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.

Kya Sainsbury-Carter: 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.

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: Thank you so much for having me. I'm

thrilled to be here.

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: 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.

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: 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.

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: 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.

Yeah.

Kya Sainsbury-Carter: 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.

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: 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.

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: 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.

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: 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.

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: 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.

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: 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.

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: 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.

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: 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.

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: Oh, well, thank you so much for having me.

On behalf of the Walton College, thank you for

joining us for this captivating conversation. To stay connected

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