Aaron Olson
Chief Technology Officer at GSTV
Detroit Metropolitan Area, United States
About Aaron Olson
Aaron Olson is Chief Technology Officer at GSTV. Location: Detroit Metropolitan Area, United States.
I started at GSTV writing code. Today I'm the Chief Technology Officer, leading a ~50-person product, engineering, data, and IT organization and an eight-figure budget. The platform underneath is a national ad-tech and retail-media network — 115M+ monthly viewers across 29,000 locations and 205 DMAs — powering a $100M+ business. The path between those two roles — developer, UX lead, director, VP, SVP, EVP, CTO — is the whole point. I've built the systems, led the teams, and owned the outcomes at every altitude. I know what it costs to ship something, because I used to ship it myself. What I actually do: turn technology organizations into business engines. A few things that has meant lately: - Led technology and operations due diligence through a private-equity ownership change. The third-party diligence team rated our technology readiness in the top tier they'd seen, which lowered execution risk through the transaction. - Re-architected programmatic delivery, cutting latency by more than 90% and migrating thousands of retail locations onto the new platform — opening the network to demand from major DSPs and setting daily revenue records. - Drove $500K+ in annualized infrastructure and vendor savings while keeping a high-availability network running for advertisers nationwide. - Rebuilt the organization from the ground up: a 73% team eNPS, a leadership bench that now runs what I used to, and engineer time-to-productivity cut in half. How I lead: clear about tradeoffs, allergic to change for its own sake, and focused on building systems and people that don't need me in the room. I'd rather ship something mostly right and iterate than wait for perfect. What I'm building now: a pragmatic AI foundation across the business — real use cases that cut manual effort and sharpen decisions, with the governance and data discipline to keep it from turning into a mess. I came up through journalism before I came up through code, which is probably why I care as much about explaining the work as doing it. I'm also open to board and advisory roles. Having led technology and operations due diligence through an ownership change — along with the cybersecurity, AI governance, and scaling calls that come with the seat — I bring an operator's read on the technology questions boards increasingly have to answer. Always glad to compare notes with other operators in ad-tech, retail media, and programmatic, or with boards weighing a technology bet. Reach me here or at .
Skills
Additional experience
EVP, Technology and Product
GSTV
August 2022 – October 2025
Education
- Bachelor of Arts, Michigan State University