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OhHello - Tom Riordan
92 Plays2 years ago
Tom Riordan, Founder/CEO of SugarFree Advertising Solutions, kicks off the first OhHello pod! Tom is an advertiser thought leader, entrepreneur, and team builder. Tune in to hear a world class, global head of advertising measurement and strategy give his two cents on mentorship.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast Episode
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello. Oh, hello. I'm Jeremy Bloom. This is episode one of what's our new podcast. We're gonna be creating tons of content. We're so excited about ohhello.io.
Meet Tom Rudin: Industry Pro & Mentor
00:00:19
Speaker
With me today is my near and dear friend who I have worked with for many, many years. Why don't you introduce yourself, sir? Hey there, JB. Hey there, audience. My name's Tom Rudin.
00:00:33
Speaker
I'm a longtime partner of Jeremy. I'm a ad industry professional in Chicago. I am a recent father with a seven month old. I am a basketball player and musician, as you can see by the guitars behind me. And I'm somebody who's passionate about mentorship. I'm excited to be chatting. Oh, hello today. And where do you work, Tom?
Exploring Sugarfree: A New Advertising Platform
00:00:53
Speaker
Thanks for asking, Jeremy. So over the last couple of years, I've been working on my startup, Sugarfree. So Sugarfree is an advertising platform that helps brands target using geography instead of things that are less privacy safe, such as one-to-one identifiers like internet cookies. So you can see our logo is a big crossed out web cookie. So I've been building on Sugarfree for the last couple of years prior to Sugarfree. I was at Adobe. And then we, of course, met in our partnership with Tube Mobile.
00:01:22
Speaker
And how would you characterize your skillset that you're gonna be sharing with the Oh Hello community,
The Journey: Advertising, Startups, & Mentorship
00:01:26
Speaker
Mr. Reardon? Sure, certainly an ad thought leader by trade. I started agency side at Spark Foundry in Chicago before I went down the startup journey that I just mentioned. So definitely an advertising expert. I have a lot of experience with startup, pre IPO, post IPO, post acquisition. And of course I've been taking my shot at entrepreneurship over the last couple of years.
00:01:50
Speaker
On top of that, I have a lot of experience with team building. And if you want to be a good team builder, you got to be a coach and you got to be a mentor. So it's something that personally has just come up throughout my career at all the stops that I just mentioned. And it's something that I've really identified is a piece that I will keep with me long term.
Mentorship & Democratizing Opportunities
00:02:08
Speaker
Amazing answer. What excites you the most about mentorship, Tom? The future is overrated, Jeremy.
00:02:17
Speaker
You know, we live in the present and the journey that you take and who you take it with is really important. So I think being there to support other people as they're going and taking steps that maybe you've taken in the past or similar to what you've taken in the past is just a really important part of your professional development and your personal development. So mentors have been important to me and I just see it as a thing that deserves propping up. When I heard about, oh, hello, when you first mentioned it to me,
00:02:44
Speaker
it felt like a platform that could make mentorship more accessible and readily available was something that was important. I feel like in my career, I've been fortunate to have a handful of folks who've set me down a path where I felt like I had guidance. I felt like I had people I could bounce decisions off of. I felt like I had connections at times that really helped. And so a platform that democratizes that feels like a huge one for everybody involved.
00:03:11
Speaker
amazing response. And I'm so happy I didn't even have to see that or feed that to you. That was so direct from the heart. So thank you. That was the journey that we're all going on that we're all going through is so important, because it's not about the end goal. It really is about just how you live each day. So really thankful that you said that.
Influential Mentors in Tom's Life
00:03:29
Speaker
With that said, Tom, who are three of your top mentors, whether they're dead, alive, people, you know, people you don't know, didn't know,
00:03:39
Speaker
The most important ones are all alive and I've known them all for sure. So I'll say out of the gates, I mean, you Jeremy have been my most important professional mentor when I was at Spark and I was thinking about my next move.
00:03:52
Speaker
We really connected and we started talking about the industry in a way that felt like just more direct and transparent and honest than I had ever thought about it before. I got really excited about advertising and it set me down to journey. And again, I think I learned about the importance, a lot of about the importance of being a mentor from that experience working with you. Second person I'll mention also. Thank you. I mean that for real.
00:04:18
Speaker
Secondarily, another big person that was there for both of us on that journey was Brett Wilson. So Brett founded Tube Mogul. When he saw what we were doing in Chicago, he really believed in that. He elevated us both and gave us bigger roles than
00:04:34
Speaker
what we initially signed up for. He believed in us, he trusted us, and he taught me a lot about risk-taking and how to be excited about risk-taking, how to have fun with risk-taking, how to be comfortable failing, which is something that I didn't always know, I guess.
00:04:48
Speaker
And the third person I'll mention is my brother, Dave. Dave's three years older than me. He's gone through a lot of life situations that I have in advance since he's been there to talk me through stuff. More on a personal level than a professional level, but certainly professional level too. He's an industry expert himself. He works at MRI and he's really been there kind of every step along the journey. So those are the three people that come to mind.
00:05:10
Speaker
Amazing. Well, thank you, Tom. I genuinely appreciate that. That means a lot coming from you. So thank you. And on behalf of both your brother and our dear friend, Mr. Wilson, thank you.
Supporting Alzheimer's Foundation
00:05:20
Speaker
Last but not least, as a Hello, you're going to be able to donate to about 40 different charities that we're building inside of our platform. Of those 40 charities, which charity rings near and dear to your heart?
00:05:34
Speaker
Sure. So the charity we'll be supporting today is the Alzheimer's Foundation. Grandpa Duke from my dad's side of the family dealt with Alzheimer's, Louie Body in particular for several years, late in life. So it's all what it's like for a caregiver to have to go through that. So that's what that's one that's near and dear for the Reardon family. So Alzheimer's Foundation today.
00:05:53
Speaker
Thank you, Tom. Well, Tom, we're so excited to have you with us on this journey. We really appreciate you being one of our first guests. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being part of Oh Hello and speak with you soon. Thanks Jeremy for having me. Take care.