Celebrating Our Newest Digital Media Leaders

Celebrating Our Newest Digital Media Leaders

The Latest AdMonsters Digital Media Leadership Award Winners

Sunday evening during the opening reception of our Publisher Forum conference in Scottsdale, we announced the latest recipients of the Digital Media Leadership Award.

As you may recall, we created the Digital Media Leadership Awards earlier this year. Winners are chosen based on their career trajectories, department successes under their leadership and their general strides in taking ad operations to the next level of importance within an organization. 

As our own Rob Beeler said while handing out the awards, “The winners we honor tonight inspire others with their personal achievements, while offering keen insight on the present and future state of ad operations.” They certainly do.

Please join us in congratulating 2013’s Q4 AdMonsters Digital Media Leadership Awards honorees:

  • Heather Keltz, Executive Director, Ad Systems and Operations, The New York Times Digital
  • Jeff Mayo, VP of Sales Operations and Services, Machinima
  • Michael Stoeckel, Head of Ad Operations, Digital Marketing Group, JPMorgan Chase

Digital Media Leadership Award winners flanked by AdMonsters’ Founder & CEO Bowen Dwelle (left) and VP of Content and Media, Rob Beeler (right). (Photo credit: Claudia Johnstone) 

The following morning in Scottsdale, the winners participated in a session titled “Winners’ Circle: DMLA Recipients Speak,” sharing tales behind their rise within the operational ranks, their thoughts on current operational challenges, and what they believe are the biggest opportunities – and hurdles – on the horizon. 

“What are some of the lessons learned in your career?” asked Content Czar Rob Beeler.

In the old days, ad ops was all about delegation, Jeff Mayo said. The ability to get into huge challenges and solve problems is critical for moving up the ladder. “Putting Jeff into the biggest problem, and he’ll try to solve it. Coming up with the solution is still a cornerstone to what we’re doing…” 

“You really need a couple of fearless deputies, says Michael Stoeckel. “Know those people [on your team] who are willing to dive in.” 

“You want to have people who are smarter than you [on your team], [those] who can add strengths to your team’s and your company’s weaknesses,” Heather Keltz said. 

AdMonsters will continue to present Digital Media Leadership Awards at upcoming AdMonsters conferences. At Publisher Forums, winners will be selected from the publishing community. At OPS conferences, winners will be selected from the overall digital advertising community. See our event page for a list of all of our upcoming conferences. For previous Digital Media Leadership Award recipients visit this page.

And from the outtake file, Monsters just being Monsters:

(Photo credit: Claudia Johnstone)