Adrian McDonald, Adway's New CEO

Earlier this year, Adway’s Senior Advisor of Digital Talent Acquisition, Sara Dasfelt went live with a major announcement: Who is Adway’s New CEO?! 

The world was waiting and we finally made it official….

Welcome to the team, Adrian McDonald! 

If you’d prefer to meet him in person, we don’t blame you! Check out the full livestream: 

If you’d rather read up on what he’s all about, keep scrolling. 

Background Check  

Adrian is a self-proclaimed “Australian/ Swedish hybrid,” who is married with three daughters. He’s been building companies as an entrepreneur and corporate trainer, predominantly in Europe, for the last fifteen years. And he is passionate about automation, data and technology, which has helped continuously shape his work with new business model innovation and emerging technologies. 

For several years at Microsoft, he was responsible for rolling out the automation platform for their advertising and media business. After that, he found his way back to his entrepreneurial roots, starting up a company called Widespace, a mobile ad-tech company headquartered in Sweden, and helping it become one of the fastest growing companies in Europe. 

Since leaving Widespace, Adrian has been an advisor and investor in many tech scaleups— from Stockholm to Silicon Valley. And now, he joins us as CEO of Adway! 

Adrian’s Reason for Joining Adway 

Adrian is passionate about building new things, and this dynamic lends itself well to smaller startups and scaleups. When Andrew was at Microsoft, he was laser focused on automating workflow and the way the company traded media with advertisers. He learned a lot about harnessing data and tracking consumers across sites. This is very similar to what’s happening at Adway. We’re on an ambitious, high-growth journey to change the world of TA, so it feels like a great fit. 

A Fresh Take on “What Does Adway Do?”

We’re working primarily with large enterprises, streamlining and maximizing talent pools in social media to help them get more relevant applicants, in a more time efficient manner, at a lower cost. 

How Adway is Making an Impact in the TA Industry

If you look at what the TA market is going through, they’re looking at ways to successfully streamline workflows and build organizations that can be focused on value-generating activities rather than just administration and processes. To do that, they need an entirely different mindset and way of working. They need data and technology that can start to automate those workflows. 

Adway is about transforming the way TA makes this happen, and it’s addressing this shift in the market right now. 

The Wins of Working With Data 

Moving in the direction of data helps you work smarter and find the best answers to deliver better results. The TA market is moving into a world where the fight for talent is ultra-competitive, and the battleground for amazing talent takes place in an expansive list of social media channels. It’s simply where people are. 

With this newfound talent dynamic comes the need for a multi-channel TA strategy. It is essential to use technology to simplify that process. There aren’t enough hours or team members to handle it manually. 

Use Automation Early. Be Human Later. 

As humans, we want to spend more time with people. That’s just the way it is. As such, the more recruiting processes that can be automated, especially early on, the better. We can get recruiters back to speaking to people and focusing on more value-generating activities. Adway Connect is a product that plugs into large scale ATS platforms and makes it easy to start this shift. It helps recruiters continue to use the tools they know and love while easily optimizing the administrative process. 

Making a Business Case For TA 

If you’re receiving the right insights and information on a timely basis, it will start to serve as fact. The people who can back their business case up with real-time data will be able to drive the right strategies and influence the rest of the organization. 

If you’re not passionate about data, become passionate about data. It will be essential to TA moving forward. Every touchpoint needs to be documented so TA can stay competitive and tweak the plan as needed.

What “Wows” Adrian About Adway

For starters, the product is amazing. It’s exactly what the market needs and it’s really attractive. It also delivers up to 2X more traffic to career pages for many of our customers and 4X the number of candidates applying for jobs. Finally, it’s saving our clients on costs and time. 

Why Follow Adway?  

If you’re looking for ways to spend more time with candidates and less time on admin, that is what Adway is here for. We’re automating processes that give recruiters time back. If you’re a person who could use that, following us is key. We also share incredible content and best practices we believe in. Basically, we’re passionate about helping people. 

What Excites Adrian Most About the Future 

We’re rolling out products on a regular basis and we’re only going to keep getting better and better. We’re also rapidly growing and expanding as a company, with ambitions to be the best TA partner in the world! We’re moving way beyond Sweden and into the rest of Europe and our growth journey has just begun.