The news: Three top executives are departing The Trade Desk amid broader turmoil for the demand-side platform operator.

• Chief marketer and executive VP Ian Colley is leaving TTD after seven years.
• Top comms executive Melinda Zurich and SVP of consumer products Matthew Henick are also departing; the latter was previously the leader of Ventura TV OS, TTD’s streaming operating system.
• The three exits come less than a week after TTD board member Lise Buyer resigned.
• TTD told Adweek the departures are a “changing of the guard.”

Zooming out: The sudden departures come at a difficult moment for TTD, a company that was once a Wall Street darling but has seen its stock fall more than 82% since February 2025, when it posted earnings that missed its own revenue expectations. Its stock is down 42% from the beginning of 2026.

Major holding company Publicis told its clients last month that it no longer recommends TTD after it reportedly failed a third-party audit; holdco Omnicom quickly announced its own plans to audit TTD. WPP and Dentsu also exited TTD’s OpenPath offering this year, citing control and transparency concerns.

Why it matters: Despite TTD’s positioning as an independent alternative to closed ecosystems from Big Tech leaders like Meta and Google, its loss of senior talent raises questions about the strength of its open web, anti–walled garden positioning.