Pathlabs CEO William Lapointe Named Finalist for 2026 Digiday Future Leader Awards
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Pathlabs Marketing |
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April 27, 2026 |
For the second year running, Digiday has named Pathlabs CEO William Lapointe a finalist for its Future Leader Awards. Will has been building toward this recognition since before Pathlabs existed.
Leadership Built from Scratch
After studying business at the University of Montana, Will took an entrepreneurial leap by opening his own gym. There, he wore many hats, including trainer, HR manager, and accountant. He also gained the hands-on leadership experience that would define his approach to business going forward.
The Model That Changed the Game
What Will saw early on was a structural problem. Independent agencies were managing more media complexity than their teams were built to handle. The answer most people reached for was "hire more people" or "buy more tools." Will's answer was different.
He built the Media Execution Partner (MEP) model, a framework that embeds the team, tools, and operational support directly into how agencies work, without asking them to discard what they'd already built. Pathlabs launched in 2021 around that model.
Three years later, the company had grown to over 100 employees, supported more than 50 agency clients, and managed upward of $200 million in annual media spend. In 2024, global programmatic leader MiQ acquired Pathlabs, a milestone that validated what the team had been building all along.
Back on the Digiday Stage
The Digiday Future Leader Awards spotlight people who lead with measurable impact and a genuine sense of what the industry needs next. Will has consistently shown that kind of leadership, and this second nomination reflects it.
Congratulations, Will! We're proud of everything you've built, and excited to see what's still ahead.
