status Report Requests: Build a repeatable system so that when leadership needs a brief on a partner or a status update ahead of a meeting, the team can respond quickly without pulling people away from partner-facing work

• Fix Gaps in How Supply Path Questions are Handled: Ensure BD & CS have what they need to respond to RFIs, RFPs, etc. with confidence

• Operationalize a Client Engagement Framework: Build the intake, routing, and tracking infrastructure that connects Inventory participation to BD & CS opportunities and ties it to measurable revenue outcomes

• Revamp the Inventory All Hands: Rethink format, content, and cadence to make it a high-signal org touchpoint that builds shared context and trust

• Ad-Hoc Strategic Projects: Take on ad-hoc strategic projects as they arise; this role operates with enough context and range to pick up high-priority work that does not have a clear home elsewhere

Who You Are

• A builder and scaler: Launching and iterating on new approaches gives you energy as opposed to just maintaining existing ones

• Interdisciplinary, highly cross-functional: Comfortable enough across Inventory, Product, Sales, and GTM to earn credibility in any room and translate between them fluently without needing to be the expert

• High agency, high concurrency: You manage multiple workstreams without losing clarity on what matters most

• A source of clarity for others: People come to you to understand context, intent, and direction and leave better equipped to do their work; you communicate with precision

• Highly trusted: You have a track record of earning trust with senior leaders while maintaining independent judgement; you hold influence carefully

The Trade Desk does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firm recruiters. Fees will not be paid in the event a candidate submitted by a recruiter without an agreement in place is hired; such resumes will be deemed the sole property of The Trade Desk. The Trade Desk is an equal opportunity employer. All aspects of employment will be based on merit, competence, performance, and business needs. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, marital status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic information, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state, or local law.

[LA JOBS ONLY] The Trade Desk will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories for employment in a manner consistent with the requirements of the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring, Ordinance No. 184652.

[SF JOBS ONLY] Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

In accordance with various US state laws, the range provided is the Trade Desk's reasonable estimate of the base compensation for this role. The actual amount may differ based on non-discriminatory factors such as experience, knowledge, skills, and location. All employees may be eligible to become The Trade Desk shareholders through eligibility for stock-based compensation grants, which are awarded to employees based on company and individual performance. The Trade Desk also offers other compensation depending on the role such as variable compensation-based incentives and commissions. Plus, expected benefits for this role include comprehensive healthcare (medical, dental, and vision) with premiums paid in full for employees and dependents, retirement benefits such as a 401k plan and company match, short and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance, well-being benefits, reimbursement for certain tuition expenses, parental leave, sick time of 1 hour per 30 hours worked, vacation time for full-time employees up to 120 hours thru the first year and 160 hours thereafter, and around 13 paid holidays per year. Employees can also purchase The Trade Desk stock at a discount through The Trade Desk’s Employee Stock Purchase Plan.

The Trade Desk also offers a competitive benefits package. Click here to learn more.

Note: Interns are not eligible for variable incentive awards such as stock-based compensation, retirement plan, vacation, tuition reimbursement or parental leave

At the Trade Desk, Base Salary is one part of our competitive total compensation and benefits package and is determined using a salary range. The base salary range for this role is

$151,100—$277,000 USD

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, The Trade Desk is committed to creating an inclusive hiring experience where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.

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