The Drum Digerati 2019: the world's top 100 digital marketers (part 1)

Spanning Silicon Valley to Singapore, the list includes considerable representation from natural digital hotbeds like agencies, new media publishers and social media platforms.

But symbolizing how digital has come to touch so many parts of our lives, you’ll also find top talent from the worlds of banking, retail, sports, food and music among our cohort.

How were they selected? Back in July, we asked you, our readers, to tell us which of your colleagues and clients had made a major contribution to the industry in the last year. From The Drum’s heartlands in Europe, APAC and the USA, the nominations poured in.

It was then over to our international editorial team to carefully consider the merits of each nominee – weighing their work, their influence and their impact – before curating the final 100, which we are now proud to present.

Each day this week, we’ll be revealing 20 individuals who’ve been selected for The Digerati this year. You can ensure you don’t miss out by signing up for our daily newsletters.

Now, without any further ado, let’s meet the first inductees into The Drum Digerati 2019…

Raja Rajamannar, chief marketing and communications officer, Mastercard

After a career built largely in sales and product at Citi, Raja Rajamannar took up his role at Mastercard in 2013, where he has dedicated his skills for persuasion to the realm of creative marketing. Having developed a multitude of priceless experiential campaigns, Rajamannar is now hellbent on integrating the five senses into the Mastercard customer experience. He has already ticked audio branding off the list, and recently formulated the “taste” of the company in macaron form.

For his work, The World Federation of Advertisers named Rajamannar global marketer of the year in February this year.

Kyoko Matsushita, global chief executive officer, Essence

In her more than 20 years in the industry, Kyoko Matsushita has led marketing for online games at Electronic Arts and headed digital marketing and strategy at Sony Europe. She spent two years at mobile gaming company Gree, scaling its international operations, before taking on the APAC chief executive role at Essence – overseeing the management of all 11 offices in the region and establishing its presence in Beijing, Bengaluru, Delhi, Jakarta, Melbourne, Mumbai, Seoul, Shanghai, Sydney and Tokyo.

Next up, she served as the agency’s first global chief client officer, leading Essence’s global client services practice. In September this year Matsushita was appointed global chief executive with responsibility for overseeing the company’s global growth, culture and innovation and ensuring Essence delivers on its mission to make advertising more valuable to the world.

Claire Valoti, international vice-president, Snapchat

Promoted to vice-president, international for Snapchat last year, Claire Valoti leads the mobile camera app’s growth across four continents in key markets including the UK, France, Germany and Canada. Under her watch, the app’s user base in the UK is set to grow by 8% in 2019. Advertisers have also benefited from a host of fresh features including the rollout of non-skippable ad formats and the launch of a pixel tracking tool.

Valoti was poached from Facebook by Snap founder Evan Spiegel in 2015, originally as general manager for Northern Europe.

Nick Law, vice-president of marcom integration, Apple

Nick Law has had a big year. After being tempted over to Publicis after 18 years at R/GA, he surprised the industry by jumping ship after only a year in the role to a new position at Apple. Now, he’s made the move out west to work as the tech giant’s vice-president of marcom integration – a new role for the company.

The job remit is still unclear, but it will no doubt be perfect for the creative’s skillset. He is renowned for his ability to stitch together advertising, design and technology, and with Apple’s shift towards virtual products such as TV+, Arcade and Card, his digital expertise will be critical to the company, too.

Tamara Rogers, global chief marketing officer, GSK Consumer Healthcare

Tamara Rogers joined GSK in January 2018 as head of the EMEA region and has risen quickly to her current role. As global chief marketing officer, Rogers oversees the development of marketing strategies, strategic portfolio management, product development and branding within the global categories of oral health, wellness, pain relief, and respiratory and skin health.

Her recent elevation comes at an interesting time for GSK, which In August announced a marketing overhaul ahead of an anticipated merger with Pfizer. If the joint venture goes ahead, it will become the largest over-the-counter medicine company in the world.

Prior to her role at GSK, Rogers led the multi-billion-dollar personal care portfolio for Unilever North America, having joined Unilever in 1993 as a management trainee.

Scott Galloway, professor of marketing, NYU Stern School of Business

In his day job at the prestigious NYU Stern School of Business, professor Scott Galloway teaches brand strategy and digital marketing to its cohort of second-year NBA students.

Alongside this, Galloway is the author of the Digital IQ Index, a global ranking of prestige brands' digital competence and the founder of several firms. Those firms include L2, a subscription business intelligence firm serving prestige brands; Red Envelope, an e-commerce firm and Prophet, a global brand strategy consultancy with 250-plus professionals.

Galloway sits on the boards of Eddie Bauer, The New York Times Company, Gateway Computer and Berkeley's Haas School of Business and has been elected to the World Economic Forum's ‘Global Leaders of Tomorrow,’ which recognizes 100 individuals under the age of 40 "whose accomplishments have had impact on a global level".

Kathleen Hall, corporate vice-president of brand, advertising and research, Microsoft

After spending half her career in media, and half in creative, Kathleen Hall now enjoys the benefits of both in her role at Microsoft. With a tenure of 11 years, Hall took on Microsoft’s top advertising position three years ago, tasked with leading the advertising and media business after the company consolidated its agency partnerships.

Prior to this, Hall was the company’s corporate vice-president, global advertising and media, having joined Microsoft from Fidelity Investments in 2008. Hall is also a member of the Ad Council’s board of directors and executive sponsor of diversity and inclusion for the Marketing Group at Microsoft.

Sebastian Tomich, global head of advertising and marketing solutions, The New York Times

Sebastian Tomich arrived at The New York Times in 2013, first serving as vice-president of advertising and later as senior vice-president of advertising and innovation, where he led T Brand Studio. He was elevated to his current role in 2017.

Under his leadership, digital innovation has lifted the Times' global profile and 30% of its digital audience is now outside the US. Its podcast, The Daily is also the most popular in the world, with 8 million monthly listeners. Tomich has stated he enjoys working at The Times because he likes working for a business that is “the best at what they do”.

Previously, Tomich was at Forbes, where he worked his way from account executive to eastern advertising director. He also worked for a period at Condé Nast.

Fernando Machado, global chief marketing officer, Burger King

Multi-Cannes Lion winner Fernando Machado first joined Burger King in 2014, after 18 years spent at Unilever. He first joined Unilever as a chemical engineer intern, before moving into marketing, where he worked on a number of accounts including Vaseline and Dove.

At Burger King, he has pushed the 65-year-old fast-food chain to venture into social and political territory. Discovering original ways to become part of the zeitgeist, under Machado’s wing Burger King has been the recipient of over 100 Cannes Lions prizes – including the Titanium Grand Prix at this year’s awards for ‘The Whopper Detour’.

Shantanu Narayen, chief executive officer, Adobe

Shantanu Narayen is the big boss at Adobe. Having served as chief executive officer there since 2007, he’s helped move its digital marketing services to the cloud with a sprawling Experience Cloud offering. In 2016, he also oversaw the $540m acquisition of video adtech firm TubeMogul, a key piece in the Adobe Advertising Cloud the company introduced a mere months after the deal.

Narayen started his career at Apple, co-founded early online photo-sharing company Pictra and eventually made his way to Adobe in 1998. He was also a member of President Obama’s management advisory board in 2011.

Vanessa Pappas, general manager, TikTok

Vanessa Pappas currently oversees content, operations, marketing and the UG and product teams for the US video platform of TikTok – the country’s fastest growing video platform.

Pappas has a history of growing impressive platforms, previously serving as global head of creative insights at YouTube, where she headed up the platform’s global creator research and trends, audience development, creative strategy and growth teams. Prior to this, she was global head of audience development at YouTube, where she developed the YouTube Creator Playbook – a resource for building viewership on YouTube that has reached over 20 million creators to date.

Before joining YouTube, Pappas was vice-president of programming and audience development at online video company Next New Networks where she spearheaded its business partnerships and audience development efforts.

Adam Harris, director of custom solutions, Twitch

An award-winning creative leader with over 15 years' global media experience in the worlds of gaming, sports and entertainment, Adam Harris advocates for gaming as the next big marketing opportunity and specializes in developing global gaming strategies for endemic and non-endemic brands. Harris also provides thought leadership on livestreaming best practice and how to create immersive real-time digital brand experiences to the ad blocking generation.

Prior to Twitch, Harris served as international creative director for Time Out, establishing the company’s commercial content teams.

Diego Scotti, chief marketing officer, Verizon

At Verizon, Diego Scotti leads the brand’s marketing efforts, with a focus on linking the innovations of Verizon’s product team to the customer-focused operations of the business units. Scotti is an internal and external champion of diversity in marketing, which he carries into his roles as a board member of ANA and of the Ad Council. He believes that “workforces need to reflect the customers they serve”.

His 20-year career in marketing has seen him in marketing leadership roles at J. Crew, Condé Nast and American Express.

Chris Curtin, chief brand and innovation marketing officer, Visa

Chris Curtin cut his teeth in entertainment, primarily at the Walt Disney Company, which he joined in 1995. Fast forward 18 years and the marketer was handed one of the top marketing jobs at Visa after a stint in tech with HP. He was previously the company’s chief digital officer and global head of new platform marketing transformation – a role designed to push the company firmly into the digital era.

Today he’s responsible for many of Visa’s big brand pieces, including its partnerships with the International Olympic Committee, the NFL and FIFA.

Paul Rogers, chief strategy officer, AS Roma

Paul Rogers is chief strategy officer at AS Roma, the Italian football club widely considered to be the undisputed kings of social media. A former music and style journalist, Rogers joined Roma in 2015 from Liverpool FC, and has helped spearhead a revolution in how football clubs communicate online.

Having used a mix of self-deprecating humor, pop culture references and viral memes to amass over 16 million followers, Rogers and Roma turned their attentions missing children this summer. The club launched a unique social media campaign that saw Roma use viral transfer announcements to raise awareness about individual missing children. To date, five children featured in Roma’s summer videos have been found safe.

Antonio Lucio, global chief marketing officer, Facebook

It’s a little over a year since Antonio Lucio stepped down as HP’s chief marketing officer to take up the same role at Facebook, and the former Pepsi and Visa marketer has already made his presence felt by restructuring its agency roster. “I came in with my eyes wide open,” said Lucio, whose moves have been designed to give each of Facebook’s products (WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Facebook itself) stronger individual identities.

Lucio is a marketer willing to act on some of the biggest issues in the industry today, challenging his agencies not only to produce great work but also to meet his strict diversity demands. He acknowledges that Facebook needs to change too. “Rebuilding trust is going to take time,” he told The Drum. “[It’s] going to take concrete, strong actions.”

Gerry D’Angelo, global media director, Procter & Gamble (P&G)

When the world’s largest advertiser P&G announced it was appointing D’Angelo, the top European media executive for Mondelez International, as its new global media director in 2016 it came as a bit of a surprise. Only because P&G is known to promote from within. However, the new position was reportedly created with him in mind.

A high-profile commentator on media, D’Angelo had been the director of media for Europe at for Mondelez since 2009. In his career he has worked both client and agency side - at Cheil and then Sky. D’Angelo currently also co-chairs World Federation of Advertisers’ (WFA) Media Forum.

Stephan Loerke, chief executive officer, World Federation of Advertisers

Stephan Loerke has been chief executive of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) since November 2003. During his tenure, the global organization representing the interests of marketers has tripled its corporate membership and extended its network to 60 countries – significantly reinforcing its presence in the world’s fastest emerging advertising marketers.

In his roles as vice-president of the International Council for Ad Self-Regulation and vice-chair of the European Advertising Standards Alliance, Loerke is fast emerging as one of the most important voices in the debate about cleaning up the digital advertising ecosystem. A German and French national who previously worked for L’Oreal, Loerke’s skills in diplomacy were honed at the United Nations in New York.

Dominic Smales, chief executive, Gleam Futures

Dominic Smales is chief executive of influencer management firm Gleam Futures, which counts Tanya Burr, Zoe Sugg (Zoella), Pixiwoo, Grace Fit and Jack Maynard on its books. In May 2019, Smales launched Gleam Solutions – an influencer brand consultancy designed to give marketers a “single route” to creating and developing creator-led campaigns.

With advertisers increasingly funneling spend into influencer campaigns, the business has upped the ante on its measurement solutions this year. Before founding Gleam, Smales spent 15 years in media, production and advertising at USP content, Chrysalis Group and more.

Amy Williams, founder and chief executive officer, GoodLoop

Amy Williams is the founder of GoodLoop, the ethical video advertising company that has convinced leading brand owners, including Unilever, to pump more of their ad spend into charitable causes. Under its agreement with GoodLoop, Unilever agreed to donate 10p to the anti-bullying charity Ditch the Label every time a Snapchat user opted to swipe up and learn more after viewing one of its Lynx body spray ads.

A former Ogilvy strategic account manager, Williams’ deft melding of adtech and social good stands out at a time when the video advertising industry is at its lowest ethical ebb. In recognition of her entrepreneurial nature, Williams has also been named in The Drum’s 50 Under 30, Forbes’ 30 Under 30 and BIMA 100.

The December issue of The Drum is devoted to the Digerati. Order your copy now and learn about the 100 people we’ve crowned the top digital marketing talent in the world, from Singapore to Silicon Valley, Procter & Gamble to Puma and Lazada to Lego.