This week on the podcast, Brent is joined by Kya Sainsbury-Carter, the Corporate Vice President for Microsoft Advertising. During the episode Kya kicks off by sharing her personal journey, from studying international business at the University of Arkansas to her unexpected but rewarding career in technology. As they continue in the episode, Kya discusses the rapidly changing landscape of advertising and how Microsoft is driving innovation in this space. Kya also highlights the diverse range of products and platforms that Microsoft offers for advertising, including MSN, Bing, Outlook, Xbox, and Skype. She explains how Microsoft Advertising works closely with advertisers, agencies, and publishers to find audiences within the Microsoft ecosystem and extend their reach across the web. Finally, Kya emphasizes the importance of building a business that matters and the goal of making a substantial impact in the industry.
Podcast Episode
Episode Transcript
Kya Sainsbury-Carter 0:00
Advertising. It's funny. I always say like, we're in this really rapid period of change.
And people around me say like, it's always in a rapid period of change. That's not
a differentiator.
Brent Williams 0:19
Welcome to the Be Epic podcast, brought to you by the Sam M. Walton College of Business
at the University of Arkansas. I'm your host, Brent Williams. Together, we'll explore
the dynamic landscape of business, and uncover the strategies, insights and stories
that drive business today. Well, today I have with me Kya Sainsbury-Carter, and Kya
is the Corporate Vice President for Microsoft Advertising, and is a proud Walton College
alum. So Kya, thank you for joining me.
Kya Sainsbury-Carter 0:52
Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.
Brent Williams 0:55
We're excited to have you engaged and well, one, what an exciting time I would think
to be at Microsoft advertising. And maybe just let's start there sort of like, tell
us a little more about what you do at Microsoft.
Kya Sainsbury-Carter 1:13
Sure. And you know, probably it's helpful to tell you a little bit about my how I
got here from from my experience at the University of Arkansas. I have spent most
of my career in technology. And I got started in tech, probably pretty randomly, to
be honest, I didn't, it wasn't wasn't the plan, necessarily. But as I grew in tech,
I became more and more interested in getting closer to the customer to the end customer.
And in terms of how we use the internet, to facilitate the engagement that we had
with our customers, so that was at Compaq. That was at Hewlett Packard, I worked at
a startup. And the way that I came to Microsoft is that when I worked at a startup,
I was running a whole product from sort of end to end on the business side, you know,
doing market research, writing specs, doing business modeling, and I was also doing
the marketing. And as a part of the marketing, we were doing some search marketing.
And so I started learning about advertising, and loved it, was super interested in
it. And it was a huge growth space. And so I transitioned from more of a technology
product angle in my career to moving into digital advertising. I worked at an agency
managing a big team at an agency and then was hired by Microsoft, as Microsoft was
building out an ad business. So that's how I got here 17 years ago. And I've done
pretty much all the things there are to be done except for technical roles in the
ads business. And in this role running Microsoft Advertising, I look across all global
sales marketing operations support functions, and then work very, very closely with
my engineering partner who will be jointly manage the business together manage the
p&l together, to monetize Microsoft's assets through advertising, and to act as a
monetization engine for the web for other companies as well. And so we have both a
large, what we call owned and operated business with MSN, with Bing, with Outlook,
Xbox, Skype, and more. And then we also work with many, many partners outside of the
company, as a monetization partner, and of course, many advertisers and brands around
the world. So it's, it's a very fun and interesting job very intense, high paced,
building a business at Microsoft is really interesting, because building a business
here that matters means it needs to get to be pretty big, we're an $18 billion business
now, and looking to grow and take share and become substantially more impactful in
the industry.
Brent Williams 4:11
And so you know, you mentioned the various if platforms is right, or products that
Microsoft has, and so you're able to sell, I guess, advertising on behalf of customers
across all of those different products. Is that, is that correct?
Kya Sainsbury-Carter 4:28
Yeah, so we so we do a few different things. So we will go out and work with advertisers
and agencies, ad agencies to buy inventory on our platform. So it's find their audiences
within the Microsoft ecosystem. And so that's a big part of what we do. And then we
can also help them extend those audiences looking further across the web. And then
we also work with publishers very closely who are looking to monetize their own content.
And we are their ad tech partner, we bring them demand from the advertisers and agencies
that we work with. So we have, I'd say a couple of different ways that we work with
the industry to either find audiences where we are or to find their audiences elsewhere
to to expand from there.
Brent Williams 5:17
Now was, you know, you found yourself in technology. Did you really have technology
in your background academically I, or did really, that just kind of become the path
and you grew and learned throughout your career?
Kya Sainsbury-Carter 5:33
Honestly, it just became the path. When I was at the U of A, I was focused on international
business, that was my passion. And I had transferred. And so as a transfer student,
I also had a bunch of other rigmarole that I needed to deal with. So. But that was
my that was my primary passion. And then I went and got an MBA also focused in international
business. So my main focus was on how to how do I get into roles where I can be navigating
complex, global multinational dynamics on the business end of things. And that's both
exciting, but also really, really broad, because you could basically work anywhere,
and do anything as long as it was a company that worked outside the US. And so I ended
up actually, in my first job out of grad school, I was in finance, because I had loved
my finance classes. And I had a great learning moment, which was I was decent at finance
in the classroom. But I was not, it was not my talent in the practical world, and
I didn't love it, it did not love me. And so I just went looking for something else.
And I applied for a job online in 1996. So as you can imagine, dial up, that was a
really slow process.
Brent Williams 7:00
Yeah.
Kya Sainsbury-Carter 7:01
And somehow out of the mound of resumes, Compaq said, we want to hire you for a product
marketing role. And I said, sounds great. And we moved to Houston. So the thing I
would say, I think about myself, but in general is like I was willing to take risks
and move away from what I studied to some degree from finance, in order to go and
find this global exposure and, and technology is what found me and I found it and
we really loved each other. So then I was on that path. And it made sense. But no,
I'm not a technologist. I'm not a technical person by trade, or education, I think
I have a passion for what technology helps us accomplish. And I have a passion for
what technology helps us do in terms of drive impact at scale. So I've always really
been drawn to that. And you can do a lot of really interesting multinational business
in these spaces, and there tends to be a lot of building, you know, building a new
business, a new product, a new capability, going into a new market. And I'm a builder.
And so you sort of never seem to run out of opportunities to grow and continue learning.
And yeah, that's why I've been at Microsoft for 17 years in the same business unit.
Because I have never run out of interesting things to do, where I'm growing and have
an opportunity to take on more and, and be ambitious about the impact that we're driving.
And, and so I've never seen any reason to leave and and they keep wanting me here,
so I'll stick around.
Brent Williams 8:41
Well, it seems like it's been a really good fit, looking at your career trajectory.
You know, digital advertising, you know, over the last. You've been in it for many
years now. You've seen it, I know evolve probably rapidly at times, maybe rapidly
now. I'd love to have your view of how you see it evolving and changing, and maybe
even what are some of the things you're excited about for the future?
Kya Sainsbury-Carter 9:07
Yeah, definitely. It's like advertising. It's funny. I always say like, we're in this
really rapid period of change. And people around me say like, it's always in a rapid
period of change. That's not a differentiator. But it's an interesting time right
now, because of a few different dimensions. You have, you have this time where we
have more and more and more content creation on the web, of all types, whether that's,
you know, social media, whether it's niche news outlets, whether it's, you know, creative
type of stuff. There's there's more and more content, which is great for consumers.
And then there's also a need to support that content creation, financially through
either subscription models or through advertising. At the same time that that dynamic
is happening where you need more advertising that works and that is effective and
relevant for advertisers. Now their regulations are really changing the game. So you
have a number of well intended, and I think directionally correct regulations that
are happening globally and locally, that are driving pretty tectonic changes in how
digital advertising is executed, and how efficient it is for advertisers. So that's
sort of an interesting juxtaposition, if you will. And then you add on generative
AI really exploding, which is going to enable, you know, exponential steps forward
in things like mass personalization of offers and ad copy and mass creative development
where you could get one ad creative, and I could get one and 10,000 other people could
get their own based on what would make most sense to us. So you have this this period,
that's that's happening or starting to kick off now that is going to drive this like
really remarkable level of increased experiences for consumers. And it should be more
efficient for advertisers. And it should drive improved outcomes for content owners,
news publishers. So all of this is happening at the same time. And I think all of
it together, at the same time means that you advertising is in a period not of rapid
change, which is generally what we would say, but is in a true period of transformation.
And our position from a Microsoft advertising perspective. And as a partner of these
primary stakeholders in the advertising ecosystem, you have consumers, you have advertisers,
and brands, and then you have publishers, is that these changes that that we're driving
and participating in, should be grounded and purpose driven transformation versus
massive disruption. Because it feels like a very disruptive time. And disruption can
be great. But it also can be exhausting and take a lot of resources. And so you have
companies, advertisers, brands, agencies, whoever, you know, they they're tired, people
are tired, they're spread thin, they're taking on new capabilities with fewer employees,
the market needs are shifting, and they're complex. And so we look at advertising
shifting and say, okay, this is exciting transformation is exciting. How can we work
together with our stakeholders to innovate with purpose, versus to disrupt, so that
we can all come along on that journey in a way that's pragmatic and realistic. And
I think that is very helpful in terms of us sort of speaking the same language with
our clients, with our partners, and working constantly to make sure that we're aligned
versus often running, doing our own thing.
Brent Williams 12:51
What a wonderful point and thought, and that is that that positioning of purposeful
transformation, I'm sure it allows you to sort of ground yourself, it almost feels
like it allows you to gather yourself in a in a space that I'm sure if you allow it
to look chaotic, could because there's so many options out there. But I assume that
that's a way to really start getting alignment toward where you want to go together
as partners.
Kya Sainsbury-Carter 13:20
Absolutely, absolutely. And we view it as a as a big part of sort of our brand promise
is, it will absolutely we are innovative. We have the power of Microsoft behind us
from a machine learning and an AI perspective. We have the power of Microsoft behind
us in terms of running on trust and viewing privacy as a human right. And these are
very important things to drive meaningful innovation. But grounding ourselves from
a brand perception and a brand promise perspective in innovating with purpose does
help us focus and it also helps I think our clients feel like we're not disrupting
for disruptions sake. We're not disrupting for our own sake and our own benefit. But
we are looking at at how do we solve our joint problems and pursue our joint opportunities
and ways that are purposeful for both of us. And it's very clarifying.
Brent Williams 14:16
The yeah, the societal benefit, if you will, that that advertising allows, I think
is truly very purposeful. And I can understand why, why you and your team would would
rally behind that purpose. You know, you mentioned AI, and you know, it made me think
about how do you think we will see AI, conversational AI really start to transform
search marketing and the future probably already is but what are some of the things
you're seeing and interested in going forward?
Kya Sainsbury-Carter 15:00
Yeah, it's, it's an exciting time to be in this job, I'll be honest, you know, there's
not always something so exciting going on as the entire world's changing. So I feel
very lucky to be in this job, particularly in this moment. And I'll start with saying,
you know, we're in a period of learning, both, both internally and together with our
clients and partners. So I think the definitive answer on how AI will say will change
search marketing is is somewhat of an evolving topic, which makes it both really exciting,
it also makes people a little bit nervous about the unknown. But but I, I constantly
feel like it's important to sort of state that we're not in a place of definitive
knowledge, we're in a place of evolving knowledge, I'd categorize the change that
we're seeing, and that we anticipate continuing to see really in three areas. One
is around the consumer behavior and consumer experience. One is around the advertiser
opportunity. And then the third is around the publisher evolution and how publishers
are engaging. And we're seeing probably the most on consumer behavior, because that's
sort of the tip of the spear on this. But when you think about consumers engaging
with search, which is now not a new thing, that's a very standard thing that people
do if they have broadband access. But it was a few things that we're observing that
will drive change include things as basic as, like search queries, if you go in to
Bing, you, you had search queries are become becoming longer and more conversational.
And that makes sense. I mean, you would anticipate it if you've used chat. But it's
been interesting to see in practice. So you previously, I might have gone in and typed,
like three words to try and explain what I'm what I'm trying to accomplish. And now
I'll type like three sentences that really get extremely precise on what I'm trying
to do. So that that's the first thing. We're also I think, naturally seeing more queries
in the form of a question. And so you're, you're seeing people behave a bit differently
there, which enables a lot more as an advertiser, because you understand, actually,
and it of course, enables a lot for Microsoft advertising, because we understand what
someone's actually looking for. So we can provide it to them and provide a better
experience. We're also seeing the consumer decision journey like that, you can see
online has more searches and more breath, because it's easier to converse, essentially.
So that you don't get annoyed and walk away and go into a store you, you keep asking
questions and keep refining your understanding. But we're seeing that that the length
of time in that decision journey from starting to do some high end, or high funnel
level research to actually like making a purchase decision is decreasing. So that
is really interesting. If you're, let's say in the automotive industry, if that decision
journey goes from a couple of months, where you do a ton of research, and you go to
some dealerships, and you test drive some cars, and then you do more research, and
you know, whatever your process is, and it goes down to a few weeks. That's really
substantial shift in terms of the role that search marketing can play. Obviously,
it's only one piece in terms of all the forms of advertising that exist, but it's
really interesting. So there's a lot going on on the consumer side, as well. From
an advertiser perspective, you know, it's very much it's, it will change many, many,
many things. There's the ad units that can be offered, that will change and the way
in which consumers are engaging with those ad units, of course, but there's also,
I was mentioning before, the opportunity to drive mass personalization. And so if
you're a brand, and you're trying to tell your story, or make an offer to Kya, that
is not the same offer that you are going to be interested in. Right now, we're both
going to probably see a similar offer. Maybe there'll be geographically diverse, but
we're probably similar in age and you know, how we the things that are happening in
our lives. And so we're going to see the same type of demographically oriented offer
versus an opportunity to show me something that really works for me and show you something
that really works for you to show me a creative that will resonate for me and you
you know want a different one and 10,000 other people a different one. So there are
some pretty substantial shifts that AI will bring that are really very exciting when
you think about where you apply your talent, that you can apply them to higher order
work that's more valuable, more interesting drives better outcomes, and get this incredible
outcome for your customers. So it's really, really exciting. And we also see a lot
of interesting outcomes on the publisher side of things where, you know, people are
investing tremendous amounts of money, creating great content and great experiences,
and having an opportunity to monetize that in different ways that makes sense in the
context of a given publisher, given vertical. So I think I could talk about this for
days, but the short answer is, it will, it will change everything, but it won't necessarily
be overnight, because the consumer has to change first.
Brent Williams 20:53
Yeah. Yeah, do well, you've already you answered this, to some degree, you know, the
consumer's changing the way they're engaging with search. Did you say has there been
a change happening over time? And then maybe, you know, the, I guess the launch of
publicly available chat tools have really caused that to explode. Did you already
see some of these trends? And have they increased with like, for example, you know,
the release of ChatGPT earlier in the year?
Kya Sainsbury-Carter 21:29
Not to my knowledge, in terms of the what we look at. No, I wouldn't say that we were
seeing some of these trends, the technology, I think, the way that search grew up,
created an unnatural inorganic behavior, right, like the way that you typically have
searched. And then you see 10 blue links. And you know, we've, Bing, on Bing, we've
innovated on those 10 blue links quite a bit, but the way that you search was ground
into you. And so people started to search in a way that is not how they would have
actually asked a question. So this is Kya's opinion, this is not Microsoft, well researched
opinion. But in that construct, it feels like we're going back to what, what is more
natural, and is, of course, more conversational. But the technology needed to enable
it by by creating a good outcome. Because if you use the traditional surge, you know,
as I play around with this a lot, put something in chat. And then to put the same
query in, in traditional search, you know, you do not get at all the same type of
outcomes. And so they're actually both very valuable. If I want something really,
really simple, I still use the traditional search route, because it's easy, and it's
fast. If I want something that I don't think is simple, and that really requires me
to provide more detail, then I use chat. And so that I think is another interesting
behavior that we're seeing is you come for chat, potentially, because it's cool, and
it's exciting, and it's different. But you will end up using both. And that's also
really empowering for consumers, which is that we're not saying now shift over here
and only do this, we're saying this is really great in certain scenarios, and we're
going to make it a great experience for the consumer, we're going to help advertisers
make money from it, we're going to make sure publishers benefit. But this is also
super valuable. And so let's not lose sight of this. And together, they are powerful.
Brent Williams 23:41
I love that. It's an and between between the tools that we can customize as we learn
as consumers. You know, when you, one thing I was wondering, as you were talking maybe
particularly let's let's focus on advertisers. It seems like you know, there's a lot
of options out there. And how do you help advertisers really understand the value
that they're creating through your platforms? I'm assuming closed loop reporting and
analytics are a key way to do that. But just what's the what's really important to
advertisers as they think about why do I want to partner with Microsoft advertising
to reach consumers?
Kya Sainsbury-Carter 24:27
Yeah, well, it's the million dollar question. Of course, there is a lot out there.
And and we look at it. I mean, certainly, if you get down to the very tactical and
practical levels, you know, having all of the right type of measurement and attribution
reporting and tools that help advertisers build confidence that they're seeing outcomes
from the money that they're spending, of course, those are table stakes for even being
in the conversation, you know, viewability those types of things. If, if you're coming
and you don't have that, then that is a very difficult conversation to even be to
even get to the table and be in the actual dialogue. But I think, you know, at sort
of the higher order, like why do business with Microsoft advertising, we look at it
as we have something that no one else offers in the market. And breaking that down
into its component parts. And helping advertisers understand that and then helping
them understand how they would execute within that ecosystem is the story that we
have to tell. But, but we believe that we have something that no one else offers in
the market, in terms of the breadth and depth of our ecosystem. From an audience perspective,
if you look across what Microsoft brings into the market, the users of those those
products and the audience that that creates, for us, it's incredibly powerful. That
encompasses you know, everything from windows, all the way to Xbox, and sort of everything
in between. Then, if you drill down a little bit into how we bring that to life, you
know, we have full funnel marketing solutions that cross every channel, every segment,
we're global. But that audience piece is the big piece in terms of, you know, no one
else has this because at the end of the day, advertisers, brands, agencies are looking
for How can I find my valuable audience, as much of it is possible, in a reputable
environment, that is privacy first, that cares about my data, that that is less, you
know, not so focused on making their own money that they will, you know, make decisions
that are bad for my business, and then how do I bring that to life in an efficient
way that works within my ecosystem so that I don't have to, like, hire a whole new
team to work with Microsoft or to work with whoever. And then of course, it has to
perform. And those are the table stakes. But I think that that's really that's where
I have our team focused is telling that higher order story and making sure that advertisers
see that value that we can bring, that is really unique. If you look from you know,
from windows, to, to having a news publisher with MSN, to having a social business
network was LinkedIn to having a retail media platform to having Outlook to having
Xbox as a gaming platform to having Bing as a search engine, like you keep adding
these pieces, we've, we've acquired several companies in the last few years that have
really brought a lot to our tech stack, so that we can execute in ways that make sense
for advertisers. And then at our core, you know, we are an advertising business. So
we have all of these other pieces that make sure that it is performant, which is of
course, at the end of the day, what is going to bring that advertiser back to do it
again. So it's all of that and, and we are, I think right now in a really interesting
place around telling that story and having all those pieces together in the same place.
Brent Williams 28:14
Well, it is truly an amazing suite of products that you get the chance to, to provide
to the advertisers. Truly amazing opportunity. Well, you know, we started a little
bit with your journey to to where you're at today. And maybe just a slight twist on
that, you know, as you've gone through this career journey, might get you to reflect
a little bit on a couple of questions. And the first is just like, how have you seen
your leadership style develop? And, and who are you as a leader that's leading a really
large business and assumably a pretty large team?
Kya Sainsbury-Carter 29:00
Yeah, it's it's been an interesting journey. I think, lots of people and I certainly
always thought this about myself, have some natural leadership skills or, or interest
at least. And then of course, you need some actual experience to help you bring those
skills to life and, and really develop them. I think, you know, my leadership style
has changed probably the most dramatically from leading by doing versus, you know,
leading by coaching and enabling and empowering and of course, you have to do that
as you scale. That's impossible to be effective as you scale if you don't make that
change, but, but I started making that change much earlier when I was managing smaller
teams by just seeing that leading by doing doesn't really resonate with people. People
don't feel empowered to grow if you step in front of them to do it for them and then
hope that they learned. And you know, I remember I worked at Piggly Wiggly when I
was in high school, which people outside the South would not know Piggly Wiggly, but
I'm sure you do. And I had this really distinct memory of, we had someone new who
had started who was older than I was, by probably, I don't know, four or five years
maybe. And, and her the age is only important in that I'm sure she had lots of wisdom
and capability that I didn't have because I was 16. And I was training her and I just
kept stepping in front of her and doing things at the cash register. And finally,
she was mature enough to say, this is not helpful to me. I need you to teach me so
that I don't need you anymore. And I can do my job by myself. And so even from the
earliest of times, I think you you receive leadership lessons from people that consistently
say, help me be great, so we can be great. And that that has been probably my biggest
life's learning because I have a bias for action, I like to get things done. I don't
mind rolling my sleeves up. And so at each stage of leadership, as I take on a bigger
team, or broader scope, or more global or whatever it might be, there's a need to
continue reinventing yourself in that way. And you know, I lead a team of about 1,500
people, I can't obviously roll my sleeves up and do everything. That would both be
ridiculous, and also me failing to do my job effectively. But I need to roll up my
sleeves sometimes, and do some things. And so finding that right balance, and building
an environment or cultivating an environment where people feel valued and empowered,
and like they will receive coaching, where it's okay to take risks and to fail. And
to try again, has been an evolution that I have been very aware of. Because I've been
I've had the gift of lots of feedback. And, and lots of people in my life who've been
willing to be super honest with me and say, hey, these things work, and these things
don't and, and a lot of them have been sort of on that, that trajectory and that topic.
Brent Williams 32:24
Well, Kya, that resonates with me personally, just that that transition, you know,
from doer to leader, actually can be a real challenging one. But, but you're exactly
right. You know, you do find I agree with you, that you find that when you work on
empowering and serving and helping and teaching your team that, you know, the the
multiplicative impact is so much greater than anything you could have done as a doer
that becomes very, very rewarding. You know, the Walton College, you know, we have,
we have about 8,000 undergraduate students and, you know, 600 or so graduate students.
And, you know, if you were to put yourself back in those shoes, of being, you know,
an undergraduate student that is about ready to go out into the workforce based on
everything you've learned, what's one piece of advice that you would give?
Kya Sainsbury-Carter 33:31
My biggest piece of advice is to take risks. And I think you have to frame risk taking
against your own personal risk profile, which is important. What is risk to one person
that's acceptable is not the same to another person. But take risks with things that
make you uncomfortable, that aren't conventional, that aren't what all your classmates
did. It's not for everyone, but it's definitely been right for me, and I'll share
a couple of examples. You know, I when I got out of high school, I couldn't wait to
get out of Arkansas and I went away to school. And I was livin' my non Arkansas dream.
And it wasn't for me. I didn't like the city I was in the school was expensive. I
was going into debt. And I transitioned to back to Arkansas, the place I was trying
to leave and everyone around me thought that was absolutely insane. And it felt risky.
Because everyone said what are you doing? You're on a track. Why are you changing
your track? And it felt right to me. I had been to summer school in Fayetteville.
I had loved it. I had lots of friends there. It was affordable. The classes were great.
And so I did it. You know and I similarly when I moved to Houston to work at Compaq,
like I didn't know technology. I don't know why they chose to take a chance on me.
But I seize seized that chance and said, okay, like, I'm gonna try that. And I had
never worked in advertising. But the the sort of opportunity presented itself as I
was learning. And it was a growing space where I knew that I would be able to do some
really interesting things. And so I took a chance on that. And it's been an unconventional
path. But it's been a path where I have learned businesses in a very breadth and depth
way. And I've always had a job that I liked. And that was interesting. And so that's
my, my advice. It doesn't have to always be financial risk. That I mean, that makes
me very uncomfortable. I don't like taking financial risk. It doesn't always have
to be existential risk. But you have to be stepping outside your comfort zone and
taking chances on yourself, and taking chances on new functions, jobs, companies,
cities. And when you do, I think really interesting things happen. And sometimes it
doesn't work out and it's okay.
Brent Williams 36:09
We're certainly proud of the of the career that you've made, and particularly at Microsoft.
So thank you for being willing to share your wisdom with us today.
Kya Sainsbury-Carter 36:20
Oh, well, thank you so much for having me.
Brent Williams 36:23
On behalf of the Walton College, thank you for joining us for this captivating conversation.
To stay connected and never miss an episode, simply search for Be Epic on your preferred
podcast service.
Brent D. Williams is the Dean of the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas.
With a deep commitment to fostering excellence in business education and thought leadership,
Dr. Williams brings a wealth of experience to his role, shaping the future of the
college and its impact on students and the business community.
