Leadership Conversation with Harish Kumar Pandey

Having built his career across both publisher monetization and retail media, Harish brings a perspective shaped by very different parts of the ecosystem. From his earlier years at Khaleej Times, where he worked closely with digital monetization and revenue strategy, to his role at Landmark Group where he led revenue conversations around retail media during a critical growth phase, his journey reflects how advertising itself has evolved — from inventory-led selling to commerce-led monetization.

Now, as Chief Business Officer at Adomega, he steps into a market that is changing quickly across SEA, MENA, and the US — where retailers, publishers, and brands are all rethinking what monetization should look like in a world shaped by first-party data, commerce signals, and performance pressure.

As the conversation unfolded, we spoke about where his own journey began, why retail media in the Middle East remains underbuilt relative to its potential, what Adomega plans to do next, and why he believes the next real opportunity in advertising will come not from more inventory, but from better commercial intelligence.

On Building the Future of Retail Media, Commerce Infrastructure, and Advertising That Actually Matters

Q1. Harish, your understanding of advertising cuts across monetization, programmatic, and commerce. Where did this journey really begin?

Harish Kumar Pandey: It began with curiosity more than ambition. I was always fascinated by one simple question: why does one digital business struggle to monetize while another turns traffic into serious value? Once you start exploring that, advertising becomes impossible to ignore.

Over time, I moved deeper into publisher monetization, audience economics, and eventually programmatic infrastructure. What kept me there was that advertising is one of the few industries where technology changes faster than people finish making PowerPoint decks about it.

Q2. Programmatic advertising still feels intimidating to many outside the industry. What drew you so deeply into it?

Harish Kumar Pandey: Because beneath all the acronyms, programmatic is simply decision-making at scale. Every impression carries economics, intent, probability, and timing — all compressed into milliseconds. That level of precision fascinated me early. Also, once you understand programmatic, you stop seeing ad inventory as space. You start seeing it as financial architecture. That changes how you think forever.

Q3. You have worked across different monetization environments. What has changed most in digital advertising over the last decade?

Harish Kumar Pandey: Earlier, access to inventory was power.Today, ownership of intent is power. There is inventory everywhere now. Attention is fragmented, supply is abundant, and everyone has dashboards. But very few ecosystems own moments where purchase intent is visible.

That is why commerce-led advertising is becoming central. The market is no longer asking, “Can you deliver impressions?” It is asking, “Can you influence a business outcome?”

Q4. Retail media is growing rapidly worldwide. How do you see Middle East and North Africa positioned in that story?

Harish Kumar Pandey: MENA is at a very interesting inflection point. The ingredients are already here — strong retail groups, rising ecommerce maturity, valuable first-party data, and increasingly sophisticated brand budgets. The next phase depends on whether retailers here think like media owners or remain dependent on traditional monetization logic.

Because the truth is: every serious retailer today is already sitting on a media business, whether they fully acknowledge it yet or not.

Q5. Advertising is often described as saturated. Why do you believe ecommerce and advertising together still create fresh opportunity?

Harish Kumar Pandey: Because saturation usually exists where differentiation is weak. Commerce changes that. When advertising enters an environment where customers are actively evaluating products, comparing prices, and showing intent, the economics improve immediately.

Suddenly media is no longer interrupting behavior — it is participating in decision-making. That is a very different kind of value. Or put simply: banners became smarter when they learned what shoppers were already thinking.

Q6. What is your larger vision for Adomega in the retail media space?

Harish Kumar Pandey: Our ambition is not to build another advertising layer. We want to help retailers unlock monetization as infrastructure — meaning something scalable, measurable, and strategically useful to the business.

Retail media should not sit in isolation as a campaign product. It should influence revenue planning, brand partnerships, audience intelligence, and long-term retailer economics. If it remains just sponsored placements, the industry is underusing its own future.

Q7. You have hinted that Adomega is entering a major new phase. What is coming next?

Harish Kumar Pandey: Next month, we are launching a completely new commerce media exchange. This is important because the market does not need another generic exchange pretending to understand commerce.

It needs a system built around retailer realities — inventory quality, transaction signals, audience value, and advertiser accountability. We are designing it so that commerce data does not remain trapped inside retailer walls but starts creating stronger media outcomes externally as well.

Q8. What problem does this commerce media exchange solve that existing systems do not?

Harish Kumar Pandey: Most current systems still treat commerce inventory like ordinary display supply. That is inefficient. A commerce impression carries more context — category relevance, proximity to purchase, browsing intent, often even repeat purchase signals.

Our goal is to make that intelligence usable without making execution complicated. Because technology should solve complexity quietly, not introduce new meetings.

Q9. How do you plan to create long-term value for retailers across MENA and beyond?

Harish Kumar Pandey: Retailers do not need short bursts of ad revenue. They need durable monetization models. That means three things:

• protecting customer experience
• building advertiser trust through measurable outcomes
• reducing operational dependency over time

If a retailer needs constant manual effort to sustain media revenue, the model eventually becomes fragile. Long-term value comes when monetization starts behaving like an operating system, not a side project.

Q10. After years in this industry, what still excites you personally?

Harish Kumar Pandey:
The fact that just when people think advertising has settled, it changes shape again. First search changed it. Then mobile changed it. Then programmatic changed it. Now commerce is rewriting parts of it again. This industry has a habit of humbling anyone who thinks they have fully understood it. Which is healthy — because certainty is usually where innovation quietly dies.