I grew up in Oregon, running cross country and track, writing for my high school newspaper and doing things that kids out in the country have to do, like chop wood. I knew I belonged in a city. After studying journalism and communication at the University of Oregon, I immediately moved to San Francisco to work in advertising.
My career started at Saatchi & Saatchi in 2000, media planning on the E-Trade and Cooking.com accounts. It was a crazy time to be in San Francisco, as Silicon Valley became the global superstar of technology. From my desk, I could order lunch and a DVD from Webvan and receive my items within 30 minutes–that is, until they went bust. To experience the dotcom bust intimately usually meant getting the pink slip. When I was laid off, I tapped into my ad sales experience from the U of O student newspaper. Selling display advertising for San Francisco Bay Area newspapers, I helped local businesses increase foot traffic and real estate businesses sell properties.
Hopefully by the time you get to my age, you will have had at least one diversion in your career, if only to build character. My tangent was real estate; I sold homes for a year in the Bay Area. It was a worthwhile experience, but not my cup of tea!
By 2006, the online industry had matured a bit, and I knew I wanted to get involved in digital advertising. I spent my first handful of years in digital working for ad networks in San Francisco. First, Kontera, which offered semantic targeting, followed by Say Media, which offered specialty rich media ad formats.
At the end of 2010, I moved to London with Neil, my English husband. I initially worked for ad tech companies. My first London job was at MediaMind, now Sizmek; it was there I was immersed in ad serving, agency sales and programmatic advertising. I then lead the EMEA client services team at OpenX, an ad exchange and publisher ad server.
Next, I leveraged my mix of ad tech, programmatic and sales experience to build the programmatic trading business for the London Evening Standard and Independent, then for Reuters consumer media in EMEA in 2014. Reuters was the right place at this juncture in my career; I was empowered to build the programmatic offering from scratch. I developed the product, pricing and sales strategy, trained the wider commercial team, drove revenue, represented Reuters at conferences and in the Pangaea Alliance, and became a whiz in the ad exchange and data management platforms.
In 2017, Shortlist Media, home of Shortlist, Stylist, Mr Hyde and Emerald Street, recruited me to be their Head of Digital and transform their digital commercial business. This included all things digital–display, video, native, branded content, social media, email, competitions, affiliates, ad operations and programmatic trading. In addition to leading the digital sales proposition and operations, I worked closely with the engineering (product and database), audience development and editorial teams to ensure commercial success.
In 2018, I moved into consulting. With broad perspective, from agency to media owner to tech, I bring unique value and hands-on experience to make an immediate difference to businesses. So, this is me now! Get in touch, and let’s grab a (virtual) coffee. It’s only fair that I get to know you, too.
Emily Palmer 