Moving Walls appoints Raja Kanniappan as Global CFO & COO amid evolving OOH ecosystem shift

As Out-of-Home continues its shift toward data-led planning, clearer measurement standards, and tighter integration across markets, Moving Walls has appointed Raja Kanniappan as Global Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer.

Based in Australia, Raja brings over three decades of experience across global agency networks and adtech platforms, including senior leadership roles at WPP, IPG Mediabrands, SQREEM, and TotallyAwesome. His career has spanned finance, operations, and transformation across multiple markets, giving him a front-row view of how the industry has changed as media, data, and technology have steadily converged.

In this conversation, he reflects on where the industry is heading, the realities of scaling in an increasingly complex environment, and why operational discipline has become essential to building businesses that last.

Q: Raja, how do you see the Out-of-Home industry changing right now?

A: OOH feels like it is finally being redefined in a meaningful way. For a long time, it was treated as a traditional reach medium, something that sat outside the more measurable parts of the media plan. That is no longer true. With better data, stronger measurement capabilities, and programmatic access, expectations have changed completely.

What stands out to me is the shift in mindset. Clients and agencies are no longer just asking for visibility, they are asking for proof of performance. That brings OOH much closer to the accountability standards we associate with digital. It is a healthy shift, but it also forces the industry to mature quickly in how it operates.

Q: Across your experience, what major shift have you felt most strongly in the industry?

A: The sense of convergence is probably the most defining change. The old boundaries between agencies, media owners, and adtech platforms are not as clear anymore. Everyone is moving into each other’s space in some form.

That has created a more connected ecosystem, which is positive, but it has also made things more complex behind the scenes. The expectations are higher now. It is no longer enough to just deliver a product or a service. You are expected to plug into a broader system, show impact, and do it consistently across markets. That requires a very different level of discipline than what the industry was used to before.

Q: What makes scaling across multiple markets so challenging today?

A: The challenge is rarely about entering a new market. Most companies can do that quite well. The real difficulty comes after that, when you try to keep everything aligned.

Over time, each market develops its own way of working. Its own reporting habits, its own interpretation of success, sometimes even its own culture around decision-making. That is where things start to drift.

What I have learned is that if you do not build a strong operating foundation early, that drift becomes very expensive to fix later. The companies that scale well are the ones that manage to stay connected at the core, while still allowing enough freedom at the edges.

Q: How has your journey across agencies and adtech shaped how you see scale?

A: It has made me very aware that scale is not the same everywhere. In agencies, scale often comes with complexity from clients, markets, and delivery expectations. In adtech, it comes from product growth, integration, and the pressure to perform financially at speed.

But in both worlds, the same challenge eventually appears. When things move fast, structure can get left behind. And once that happens, you start to feel it in decision-making, in execution, and in clarity across teams.

What has stayed with me is that the businesses that last are not the ones that move the fastest, but the ones that stay most consistent when they grow.

Q: What is something the industry still underestimates when it comes to growth?

A: Complexity. Every new market, product, or partnership feels like progress, and it is. But each one also adds another layer to the system. If those layers are not designed carefully, they start to slow things down instead of speeding them up.

The other part is alignment. As organisations grow, different teams naturally start chasing different outcomes. Revenue, product adoption, client success. All valid, but if there is no shared framework, the organisation slowly loses coherence. That is when execution becomes harder than it should be.

Q: In your new role, what are you most focused on building at Moving Walls?

A: The focus is really on strengthening the foundation of how the business operates as it scales. When a company grows quickly, the question is no longer just about momentum, but about how well that momentum is absorbed.

So the work is about bringing clarity to performance, tightening financial discipline, and making sure there is alignment across markets. Not in a rigid way, but in a way that helps people make better decisions faster. If that structure is right, growth becomes much easier to manage.

Q: What does success look like to you in this phase?

A: It is when the organisation feels steady even while it is growing. When teams across different markets are not reinventing the wheel, when decisions are made with clarity, and when performance is visible without needing to dig for it.

In the end, success is not just about size. It is about whether the organisation can keep its clarity as it scales.

Closing perspective

Raja Kanniappan’s appointment comes at a time when the Out-of-Home and wider media ecosystem is shifting into a more accountable, data-driven phase. As the boundaries between agencies, media owners, and adtech platforms continue to blur, the ability to operate with consistency and clarity across markets is becoming just as important as innovation itself.

His move to Moving Walls reflects a broader industry reality that the next phase of growth will not be defined only by expansion, but by how well companies can stay grounded, aligned, and disciplined as they scale across an increasingly complex global landscape.