Navigator – London (Hybrid)

Chief Product Officer
Executive | Full-time | Reports to CEO

Where We Are and Where We're Going

Navigator is a performance media agency specialising in travel. We run campaigns globally across paid social, Google Ads, and programmatic for travel brands and agencies. We have scaled the business, work with some of the biggest brands and agencies in the world, and have partnerships with more than 20 of the world's largest travel booking platforms.

We are transforming into the first, and only, true commerce media network in travel—a standalone network at the scale of Uber Advertising, built on first-party data that no one else has. Our ambition is to move from a service business that manually activates campaigns to a programmatic-first network that operates autonomously at scale for both endemic and non-endemic advertisers around the world.

The two biggest challenges in commerce media today are fragmentation and standardisation. Navigator is being built to solve both by creating a unified network with consistent data, measurement, and activation across every channel, powered by more than two billion first-party data signals. We are at an exciting inflection point. The network is in its early stages, our machine learning foundations are being established, and advertising spend is already live. This is an opportunity to build something unique, leave a lasting impact on global advertising, and lead the product strategy behind a business that is already embracing agentic media buying.

The Role

The Chief Product Officer has a dual mandate. The first responsibility is to harness AI and agentic automation to increase productivity, output, and value across the existing agency operation, enabling the team to execute campaigns at a level and scale that would otherwise require a much larger workforce. The second responsibility is to build Navigator's AI-native, programmatic-first commerce media network. Both objectives must progress simultaneously. The current agency business must not be left behind; instead, it will be automated, evolved, and ultimately absorbed into the network. The CPO will own this transformation from end to end.

Product Philosophy

Navigator's product philosophy is based on an agent-to-tools architecture comprising foundational machine learning and a curated ecosystem of AI technologies. The first layer is an AI-native media workflow and orchestration platform capable of planning, activating, pacing, and optimising campaigns across DSPs, SSPs, RTB, Meta, TikTok, and other channels with minimal manual intervention. The second layer is an intelligence engine that continuously optimises campaigns, delivers real-time insights, and extracts value from more than two billion first-party data signals to create the most valuable audience and data products available to brands seeking to reach travellers.

Key Responsibilities

• Automation of Existing Agency Operation: The Chief Product Officer will identify friction throughout campaign workflows, including briefing, setup, trafficking, optimisation, and reporting, and implement AI-powered agentic workflows that reduce manual effort while increasing scale, speed, consistency, and accuracy. They will improve the client experience through faster reporting and richer performance insights without increasing operational overhead.
• Agentic Media Buying Roadmap: They will own Navigator's agentic media buying roadmap, building on existing partnerships with Scope3 and Kargo's Kera platform to transform early innovation into a scalable, differentiated product. They will define the balance between internally developed capabilities and partner technologies, creating an integrated agent-to-tools ecosystem. They will lead development towards fully autonomous campaign planning, activation, pacing, and optimisation while establishing the machine learning foundations required for audience segmentation, bid optimisation, frequency management, and predictive performance modelling.
• Transition to Programmatic-First Network: The CPO will lead the company's transition from predominantly paid social activation to a programmatic-first commerce media network. They will scale Navigator's DSP, SSP, and RTB infrastructure into the network's primary activation capability. They will develop a unified activation layer that provides a consistent data model and buying interface across paid social and programmatic environments while managing strategic technical partnerships, API integrations, certifications, and evolving industry standards.
• Data Strategy and Governance: The Chief Product Officer will own the strategy, architecture, and commercial development of Navigator's first-party data estate, ensuring it is structured, governed, and optimised for commercial value. They will oversee clean room integrations with partners to create a unified, privacy-safe view of traveller behaviour, enabling advanced audience modelling and targeting. They will build continuous campaign data feedback loops that ingest live performance data, improve optimisation models, and generate actionable client insights. They will also ensure privacy-by-design, regulatory compliance, and strong data governance are embedded throughout the platform.
• Measurement and Integration: The CPO will ensure seamless integration with third-party measurement providers while positioning the business to expand its own measurement capabilities as the network matures.