Finding the Right Leaders for the $300 Billion Retail Media Revolution

Retail media networks (RMNs) are reshaping how retailers generate profit, evolving from an additional revenue stream into a market projected to reach $300 billion and capture 20% of global advertising revenues by 2030.¹  While traditional retail profit margins hover at 3% to 4%, RMNs average 50% to 70%.²

This creates a profit engine that doesn’t require investing in physical goods and sits adjacent to the core business. With global spend estimated at $150 billion in 2024 and forecasted to double by 2030, retail media is emerging as the fastest-growing channel in advertising. Far beyond higher margins, RMNs can deliver personalized, relevant offers that enhance the shopping experience and drive larger and more frequent purchases, while also strengthening customer retention.

With retail media accounting for more than 20% of digital media spend, the question isn't whether to pursue this opportunity — it’s whether you have the leadership to capture it. Our research identifies six distinct archetypes of retail media leaders, each of which brings unique strengths and trade-offs. Understanding these archetypes is the first step to securing an early leadership advantage in the retail media revolution.

The execution challenges behind retail media success

Retail media success hinges on two strategic decisions: selecting the right platform approach and securing leaders capable of executing it.

Determining your retail media platform approach

Retail media platforms transform customer insights into revenue streams—allowing retailers to move beyond price-based competition and offering brands superior audience quality, measurable attribution and omnichannel reach. They can also take supplier relationships from simple distribution channels to true strategic partnerships.

This competitive pressure demands speed. This is perhaps best demonstrated by most retailer’s platform approach. In analyzing publicly available data from the top 50 commercial retail media networks across the US, EMEA, LATAM, and APAC, we found that 82% of leading retailers chose strategic partnerships over building in-house platforms.³

This isn't because partnerships are inherently superior, but because speed is perceived to trump control when markets evolve so fast. Partnerships enable launches in two to four months, compared with one to two years for in-house builds.⁴

However, there are always trade-offs. Partnerships typically result in lower profit margin returns and less control of customer data⁵, which is an important consideration for retailers.⁶

Selecting the right retail media leaders

The retail media leadership challenge is equally critical, but harder to solve.

To better understand the leaders who are already differentiating themselves in this space, we examined the backgrounds of 50 retail media leaders at the world’s largest retailers. These leaders come from within (54%) and beyond (46%) their organizations and, on average, bring just 3.3 years of experience in this domain, highlighting how recently the discipline has emerged.

However, while organizations must decide whether to build or buy this talent, the retail media leadership archetype matters far more than tenure or whether someone comes from inside or beyond the organization. The best combine three core competencies (Figure 1):

Figure 1: Route-to-the-Top: Essential vs. Nice-to-Have Experience in Retail Media Leadership

^{*Percentages are not mutually exclusive; leaders often bring multiple competencies. | Source: Russell Reynolds Associates analysis of retail media leaders’ route-to-the-top, n= 50}

• Of the leaders we examined, 62% bring commercial acumen, which enables them to negotiate effectively with advertising and active trade marketing budgets.
• Many of these leaders (62%) bring P&L management experience, providing the financial discipline to run retail media as a standalone business unit.
• Marketing expertise is also common, with 60% of these leaders bringing this experience, allowing them to speak the language of brands and optimize customer experience.

Notably, fewer come from traditional media (38%) or agency backgrounds (32 %), suggesting that business-building skills currently outweigh pure advertising experience for RMN leadership.

While platform decisions determine speed to market, leadership choices determine market dominance. With 82% of retailers choosing partnerships to allow for rapid deployment, the competitive differentiator shifts from technology to talent — in particular, securing leaders who can transform retail media from a revenue stream into a strategic business unit.

Understanding the current market: Six retail media leadership archetypes

In analyzing the backgrounds of 50 retail media leaders at major global retailers, six distinct archetypes emerged, each bringing different strengths and weaknesses.

Six retail media leadership archetypes

^{Source: Russell Reynolds Associates analysis of retail media leaders’ route-to-the-top, n= 50}

The right choice depends on a retailer's capability gaps and strategic priorities. Those seeking to build complex partner ecosystems and long-term relationship value may benefit from Partnership Specialists, while those prioritizing rapid revenue generation and sales execution might leverage Commercial Leaders to accelerate monetization.

Regardless of what your organization needs, defining this before hiring a retail media leader ensures goal alignment and seizing an advantage through strong retail media leadership.

Seizing the retail media leadership advantage

Retail media is poised to become a $300 billion market in which leadership and technology determine success. While the talent pool is in its infancy, our analysis shows that top-performing RMN leaders combine commercial expertise, P&L management experience, and marketing capabilities. To capture substantial market share, organizations must act decisively. Here’s how.

Secure and invest in talent — With limited talent available, retailers looking to build a standalone RMN must be prepared to invest significantly in human capital, both in compensation and leadership development. Organizations also can be creative with existing talent and demonstrate that a high performer with the right P&L, commercial and marketing capability can succeed as an RMN leader.

Establish a standalone role — In the most successful RMNs, retail media leaders sit on the executive team alongside chief commercial officers and chief marketing officers, rather than reporting into them. We’ve often seen organizations make the mistake of adding retail media to non-P&L roles (such as the CMO) as a way to enhance the attractiveness of a role or save on headcount. At the start of the evolution of RMNs, the capability needs to sit as a standalone entity that over time can be integrated into other functions.

Develop complementary teams — The relationship between the commercial, marketing, and retail media teams is crucial to the success of all three functions. Because there will be natural overlap in responsibilities, it’s critical to ensure that talent complements one another.

These initiatives will allow companies to transform retail media into a strategic growth engine, ensuring that the opportunities are captured, rather than ceded to better-equipped competitors.

Authors

• Martin Gunn is a member of Russell Reynolds Associates’ Global Customer Activation & Growth and Global Retail Commercial Strategy & Insights teams. He is based in London.
• Greg Hodge leads Russell Reynolds Associates’ Customer Activation & Growth practice in Europe and is a member of the firm’s Global Retail practice. He is based in London.
• Anders McGillis is a member of Russell Reynolds Associates’ Global Customer Activation & Growth and Global Retail practices. He is based in Toronto.
• Norm Yustin leads Russell Reynolds Associates’ Global Customer Activation & Growth and Global Retail practices. He is based in Chicago.

Endnotes

¹. Omdia, "Retail Media Set to Capture One-Fifth of Global Ad Revenue by 2030," September 2025, accessed September 2025, https://omdia.tech.informa.com/pr/2025/sep/retail-media-set-to-capture-one-fifth-of-global-ad-revenue-by-2030.

². Ciara Schmidt, "In-House vs. Outsource: What's the Right Way to Run Your Retail Media Business?" Dunnhumby, accessed August 2025, https://www.dunnhumby.com/resources/blog/retail-media/en/in-house-vs-outsource-whats-the-right-way-to-run-your-retail-media-business/#_ftn2.

³. Daniel Gospodinov, Henry Leon, Khaled Tawfik, and Lauren Wiener, "Scaling Retail Media Beyond the US: 6 Questions," Boston Consulting Group, accessed June 2025, https://www.bcg.com/publications/2024/scaling-retail-media-beyond-the-us.

⁴. Mimbi, "List of 200+ Retail Media Networks in the World," 2025, accessed June 2025, https://www.mimbi.io/retail-media-networks-list.

⁵. Criteo, "Integration Introduction," accessed September 2025, https://developers.criteo.com/retailer-integration/docs/overview.