Top50-2018

Ross has been significant in overseeing the global network’s 15 territories as well as many of Awin’s central functions. Under his management, the network has continued to champion solutions for publishers with the launch of Accelerated Payments and most recently a voucher attribution feature to open up additional partnership opportunities between advertisers and publishers on social media platforms. This, on top of the successful merger of affilinet, sees Ross as a strong believer in the principle of innovative technology.

Responsible for the agency’s overall offer strategy and capabilities, in addition to regularly speaking at industry events, Steer has been heavily involved in supporting multiple marketing transformation projects with key clients, helping them get more value out of their operations and investments. This has been reflected by winning numerous awards throughout 2018, including the PMAs and IPMAs.

A seasoned online marketing professional with a proven record for consistently outperforming corporate goals through strategic planning, account acquisition and innovation, Forsch continues to reiterate the US network’s commitment to its advertisers and publishers whilst steering the affiliate industry forward. Supporting the aggressive growth of Awin in North America, Forsch’s wealth of experience has influenced the network’s partner development to drive innovation and ultimately help advertisers and publishers find success in the affiliate channel.

With Webgains global network continuing to expand, Spencer has been a leading influencer in evolving the network’s publisher offering to new markets whilst training dedicated publisher managers across Webgains’ headquarters, including recently opened offices in Milan and Munich. In addition to her affiliate expertise and support of new technologies and client advancements, Spencer remains an avid ambassador within the affiliate industry.

Leveraging over 18 years’ experience working alongside major retailers in the diverse APAC region, Capano’s passion for helping brands move beyond their borders and acquire new customers has been second to none. In addition, he also speaks at industry events such as PI LIVE, Affiliate Huddle and Rakuten Marketing Symposium, making him a true global operator within the performance marketing industry.

A career spanning over 12 years and a well-respected ambassador for performance marketing, Clements uses his wealth of experience and knowledge to support advertisers to measure their cross-channel marketing. As well as co-founder of digital attribution consultancy, Connected Path, Clements launched performance marketing’s first Unconference in 2018, bringing the industry’s finest together for a unique ‘agenda-less’ event which delivered sessions on a myriad of current issues and concepts impacting performance marketing.

With over 15 years of industry experience, Arrindell is a recognised thought leader in performance marketing, leading Optimise Media to continuously innovate and deliver the tools and techniques for clients and partners – from major blue chips to challenger brands – to get the best customers from their advertising spend, to achieve commercial and strategic success for clients and partners alike.

Having been appointed head of performance marketing at BT in 2017, Mulvihill’s sterling reputation and vast experience of affiliate marketing has significantly contributed to the telco leader’s growth in the channel over the last 18 months, ensuring that BT’s affiliate and performance team remains firmly ahead of the game.

In what’s been a significant 12 months for vouchercloud, having been acquired by Groupon, Johnson, along with the passionate team, has been instrumental in the firm’s strategic planning direction of its client-base, spanning across the online, in-store and commercial partnerships teams, ensuring the objectives of advertisers are always met.

A results-driven affiliate marketing and social media specialist with a proven track record of driving sales growth and optimising profitability for multi-million pound organisations, Hampton’s experience of the performance channel and digital expertise has contributed to Redu Group’s increasing growth over the last 12 months, including its investment in influencer marketing, which resulted in winning Best Influencer Marketing Campaign at the PMAs.

Carrying a wealth of knowledge in performance marketing, Al-Saiegh continues to steer innovation via Smarter Click when it comes to visual overlays and programmatic display. With the company regarded as a success story of innovative technology in the affiliate space, Al-Saiegh’s leadership has seen the company grow from strength to strength.

Using his background as a data scientist, Maude developed award-winning tools that have shaped NMPi as a market leader in the Google Shopping space and been recognised in the industry. Maude has also stepped onto the industry stage this year, proving himself hugely influential in performance marketing. He has delivered both a webinar and a presentation on AI and machine learning at PI LIVE this year, as well as presenting his case for consumers at NMPi’s seminar in Jul

Young is an agent of disruption. He has taken affiliate marketing mainstream in South East Asia in under two years, bringing in top e-commerce, retail, and travel leaders as clients and mainstream media partners into adopting the model. His frameworks for growth from a corporate and ground-level view has helped evolve the digital spend trends, and is continuing to foster success for new and old publishers in the region.

Stewart leads Yieldify’s marketing programmes worldwide, having built its product marketing function from scratch in 2015. A skilled writer and strategic thinker, Stewart has turned around lucrative client relationships and provided insight and guidance to retailers to enable them to enhance the customer experience and deliver business goals via Customer Journey Optimisation.

Whilst leading her role as managing director of Acceleration Partners EMEA, Southgate continues to be an advocate industry ambassador, speaking at industry events far and wide, including the most recent PI LIVE, in addition to being a key contributor to the industry’s growing momentum.

As well as driving performance, Bassett has developed her skill set in the affiliate space over the years and has attended a number of key holding events – including speaking on panels at this year’s Affiliate Summit and Affiliate Huddle. Bassett is keen to encourage other new blood in the industry and is currently striving to being a future leader for Direct Line Group.

Since Fetch was founded in 2009, Connelly has evolved it from a boutique London startup into one of the world’s leading mobile-first agencies, helping global brands expand their digital footprint and directly engaging with today’s active generation of connected consumers. Now part of the Dentsu Aegis Network, Connelly and his team continue to push the boundaries of mobile performance even further.

As well as contributing to TopCashback’s global growth, Little is outspoken on issues that affect the affiliate industry, and is a passionate advocate for improvement in key areas such as merchant tracking, validations and product feeds. He is a grass-roots affiliate marketer who wants to advance the cause and isn’t afraid of getting stuck in.

A vastly experienced commercial leader with a proven record of defining and implementing strategic direction to encourage change and growth on a global scale, Milne has been significant in Tradedoubler’s performance marketing growth over the last seven years, and has started his next venture as Outbrain’s commercial director, working alongside agencies and advertisers to drive ‘best-in class’ performance.

Since joining iProspect in 2013, Cornfeldt has increased the company’s revenue by more than 240%, with additional growth achieved in 2018 and expected next year. Cornfeldt’s leadership goes beyond clients and revenue. Leading with empathy, he puts his employees first and fosters an inclusive culture where employees can have career-defining moments.

Wirth has been one of the main people behind the success of Global Savings Group, making strides to advance the company’s international partnership network while crafting key stakeholder relationships with media houses, publishers and working with retailer partners around the world.

In a busy 12-month period, Leren’s incredible knowledge about the industry and thirst for new challenges saw him develop an innovative first-party tracking platform and solution, Marketing Town – giving companies access to more information and greater visibility across their supply chain, and thus make better data-driven decisions. He’s a great leader who has been inspiring everyone around him throughout his thriving career.

Edwards continues to take an active role within the affiliate industry in creating best practice standards and self-regulation. At PI LIVE this year, Edwards presented a manifesto for affiliate marketing, and has dedicated much of 2018 to focusing on how the channel can future proof itself in light of the increasing scrutiny facing digital marketing.

Working up the ranks in TopCashback after graduating from university, Gardiner has been instrumental in the company’s recent establishment as one of the largest affiliate publishers. This is down to her work ethic, going above and beyond and building relationships with clients. Gardiner’s positive outlook, sociable nature and solid understanding of clients’ KPIs and marketing objectives has helped the publisher maintain strong commercial partnerships with numerous top tier national and international advertisers and agencies.

Judge is a central figure within the industry. In 2018 he once again made the rounds: MCing at PI LIVE and NMPi’s seminars, and joining a panel at Pitney Bowes’ Retail R(E)volution conference to discuss successful cross-border marketing strategies. In addition to leading NMPi’s acquisition of creative specialist Joystick, Judge has grown alongside NMPi as a commanding force in performance marketing industry.

Steering the rebrand of the market-leading SaaS platform this year, Cowley has been influential towards the evolution of partner marketing, which now encompasses a number of key sectors, including channel partnerships, loyalty partnerships, referral partnerships and influencers. The Partnerize platform and brand vision heavily reflects this and its direction to providing performance and innovation to the marketing funnel.

With the affiliate agency’s growth on a global scale, Russell’s vast experience in the performance marketing industry continues to drive exceptional performance and interest for clients. Russell is not only a well-known face in the industry but a well respected expert – driving true growth for affiliates alike.

Walter’s astute leadership has been influential and in the last 18 months unified the Awin brand on a global scale, completing the mergers of long-standing European competitor affilinet and ShareASale, growing the global affiliate network that now comprises 100,000 contributing publishers and 13,000 advertisers, powered by over 1,000 employees in 15 offices worldwide.

Higgins manages iProspect’s affiliate and lead generation products across multiple verticals and global brands. Higgins has been forward thinking in a number of key actions for the business and thought-pieces to support affiliates on maximising the opportunities available in the industry.

Under his disruptive leadership, Stadelmeyer has helped Tradedoubler through an ambitious expansion plan, increasing the company’s European footprint in APAC while also overcoming key challenges faced throughout 2018.

With Merkle being a long-established part of the performance marketing scene in the US, Komsinski and his team have been heavily involved in the firm’s aggressive expansion strategy on the other side of the Atlantic, with new office openings within the last few years and a string of recent acquisitions, including the buyout of Periscopix. Merkle has grown its EMEA operations alone to 1,300 employees in 12 offices across five countries.

Corp has been heavily responsible for driving digital growth for Hotel Chocolat this year and improving web customer experience through website management and development, e-commerce trading and digital acquisition channels, all whilst leading the product development team and key digital projects for the core brand and subscriptions.

TopCashback co-founders Mike Tomkins and Oliver Ragg have led the brand to become one of the biggest global affiliate publishers with sites across the UK, USA, China and India. Still heavily involved in the business, Tomkins, in addition to Ragg, continue to direct the business to be ambitious with the vision to create the biggest money saving website.

Salter has been a key contributor towards Optimise Media’s success and performance marketing as a whole, leading through both project and process delivery, quality management and efficiency management across the main operational areas of the business.

Sharp has published several global growth how-to and strategy articles in prominent industry publications and is a popular speaker at conferences across the world, talking about tactics and strategies for serving cross-border and local customer needs within affiliate. Sharp was crucial in developing the format of CJ Affiliate’s most effective publications for the development of new partnerships between advertisers and publishers.

As head of partnerships in EMEA, Caulfield is responsible for cultivating partner innovation at Expedia. He has been involved in the industry for over a decade and continues to lead a talented team that is attempting to transform the way they create and build partnerships.

As Rakuten Marketing’s VP of client services across affiliate, display, paid search and attribution, Fletcher’s biggest priority is growing and retaining clients on an international scale. The success of online fashion marketplace NET-A-PORTER, for example, who recently won the Best Managed Global Affiliate Programme IPMA award, is a testament to Nick’s outstanding support and counsel throughout the company’s expansion into Europe, the US and APAC.

A proven client and team leader, Hutchinson’s well-respected work ethic and culture-building skills have influenced positive growth for Wavemaker, which has seen the award-winning agency outperform its targets throughout 2018.

Paul van Doorn is an industry disruptor that has been a key figure in pushing the boundaries of affiliate marketing to new levels whilst introducing the industry to entirely untapped markets with great success. Alongside consistently developing ground-breaking and game-changing technological advancements like real attribution, Paul has had the foresight, vision, and determination to make TradeTracker succeed in both the MENA and LATAM regions.

Under his disruptive leadership, Dennys’ expertise at driving international growth and maximising shareholder value through the optimisation of sales, marketing and digital functions has helped steer growth for Webgains internationally as well as invest in disruptive technologies for efficiency in personal learning and development.

Glazer continues to be a pivotal voice in the performance marketing industry globally, driving growth and awareness of the affiliate channel while developing new methods and strategies around performance-based partnerships. He has grown Acceleration Partners internationally and has been ranked number two in Glassdoor’s Top CEOs in the US.

Having founded All Inclusive Marketing in 2009, Bundy has won several awards for her thought leadership, insight and professionalism within the performance marketing industry. She continues to be recognised as a leading expert by e-commerce, retail and global travel brands that look to her for strategic online growth and performance marketing initiatives.

As co-founder and VP revenue of EMEA, Sewell’s tenacious leadership and strong relationship building skills has helped drive Partnerize on a globe level as well as increase the platform’s partnership strategy and client portfolio. Sewell’s work over the years has helped inspire and influence the performance marketing channel across all levels.

Raza has been a pioneer of affiliate and performance marketing in India and a key performer in keeping Optimise India as the number one affiliate marketing company in the country. She has also been promoting the need for transparency in the entire system of performance marketing and has been been pitching for a fraud-proof system.

Bird has hit the ground running with his own business proposition, RevLifter, a performance marketing platform created to enable advertisers to control deal traffic, personalise voucher codes and incentivise consumers in real time. Bird continues to turn the voucher code industry on hits head, making huge strides with some great clients and picking up awards in a short period of time.

In what has been another bolstering year for Increasingly, Sharma continues to successfully drive forward innovation through effective use of machine learning and automation in addition to sharing his passion and excitement for the industry’s technological advancements. He is a widely admired member of the performance marketing community.

Harris runs the largest woman-owned and fully remote agency that works with some of the world’s most respected brands both in the US and internationally. She is always encouraging innovative thinking and believes in building meaningful relationships beyond the borders of traditional constraints and limitations.

Rumbelow has been instrumental in developing performance marketing across APAC, LATAM and more recently MENA. As well as accelerating the growth of cross-border commerce, his work has been recognised by the performance marketing industry in winning several IPMAs, including Best CPA Network 2018.

Judic’s incredible work around Digital Disruptors – a new initiative aimed at inspiring a new generation of entrepreneurs launched in memory of Nicky McShane – was a significant highlight of 2018, offering young teenagers to experience the digital world firsthand through a series of in-house workshops and mentoring opportunities thanks to the support of digital businesses in performance marketing.

Crawford has been instrumental in forging and managing Impact’s relationships with many of the company’s flagship advertisers, agencies, and media partners. Crawford evangelises a multi-channel approach to the performance model and is a frequent speaker at key industry events throughout the year.