AUDIENCES Appoints Francis Turner As Strategic Advisor As It Builds Out Industry-Leading Advisory Board

Appointment strengthens AUDIENCES’ growing advisory board as it scales its independent, in-cloud approach to first-party data activation across brands and publishers

London, UK - 23rd April, 2026 - AUDIENCES, the cloud-native data activation company helping enterprises unlock the full value of their first-party data, today announces the appointment of Francis Turner as Strategic Advisor, as it continues to build out its advisory board to support its next phase of growth.

Francis brings over two decades of experience across media, advertising and technology, with a proven track record of building, scaling and monetising businesses in complex, evolving markets. He is best known as Co-Founder of native advertising platform & SSP Adyoulike, where he helped scale the business internationally and led its commercial strategy through to its $100 million acquisition by OpenWeb. His career also spans senior roles across the ecosystem, including Fox Networks (News Corp) and Reckitt Benckiser, giving him deep expertise across both the buy and sell side of the industry. 

Alongside his executive career, Francis is increasingly active in advisory and investment roles, supporting founders, boards and investors across media, data and AI, from governance and M&A through to commercial model innovation. 

His appointment follows the recent additions of Steve Simpson and Paul Wright, forming part of AUDIENCES’ deliberate strategy to build an advisory board with deep expertise across media, technology and data as the company scales.

Francis joins at a pivotal moment for AUDIENCES, as it expands its work with both enterprise brands and leading publishers. As publishers look to better activate and monetise their authenticated audiences, his experience will support AUDIENCES in helping them unlock incremental revenue opportunities while maintaining full control of their data within their own cloud environments, with privacy and governance built in by design.

Rob McLaughlin, Founder & CEO, AUDIENCES, said: “As we scale, building the right advisory board has been a priority. Francis brings a rare combination of entrepreneurial experience and deep commercial understanding of the media ecosystem. His experience across publishers and data will be invaluable as we continue to grow, particularly as more publishers look to take greater control of how their audiences are activated and monetised.”

Francis Turner added: “AUDIENCES represents a different way of thinking about a space many assume is already solved. Rather than iterating on legacy approaches, the team is rethinking how data should be activated with a core focus on returning control to the organisations that generate it. I’m excited to support Rob, Matt and the team as they build what comes next.”

The continued expansion of AUDIENCES’ advisory board reflects the growing momentum behind its cloud-native approach, as more organisations look to activate first-party data more effectively, securely and in real time.

To read more from Francis on why he joined AUDIENCES and his perspective on the next gen data landscape, visit AUDIENCES blog.

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