Affiliate Huddle speakers
Voices from the affiliate industry
Brighton Dome | 23 April 2024
Lavin Punjabi
Managing Director and CEO at Affinity Global Inc.
Lavin Punjabi is an ad tech entrepreneur who is mending the broken trust between users and digital ads. He strongly believes in building ad tech products that deliver great user experience and add incremental value to the ad tech industry. He is the Co-founder, CEO and MD of Affinity – an ad tech company which creates brand and performance led products for advertisers, and yield enhancing products for publishers. Under the Affinity umbrella, he spearheads 7 businesses – VEVE, SitePlug, mCanvas, YieldSolutions, AdOpsOne, NucleusLinks and Opinary. These businesses operate globally across the US, UK, Europe, India, Indonesia, China and Brazil. He has actively been a part of the ad tech industry since 2004.
Karl Wood
Account Director at Global Savings Group
With over 12 years of dedicated experience in the dynamic Affiliate Marketing space, I have developed a profound understanding of its intricacies and nuances. Throughout my journey, I’ve contributed to prominent global Affiliate Networks and collaborated closely with pioneering affiliates, shaping marketing landscapes along the way. My professional ethos revolves around comprehending growth avenues and overcoming business obstacles. Central to my endeavors has been the relentless pursuit of fostering impactful partnerships, driving mutual success and innovation within the industry.
Smita Pillai
Regional Vice President, Customer Success EMEA at impact.com
In her role at impact.com, Smita leads the Agency customer success team that delivers world class service to impact.com
clients and agency partners.
Prior to working at impact.com, Smita had extensive global experience in the media and advertising industry across various client management roles in EMEA, Australia and India.
Her diverse professional background coupled with her personal experiences have given her a unique perspective of challenges in different work environments, and she is a passionate advocate for mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.
She is also a Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Ambassador at impact.com, where she works alongside a global team of Ambassadors to actively cultivate a more empathetic and inclusive workplace.
Steven Brown
Chief Executive at Moonpull
Steve is a true industry veteran having set up and/or run networks, publishers and tech businesses in the affiliate space over more than 20 years. This experience has given him a unique perspective on the affiliate model and has led him to found Moonpull. Moonpull is helping networks, publishers, agencies and advertisers navigate the tracking issues arising from increasingly complex integrations, the requirements of legislation regarding consent and the deprecation of third party cookies.
Julia Stent
Strategy Consultant // Board Advisor
Julia is a Strategy Advisor and Board Member for technology intermediaries, spanning partner marketing, SaaS, and marketplaces. Motivated by guiding teams to success, Julia supports companies with their strategy, go-to-market, team formation, and monetisation plans. Julia is particularly passionate about supporting great leaders and acts as a trusted advisor to the CEOs she partners with.
Julia’s experience spans nearly two decades in the performance marketing industry, across 30+ companies from startup incubators like the London Mayor’s Innovation Hub to PLCs like Uswitch and Comparethemarket. Julia is a board member of Genie Ventures and Rightcharge, and a strategic advisor to Uniqodo, Mention Me, and the National Support Network (NFP). Most recently, Julia has been actively supporting the formation of the Affiliate & Partner Marketing Association.
Charlie Row
Brand Sales & Solutions Manager at Awin
Charlie has worked at Awin for nearly 6 years now in a few different roles based in both client services and commercial, with his current role being in place to help partner advertisers of all sizes with innovative solutions such as tech partners, influencers, card linking providers, brand partnerships and more.
Steve Bryant
Managing Director at Thoughtmix
Experienced digital and affiliate professional spanning retail and agency side. Currently MD at specialist partner marketing agency Thoughtmix, bringing a wealth of experience in acquisition, ecommerce and digital growth.
Alona Malinovska
Managing Director at Webgains UK, a leading global affiliate network.
With over 20 years in online marketing, Alona oversees the development and expansion of Webgains’ portfolio. She specialises in leading best-in-class teams, nurturing creative company culture, forming the direction of affiliate programs, and helping brands drive incremental and sustainable growth via performance channels.
She frequently writes and speaks about the future of work, affiliate marketing trends and best practices.
Linda O’Connell
Senior Vice President at CJ UK & Ireland
An experienced online marketing professional with over 20 years of digital and affiliate marketing experience, Linda started her career at News Group International’s marketing department, since holding various positions in the digital media and direct marketing industry, beginning her first role at CJ in 2005. As Senior Vice President of CJ UK & Ireland, Linda is responsible for the management and growth of the UK & Ireland business for CJ.
James Bentley
Strategy Director at Awin
James has worked in digital advertising and marketing for over twenty years. In his current role as Strategy Director at Awin he is focused on global AI projects. He is also senior stakeholder in Axel Springer Group AI initiatives, and an active participant in London AI machine learning, and data science and developer communities.
Imogen Collins
Head of Digital Marketing at Genie Goals – a digital marketing agency for eCommerce brands.
I specialise in taking a cross-channel view of your marketing activity across affiliate marketing, PPC and paid social.
James Little
Group Commercial Director at TopCashback
Elena Glynn
Senior Account Director at Vouchercodes
Elena has 8 years of industry experience, starting her career at Awin focusing predominantly on the Telco sector, then moving over to VoucherCodes where she’s worked closely with key partners including Virgin Media, Tesco, Amazon and TUI.
Through the years she’s also worked closely on company projects such as VoucherCodes’ browser extension, bespoke merchant campaigns and most recently a new loyalty programme.
Peter Smith
UK Managing Director at Sovendus
I am fascinated by psychology, particularly what motivates people to act, so naturally a career in marketing was inevitable.
Across a 10-year career, I have learned much from roles in Print/Press, OOH, Digital and now more specifically, Perfomance Marketing- the holy grail for results and accountability.
As UK Managing Director for Sovendus- one of Europe’s leading checkout marketing providers- I am responsible for bringing solutions with a 16-year proven track-record in incremental results to our shores.
In a nutshell, we help business activate 1,400+ brand partnerships across Europe, through a single, simple integration.
Christie Frazer
Global Vice President, Affiliate Marketing at Assembly Global
Christie has been running the Affiliate channel at Assembly Global for the last 12 years, building a team of 50+ employees worldwide. She launched and managed affiliate programs for several large brands over the years, including Academy Sports + Outdoors, Goodyear, Ace Hardware, American Girl, Foot Locker, Boden, and Mattress Firm. Christie has over 18 years of global on and offline marketing experience and began her career in the airline and publishing business. Christie spent several years in London running the marketing programs for multiple brands in the healthcare vertical before moving back to the US to work for Vonage.
Chris Said
Head of Commercial at Broadband Genie
Chris is an experienced affiliate marketing professional with 15+ years experience in the industry working both publisher and network side.
Chris also has 8+ years of team management experience, including building and developing his own commercial team within Broadband Genie.
Samantha Mills
Tracking Manager at TopCashback
Dominic Butterell
Customer Service Director at easyfundraising
With over 16 years of dedicated experience in the affiliate industry. For thirteen years, I contributed significantly to Quidco, and in the past three years, I’ve continued to drive innovation and excellence at easyfundraising.
My passion lies in championing the customer, ensuring that every interaction is seamless and memorable as possible. Throughout my career, I’ve been a catalyst for change, introducing innovative processes that have not only elevated internal operations but also supported industry standards.
Grant McAngus
Senior Business Development Manager At Vamp
I’m a creator marketing specialist, helping brands effectively unlock creativity and performance through strategic marketing campaigns within the influencer channel.
Coady Joy
Head of Affiliate and Partnerships Education at Impact.com
As the Head of Affiliate and Partnership Education at PXA, Coady’s goal is to make the Partnerships Experience Academy (PXA) the global standard accreditation within partnerships education. In 2022, she joined impact.com to help build and create engaging content for PXA, an education center designed to inspire, educate and empower people to form meaningful and productive partnerships.
Coady brings nearly a decade of leadership experience in the influencer and affiliate industry as both a brand and agency expert. Before joining impact.com, Coady built the affiliate service and directed strategic initiatives at Wpromote as the Director of Affiliate Marketing. Before that she single-handedly managed the affiliate and influencer marketing program for Levi’s, Levi’s Canada, and Dockers for several years.
Jared Owen
Managing Director at Redbrain
Jared is the Managing Director of Redbrain. Having taken on the role a year ago, Jared is responsible for the strategic planning and execution of Redbrain’s vision and mission that saw the business deliver over £1 billion in sales for it’s retailers through it’s CPA CSS model.
With a proven track record of driving significant revenue, Jared embodies Redbrain’s mission to help every retailer thrive in e-commerce.
Ray Wright
Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer at ufurnish.com
Ray is the co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of ufurnish.com. ufurnish.com is the UK’s leading search and comparison platform for home furniture and furnishings. Ray and his co-founder have grown the business from start up to over 3m users of their platform. ufurnish.com works with over 100 advertisers to help bring their brand and products to consumers in the most meaningful way when they are furnishing their homes.
Red Barrington
Affiliate Specialist at Red Star
Red Barrington started her career in affiliate marketing in the heady days of Google arbitrage and when no one had even heard of a voucher code! With over 20 years’ hands-on practice, Red now delivers successful customer acquisition strategies for a range of global ecommerce clients, including Helly Hansen, Cambridge Satchel, Liberty Global (Flow), Sage and Vodafone. Red is also a Chartered Marketer and develops digital training programmes for corporate organisations and professionals for Oxford College of Marketing and Chartered Institute of Marketing.
Aaron Dowler
Strategic Partnerships Lead at News UK
Aaron is the Strategic Partnerships Lead at News UK overseeing affiliate channels for The Sun Shopping section in the UK and US markets. Aaron also looks after wider strategic partnerships including more non-traditional affiliate models like CPC, CPL and wider white-label partnerships.
Victoria Gallego
Partnerships Manager at TopCashback
Edwyn McFarlane
Founder at Coam
Edwyn brings years of affiliate marketing experience and is the founder of Coam, an affiliate network dedicated to connecting retailers with leading content sites. With a background that spans agencies, publishers, and networks, Edwyn has a unique insight into the industry’s inner workings.
Stephen Kerin
Director at Scale Digital
Stephen is co-founder and Managing Director of performance agency Scale Digital. Having started out in the burgeoning search industry in the 1990s, he progressed to working for the ad networks and onto CPA advertising across the Influencer, Mobile, and Affiliate channels. Stephen’s experience in the performance marketing field is long and varied.
Today, Stephen enjoys working at specialist CPA agency Scale Digital, responsible for all aspects of the business including media strategy, business growth, product development and partnerships.
Suzanna Chaplin
CEO of esbconnect
Suzanna Chaplin has been in the performance media space for 15 years, working with brands across retail, travel and finance. She specialises in email and understanding how to help brands acquire and retain more customers.
She is the co-founder of esbconnect in 2014, which provides brands with access to a scaled, rich, and addressable data set of millions of consumers in the UK, enabling them to grow their first-party database, drive more sales, or retain more customers.
Lydia Perrin
Affiliate Specialist at B&Q
Lydia has over 5 years of experience in the industry, originally starting her career in the house building sector and then joining B&Q 2 years ago.
Lydia manages the day to day running of both the Affiliate channel across B&Q UK, IE & TradePoint, and the Creator platform, where she oversees the briefing andcontent production of all creator content for B&Q.
Kevin Edwards
Founder of The Affiliate & Partner Marketing Association
Kevin is a veteran of the channel, working both publisher and network side in his more than 20 years’ industry service. Kevin has a keen interest in self-regulation and promoting the channel, which led to the creation of The APMA, the UK industry’s only formal trade association. With a particular interest in data, insights and research, Kevin wants to showcase the affiliate and partner marketing industries to audiences everywhere.
Robert Berrisford
Founder & CEO of Affiliate.ai
Rob has been working in affiliate marketing for almost 20 years and is now building affiliate.ai with a mission to redefine affiliate marketing in an AI age
Dan Cohen
Group Commercial Director at Global Savings
Dan has worked in the performance marketing industries for over 20 years, having held senior roles at Tradedoubler, Como and dgm and now heads up the commercial function at Savings United. As well as other multi-channel assignments. Dan brings a wealth of online marketing and traditional media, as well as online-to-offline, experience.
Danielle Dickinson
Partnerships Manager at Incubeta
Lewis Broad-Ashman
Sr. Director Product & UX at Rakuten Advertising
Kirsten Black
Affiliate Director – Head of Affiliates at EssenceMediacom
Kirsten joined EssenceMediacom in 2018 and has worked her way up to Affiliate Director – Head of Affiliates, leading the team on their global strategy across all major verticals for Affiliates, Aggregators and Lead Generation. Kirsten is passionate about dispelling previous misconceptions around Affiliates to showcase the full potential of the channel and deliver fully integrated campaigns as part of the wider marketing mix. Before joining EMC, Kirsten started her career at The Hut Group after having graduated from Newcastle University and quickly fell in love with the Affiliate industry.
Andrew Turner
Managing Director at Incubeta
As the Managing Director of Incubeta, I have had the privilege of spending 15 remarkable years growing and evolving alongside this dynamic organization. My journey within Incubeta has traversed various career paths, allowing me to gain invaluable experience across partnerships, commercial and marketing teams.
Beyond my professional pursuits, I hold a deep and abiding interest in sustainability. I believe that the marketing and advertising sector plays a pivotal role in shaping a more sustainable future. I am dedicated to exploring and implementing initiatives that enable our industry to contribute positively to environmental and social causes.
Yusef Mirza
Head of Affiliate and Partnerships at CANDR Media Group
Calum Lewis
Consultant at Dell Technologies
Experienced digital marketer specializing in affiliate, search and programmatic.
Heather Peebles
Head of Affiliate Partnerships at Reward Gateway
Heather leads the Affiliate Partnerships team at the global employee engagement company, Reward Gateway, recently acquired by the world’s leading platform for people at work, Edenred. She also co-founded the Publisher Board in 2019, with the mission to improve industry standards and promote best practices.
Charlotte Moore
Global Head of Commerce at Mail Metro Media
Marius Tudor
Senior Digital Marketing Manager at National Express
Carolina Paradas
VP, Growth at Fidel API
Winner of Entrepreneur of The Year 2020 at the CO2 Awards, Top 50 Industry Players 2020 & 2021 at PerformanceIN 50 and finalist of Young Woman of The Year 2022. Carolina has over +10 years of experience of working in the loyalty space across network, advertiser and now tech-provider roles. She is skilled in international growth strategies, global partnerships, and payments. In her current role, she is breaching the gaps between fintech, card-linked technology and affiliate marketing at UK’s Top 50 Fintechs, Fidel API.