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Just three weeks ago, I wrote here about the reasons for my re-entry into The Trade Desk (TTD), the leading independent omni-channel advertising platform.
At the beginning of January, I acquired a small initial position in TTD 0.00%↑ , which was supposed to be the start of a very long-term investment case.
Unfortunately, as I learned yesterday, my timing was extremely poor:
On January 26, 2026, The Trade Desk announced that Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Alex Kayyal has lost his position with immediate effect.
His colleague Tahnil Davis, previously Chief Accounting Officer, will take over as interim CFO while the company searches externally for a new CFO.
The same press release confirmed that the company’s Q4/2025 guidance remains unchanged (at least $840 million in revenue, approximately $375 million in adjusted EBITDA) and that the final Q4 figures will be reported on February 25, 2026.
The particularly noteworthy part: the previous CFO, Alex Kayyal, had only been in office since August 2025 – just over five months. According to the mandatory notification to the SEC, Kayyal’s employment in his CFO role was terminated on January 24, 2026. Somewhat surprisingly, Kayyal is nevertheless expected to remain on the board until the 2026 annual general meeting.
The stock market interpreted the renewed CFO change as a warning signal: despite the confirmation of the company’s expected figures for 2025, the TTD share price has lost more than 10% since this announcement and reached new lows.
