Giuliano Stiglitz and the business of crossing borders

At Cannes in June 2023, Giuliano Stiglitz offered a particularly practical reason to visit the advertising festival. Three days of concentrated networking, he said, could accomplish nearly a year’s worth of meetings. The marina was full of technology companies. For someone whose business involved bringing their products to new markets, that was a useful arrangement. Cannes supplied the scenery; Stiglitz supplied the arithmetic.

It is a good place to begin his story. The Numatec CEO works in an industry fond of talking about the disappearance of borders. His career concerns the considerable amount of work that remains when a company actually tries to cross one. Technology needs buyers, partners and people who understand the market where it will be used. A product can travel very quickly. A business relationship takes longer.

Rome, Miami and a working vocabulary

Stiglitz was born in Rome and educated across Europe. By April 2023, he had lived in Miami for 14 years. He speaks fluent Italian, Spanish and English, with some French and German as well. He is based in Key Biscayne, while Numatec’s headquarters is in Miami. Those languages and locations give his international career a concrete human scale: different conversations, different cities, different ways of doing business.

Before Numatec, he led Orange Advertising Americas. The position placed him inside the advertising operations of a French telecommunications group, serving markets across the Americas. His later ventures would keep returning to that territory: Latin America, the United States and its Hispanic audiences, and the relationship between European technology businesses and customers on the other side of the Atlantic.

The interesting part of this career is the changing job description. Running an advertising operation was one chapter. Buying assets, starting companies, working alongside founders and arranging distribution became others. The markets recur; the means of reaching them become more varied.

When an executive becomes a company builder

In 2015, Stiglitz and Paris-based HiMedia Group were publicly introducing Latam Digital Ventures. Their new holding company would create and acquire digital media businesses for Latin America and the US Hispanic market. Its first transaction, through Primia.Digital, was the acquisition of Orange Advertising Americas’ assets. Employees in Miami and Latin America moved into the new operation. An existing business became the starting point for another.

This was a commercial change with a recognizable cast: a former Orange executive, a European media group, an Americas advertising operation and the people already doing its work. The venture combined an acquisition with plans to build additional companies. By 2016, HiMedia was describing a mobile advertising offering launched from Los Angeles, with a presence in New York, Chicago and Miami.

Stiglitz’s company-building approach also gave entrepreneurs an operating role. In 2017, he described working with founders who remained the chief executives of their businesses while the holding company helped develop the venture. Four companies had been created across the United States and Mexico. The arrangement put company creation and day-to-day management in the same conversation.

An exit, with the operator still inside

Prisa Brand Solutions announced its acquisition of Latam Digital Ventures in August 2017. The group included Primia Digital and Fullscreen in Mexico, and Primia Digital and Mobvious in the United States. Its businesses sold digital advertising, including video and mobile services. For Prisa, the purchase expanded its commercial position in the Americas.

Stiglitz continued as CEO after the acquisition, working on growth and integration with Prisa’s digital revenue leadership. That detail matters. A sale can make an entrepreneurial story look neatly finished, especially when it is squeezed into a biography. Here, the operating work continued under a new owner. Customers still needed service, teams needed direction and the acquired businesses had to fit into a larger group.

Latam Digital Ventures established several ingredients that appear again in his later work: an umbrella company, specialist businesses, founders with operational responsibility and a focus on advertising across countries. The next holding company would use a broader collection of those ingredients.

Two jobs under one company name

Numatec formally announced its launch in November 2020. Entrepreneurs brought their resources and companies together in a holding group that reported more than 300 employees across 22 countries. Stiglitz was its CEO. The announcement described two complementary activities: investing in technology-enabled marketing services businesses, and partnering with technology providers to expand their distribution.

The distinction helps explain the portfolio. An agency can create and execute a campaign. An analytics business can interpret customer information. An influencer company can manage a different kind of communication. A reseller can bring an outside platform into the market. Putting such businesses under one umbrella creates a collection of capabilities rather than a single product with a particularly ambitious brochure.

The launch portfolio included Colombian advertising and analytics business The Cookie Lab, Mexican influencer marketing and production company Kanvas, growth marketing agency Sí Señor and technology reseller The Tech Partners. Each addressed a different part of the marketing workload. Numatec’s acquisition criteria emphasized how an incoming company would complement the existing group.

The investor’s calendar

In December 2020, Stiglitz described several ways Numatec could back a business: buying an existing stake, financing an entrepreneur or incubating a company internally. He gave examples of investments ranging from $100,000 to $1 million, while resisting a fixed minimum or maximum that might discourage prospective partners. These were examples from that period, rather than a permanent price list.

He also said the group typically took majority ownership and sought returns within one to two years. The underlying ambition was commercial: create businesses that could become profitable quickly, while operating across different countries and parts of digital marketing. A holding company has room for variety, but its companies still have to pay their way.

That approach continued through additions such as Colombian mobile marketing business MobileCiti in 2021. The company brought consulting and campaign execution experience, with operations extending into other Latin American markets. Expansion could therefore mean adding a service, a team and an existing set of local relationships at the same time.

“We provide guidance from Miami, but we incubate globally”Giuliano Stiglitz, December 2020

A target belongs in the future tense

By November 2022, Stiglitz described Numatec as having a $50 million annual sales run rate. He wanted to double that figure by the end of 2024, using organic growth and acquisitions. He identified technology distribution, consulting and trading desks as areas with room to expand. The company was also adding finance and technology partnership leadership.

The target tells us what he wanted to build; it should retain that status. A revenue ambition and a reported result belong in different columns. His remarks were specific about the mechanics, however: find smaller successful companies, bring them into the group and help coordinate their offerings. He was interested in companies with clients and capable entrepreneurs already in place.

His comments also reflected a widening advertising workload. Buying across channels, supporting sellers on Amazon and helping brands with direct-to-consumer commerce all appeared in the discussion. Technology distribution remained central, but the services around it were becoming more numerous. Every extra capability brings another practical question about who will deliver it.

Global expansion has local paperwork

In December 2024, Numatec and Enrico Quaroni’s Chatwin announced Chatwin Plus. The joint venture would support technology businesses expanding in the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Its proposed help covered market knowledge, technical expertise and operational support, with attention to local regulations, consumer preferences and market conditions.

The venture gave a name to a recurring problem in Stiglitz’s career. International expansion looks tidy on a map. Inside a company, it becomes a collection of local decisions. Who sells the product? Which customer needs it? What support will they expect? The joint venture’s stated purpose was to help clients work through those decisions with guidance tailored to the market.

European expansion also involved local leadership. In June 2025, Numatec group company EKN appointed Gonzalo Figares as general manager in Spain. Stiglitz described the appointment as reinforcing EKN’s place in the group’s European development. A geographic ambition acquired a named operator, with responsibility for a particular market.

The software still needs an introduction

In a June 2025 interview alongside Numatec COO Alejandro León, Stiglitz described growth in media buying and optimization, as well as agency and publisher accounts. These are the everyday components of the larger strategy: purchasing advertising, improving its delivery and working with the businesses that supply the audience.

September brought another distribution agreement. TripleLift named Numatec its exclusive Latin American partner, combining its advertising technology with Numatec’s regional agency relationships and publisher connections. TripleLift’s formats span web, apps, connected television and retail media. Numatec’s part of the arrangement was to bring market access and commercial execution.

More channels mean more places to reach a customer, and more choices for the people planning a campaign. Stiglitz’s role remains concerned with the connection between the available technology and the companies prepared to use it. An introduction is only the beginning; a platform must then become part of someone’s working day.

From a marina to the sports page

In March 2026, Numatec and Unidad Editorial announced an exclusive agreement for advertising sales in Latin America. The properties included MARCA, EL MUNDO, EXPANSIÓN and TELVA, covering sports, news, business and lifestyle. Their websites, mobile versions and apps would be available through a centralized commercial offering.

The timing, ahead of the 2026 World Cup, added a specific sporting occasion to the deal. Commercial leadership went to Numatec’s Arturo Givaudan. Stiglitz described the agreement in terms of connecting clients with audiences in relevant contexts, using measurable advertising solutions. The language was familiar; the inventory and the event were concrete.

Return to his observation about Cannes, and the career comes into focus. There are technology vendors to meet, entrepreneurs to back, operators to appoint and publishers with audiences to serve. Stiglitz has worked on each of those connections. The international advertising business can move at the speed of a screen refresh. Building the arrangements behind it still takes people, appointments and a calendar.