Cathal O'Sullivan

Commercial Strategy · Monetization · AI

Cathal O'Sullivan

A decade in commercial strategy and monetization, from founder to ad-tech to the app side. Now building my own products, and advising.

Book a callDownload CV (PDF)
The arc
  1. DIT 2011
  2. IADT 2013
  3. GameX 2014
  4. Qualtrics 2016
  5. Unity 2018
  6. Vela Games 2023
  7. Omada 2023
  8. Sandsoft Games 2024
  9. Monetization consulting 2026McKinsey · Slate Path Capital
  10. EncoreKit 2026
  11. Solo, with AI Now

Experience

A decade on both revenue lines

Monetization Consultant & Advisor

Present

Freelance · Barcelona · Oct 2025 to Present

Independent monetization consulting and advisory, alongside building my own products with AI.

  • McKinsey & Company

    Expert consultant on McKinsey engagements covering mobile gaming and ad monetization.

  • Slate Path Capital

    Expert consultant to Slate Path Capital: briefings on the ad-tech and mobile gaming supply side.

  • EncoreKit

    Go-to-market strategic advisor to EncoreKit.

Sandsoft Games

Barcelona · Jun 2024 to Oct 2025

Head of Ad Monetization

Built the ad monetization function from scratch across ~12 F2P titles (internal + publishing).

  • 13+ ad networks integrated (AppLovin, AdMob, Unity, IronSource, Liftoff and more).
  • +9.65% average ARPDAU uplift from promoted A/B tests.
  • Ran commercial monetization audits on publishing targets that fed acquisition decisions.
  • Supported external developers with monetization design, commercial breakdowns, and network integration.

ad revenue, built from scratch

$2.75M

~65%
of company revenue
+380%
scaled to 116M impressions/quarter
92 / 65
A/B tests run / promoted

Unity

London · Oct 2018 to Apr 2023

Head of Market, Monetization

Regional ad-monetization lead (Nordics, UK, Spain, MEA).

  • Worked with 500+ publishers and studios generating $150M+ yearly across the region.
  • Closed multi-million deals: Sega, Wildlife Studios, Next Games, Tripledot, Popcore, Miniclip, Take-Two.
  • Progressed from Account Manager to Monetization Client Partner to Senior Client Partner to Head of Market.
  • Founded Unity's European C-level roundtable; primary IronSource contact pre-acquisition.
  • Built a real-time Salesforce pipeline using Sensor Tower.

net revenue delivered

$250M+

$85M
final year (~7% of Unity global)
4x
promoted in 4 years

The founder story

GameX

Founder

Dublin · Apr 2014 to May 2016

My first company: a gaming recommendation platform, gametionary.com.

  • Won the Wicklow and Leinster regional finals of Ireland's Best Young Entrepreneur (IBYE).
  • Pitched on Ireland's Dragons' Den (youngest solo pitch, age 25) and at Google HQ.
  • Enterprise Ireland High Potential Startup (HPSU) on first application; based at the NDRC / Digital Hub, Dublin; hired 6 full-time and 3 part-time staff.
  • Press in RTÉ, The Irish Times, and Silicon Republic.
The GameX team, circa 2016, beside the GameX 'connect any platform to get an instant recommendation' pull-up banner.
The GameX team, circa 2016.
Cathal O'Sullivan at the NDRC in Dublin's Digital Hub, in front of the #bestplacetostart wall, from RTÉ's 2016 profile of GameX.
At the NDRC, Dublin. RTÉ profile, 2016.

The company wound down in 2016. My first startup, and the reason I understand what actually drives revenue.

raised in 14 months

€450k+

80k
MAU in 14 months
3rd
nationally, Ireland's Best Young Entrepreneur
$1.5M
peak valuation

Earlier roles

Omada

Oct 2023 to Jun 2024

Head of Monetization

Series-B sports social casino, IAP-only monetization. Owned pricing models, dynamic bundles, and the in-game economy end to end.

85%

rev share, exclusive ad partnership

Vela Games

Apr 2023 to Oct 2023

Head of Monetization

Owned IAP, economy, and battle-pass design for PC F2P Evercore Heroes, built on Xsolla.

Qualtrics

May 2016 to Sep 2018

Senior Business Development Manager

Enterprise sales across gaming and media. 100+ accounts, six-figure deals.

2x

BDM of the Quarter

Capabilities

Where I'm useful

What I do

01

Hybrid monetization: ads, IAP & pricing

I've owned both revenue lines: ad mediation and yield on one side, IAP pricing, bundles, and economy design on the other, and the balance between them.

  • Ad mediation & waterfall optimization
  • IAP pricing & dynamic bundles
  • Battle pass & seasonal economy design
  • LiveOps & event monetization
  • Ad / IAP revenue balance
  • A/B testing programs
  • ARPDAU & LTV growth
02

Commercial & partnership leadership

A decade closing multi-million-dollar deals and owning the partner relationships behind them, from enterprise sales to network platforms.

  • Enterprise & partnership sales
  • Multi-million-dollar deal closing
  • Network & platform relationships
  • C-suite stakeholder management
03

P&L, KPIs & data-driven growth

I own the number: forecasting revenue against KPIs and making experiment-led calls off Amplitude, Looker, and Salesforce.

  • P&L & revenue forecasting
  • KPI ownership
  • BI & analytics (Amplitude, Looker)
  • Pipeline & CRM (Salesforce)

The toolkit

Advertising

  • Max
  • Google AdMobAdMob
  • LevelPlay
  • UnityUnity
  • Adjust
  • AppsFlyer
  • Loomit/X3M

Sales / CRM

  • Salesforce
  • HubSpotHubSpot
  • Outreach
  • SpringCRM
  • Monday

BI

  • Amplitude
  • LookerLooker
  • Imply
  • Google SheetsExcel/Sheets

LiveOps

  • Xsolla
  • UploadCare
  • OneSignal

Commercial

  • RevenueCatRevenueCat
  • Xsolla
  • Nexus.gg
  • Playgap
  • AdInMo

Org

  • NotionNotion
  • LinearLinear
  • Slack
  • JiraJira
  • TrelloTrello
  • GoogleGoogle Suite

Design

  • FigmaFigma
  • Canva
  • MiroMiro

The differentiator

AI-assisted product building

The part that surprises people: I ship my own products end to end with AI, from prototype to live site, and built PAPI to run the process.

Build stack

  • Claude CodeClaude Code
  • PAPI
  • Next.jsNext.js
  • TypeScriptTypeScript
  • Tailwind CSSTailwind CSS
  • VercelVercel
  • SupabaseSupabase
  • Playwright
  • NotebookLMNotebookLM
  • Remotion

Portfolio

What I've shipped

Built in the open

2,550
builds shipped
394
development cycles
6
live projects

Stats as of 17 Jul 2026. Built and tracked with PAPI.

PAPI landing page, 'Stop re-explaining your project to your AI', with the product interface alongside.Flagship

PAPI

Persistent Adaptive Planning Intelligence. The framework behind this page, and the centerpiece case study below.

2,144
builds shipped
314
cycles
Visit ↗Private repo
Ad Monetization Uplift, a live ad-revenue calculator dashboard with KPI inputs, eCPM by impression position, and ad-LTV charts.Live product

ad-revenue

The monetization career, shipped as a working product: an ad-LTV calculator built from the same eCPM and impression models I ran for a living.

65
builds shipped
16
cycles
Visit ↗
CliffCheck, a benefits-cliff calculator showing the real cost of a US raise for an Ohio family of four.

VibeJam / CliffCheck

A benefits-cliff calculator built in a weekend.

3rd

place of 1,000+ entries

r/vibecoding hackathon

Launch post went viral on r/Ohio ↗
132
builds shipped
22
cycles
Visit ↗
Connemara Cooks, a private-chef site for a Connemara & Galway food business (client build).Paid client build

connemara-cooks

A private-chef site for a Connemara food business.

94
builds shipped
14
cycles
Visit ↗
Ireland 1926 Census, personalised visual family stories from the census record.

Ireland 1926 Census

AI storytelling with NotebookLM, tracing my grandparents through the 1926 census.

35
builds shipped
11
cycles
Visit ↗Private repo
Hatch, a personalized surprise minigame.

Hatch

A personalized surprise minigame.

80
builds shipped
17
cycles
Visit ↗

Case Study

The framework that runs this page

Persistent Adaptive Planning Intelligence. The layer that keeps an AI assistant oriented between sessions.

2,144
builds shipped
314
planning cycles

Stats as of 17 Jul 2026. A build is one shipped, reviewed change.

Built & maintained with PAPI ↗

PAPI landing page, 'Stop re-explaining your project to your AI', with the product interface alongside.
getpapi.ai, live.
  1. 01

    The problem

    AI assistants lose context between sessions. Every restart means re-explaining the project first.

  2. 02

    What it is

    An MCP server that plugs into AI coding assistants like Claude Code. It keeps every project's plan, decisions, and build history in its own database, and runs each one through a plan, build, review cycle, so a fresh session picks up exactly where the last one stopped.

  3. 03

    The result

    It runs every project here, including this page. The figures above are its own build record.

Contact

Hire me, or work with me.

Book a call
Emailcathal@getpapi.aiLinkedInlinkedin.com/in/cathal-o-sullivan-67993152

Speaking & webinars

Programming (studied)C, C++, Ruby, JavaScript, SQL
LanguagesEnglish, French

References available on request.