Interview

What brings you joy in your role?

Enabling awesome experiences. I get to bring technical expertise and psychology to the table alongside all kinds of stakeholders, synthesize our ideas, and build and scale personalized moments that change lives. I count myself lucky to oversee personalization, targeting, and marketing data enablement because the payoff of our work is that people get to visualize possibilities, overcome fears, learn about themselves, and see more of the world.

What is a common misconception about your role?

The exact definition of CRM! It’s often seen as a silo for managing mid-funnel content calendars, deploying messages, querying databases, or doing vague martech wizardry. In reality, CRM is continuously evolving as the definition of a customer relationship becomes more individualized. I define CRM as a constellation of skills, strategies, and innovation that brings connections to life: between customers and brands (through personalization), across channels (via orchestration), and among internal teams (by enabling unified business problem-solving).

What challenges was your team experiencing before Iterable? How has Iterable helped address these challenges?

In a past life, our owned channel messaging was limited by a static, ETL-based data set updated overnight, where we couldn’t see what had changed, let alone act on data changing in real time. Tracking key behavioral shifts, like a prospect taking the next step toward booking, brand sentiment starting to slip, or inventory running low, was clunky at best. We needed to evolve to leverage data signals into action messaging ASAP for a true behavior-based approach to marketing, and Iterable’s event-first design was built for exactly that. The platform’s flexible data approach and intuitive segmentation using event, profile, and catalog data in tandem helped us shift to responding, not reacting, immediately at launch.

What are some Iterable features that have made your job easier? Or have been game-changers for yourself and your team?

Iterable’s approach to data management has transformed our CRM strategy. Its object-oriented schema coupled with Handlebars for scripting content packs a one-two punch that lets us ingest troves of critical data that powers complex 1:1 personalization. Campaign insights by list membership helps us track engagement without the cumbersome setup of dozens of distinct campaigns. It’s also great that journeys can drive data updates, and we’re stoked for upcoming expansions to catalog functionality. Iterable nailed the overarching architecture for our industry, and it appears that insights and automated orchestration will only grow stronger in the coming quarters with their new vision, Nova, which has us very excited.

As a consumer, what brings you joy from a brand’s outreach/communication?

My favorite brands bake milestone recognitions and product engagement recaps into their programming. They’re such a simple way for brands to read the room at the right time, then fill it with dopamine-boosting resonance, not just noise. Brands that do it best lean into “love languages,” like using affirming words or taking the time to personalize a physical memento. I also love when it’s evident that a human manages the messaging, and a cheeky tone or hyper-relevant trendjacking can help preserve authenticity and avoid the uncanny valley we saw in 2024 with a shift toward AI-generated recaps (rhymes with Shmotify Shmapped). AI may be coming for us all, but I still value the magic that only a living, breathing copy team can make.

Besides Iterable, what are the other tools in your marketing toolkit that you can’t live without?

Our CDP is our life force—no, my Engineering team didn’t prompt that!—in that it brings both workstream efficiencies and audience targeting opportunities to life. Our upstream orchestrator, Hightouch, can handle totally bonkers segmentation rules and activate cross-channel targeting, and it integrates beautifully with Iterable. My team relies on GA4 for directional reads and digestible visualizations, and Tableau helps us with deeper conversion & loyalty tracking. Figma and Trello are critical for managing creative projects, and we’d be lost without Jira to collaborate with our Engineering partners. I’m sure my list will consist of mostly GPTs by 2026, but for now, the tried-and-true reign!

What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?

Find your own North Star. It’s advice I’m still working on, and it’s a tall task when society is constantly reinventing who we should be. Being a marketer makes this even trickier, because with great power to persuade comes great responsibility to tap customers’ emotions without destabilizing their sense of self or using insecurity to drive conversion. It’s why I love working in travel: I get to inspire others to pursue their own inner glimmer of adventure. Selling our “product” means someone gets to explore the world, learn about themselves, embrace newness, and find out what vast *difference* exists out there, ideally coming to see their individuality as a gift. It’s easy to follow expectations for decades and then realize regretfully that the guide was always external. We owe it to ourselves to choose lifestyles, career paths, and ways of showing up in the world that feel authentic at a molecular level. OK, off the soapbox!

What’s one thing that can instantly make your day better?

Any opportunity to consume chocolate carbs. Especially if it’s America’s favorite sandwich cookie. Bonus points if it’s double stuff.