Lab scientist turned developer, Dan Williams has always thrived on innovation. Find out what attracted him to iCrossing and how he plans to make your campaigns more efficient with proprietary tools, tech and training.  

Tell us about your career journey

I started my career working in diagnosis and research for genetics labs. I worked as a scientist in a children’s hospital in Memphis, USA (working on inner-ear epigenetics in mouse models, if that means anything to anyone) but decided the lab life wasn’t for me. 

After hanging up my lab coat, I started as a paid search account manager at Periscopix, working with the scripts and tech that helped campaigns run efficiently. Eventually I became solutions lead, running a team that worked with Periscopix’s biggest clients to create innovative new tools and tech, ranging from simple task automation to chatbots.

And now I’m media innovation director at iCrossing UK.

What does a media innovation director do? 

I’ll be working across the paid media, earned media, and data and analytics teams to develop our proprietary tech stack. Clients often have unique challenges that can be solved with tailor-made solutions, and I’ll be building on our internal expertise, allowing us to do more of this.

It’s a hands-on role, split between project management, product ownership, and software engineering, but I enjoy building things myself. 

I’m really excited to get going!

What attracted you to iCrossing? 

iCrossing is excited by tech, convinced by automation and motivated by results – convictions that align perfectly with mine. The agency is open to new and creative ideas, at all levels of the business, and committed to quickly turning these into reality – so working here is a very exciting opportunity for me.

Being part of the Hearst network also gives us VIP-access to data that, when combined with all the other data sources we use daily, gives our clients an edge on their competition.

What does innovation mean to iCrossing?

For iCrossing, innovation is about turning new, creative ideas into tangible services, tools, or strategies that provide value for our clients and staff. Our ‘Change as Usual’ mantra shouts about this, and a key part of my role is to practise it.

Why is innovation so important in our industry? 

Because nobody wants to stagnate.  I believe innovation isn’t always about starting from scratch. It can come about by transforming the old, like overhauling manual processes, automating them through scripts and tools. With automation, we can do things faster (like automatic campaign builds), be more responsive (with trend-spotting tools), and less error-prone (with account health-check alerts). 

But innovation comes through big jumps, too. It’s important that, when needed, we switch up our approach completely. The media innovation team keeps iCrossing’s offering industry-leading, unique and valuable for clients.

What’s in the pipeline?

I’ve gathered nearly 40 ideas from experts across the agency, which range from automatic ad builders to top-secret (for now!) competitor monitoring tools. Once built, these will lead to great efficiencies and performance gains.

I’m also keen to get everyone involved in the innovation process and want to empower those interested to build their own tools and scripts.

The ability to write code and build a solution to a problem isn’t a secret skill – it’s one everyone can learn at some level. So, I’m excited to run internal training courses on how to build simple tools to solve niche challenges for clients.

Want to work with Dan? Check out the roles we're currently hiring for.