First up, we caught up with Clementyne Lavender, PMA Rising Star of 2019. Clementyne is the Strategic Partnerships Lead at Awin. When awarding Clementyne, the judges commented on her passion, tenacity and fresh perspective of the affiliate and performance marketing industry.

Niamh Butler-Walton wanted to find out how Clementyne has grown and progressed over the past couple of years, especially during the pandemic.

Has your role changed since you took the Rising Star crown? What do your current responsibilities in your role look like?

My role and responsibilities have definitely evolved for the better since winning the Rising Star award. I’ve gone from being a Team Leader for Awin’s UK Publisher Management department to an App Specialist in the Global Strategic & Innovation Team. Since moving to this team I have been leading Awin’s App Tracking endeavours to achieve adoption from our Advertisers in order to reduce leakage so that Awin can provide its clients with a more holistic data-set, as well as to protect Publisher commission.

A year into this role I was promoted to Strategic Partnerships Lead. My current responsibilities require me to be a spokesperson both internally and externally, taking a particularly complex topic and discussing it in such a way that it’s easily digestible for all. Being able to focus my efforts on such a broad topic has also led to collaborations with a multitude of other teams stretching far beyond Client Services – I now work alongside Product, Development, Technical and Legal teams.

How do you feel that winning the Rising Star award has motivated or influenced your career moves since?

Putting together my submission for the award really highlighted my passion for tackling undervalued aspects of the industry. My submission revolved around the work I did with Media Houses back in 2017-2019, focusing quite heavily on technical resolutions I had come up with for the Media Houses’ complex but reoccurring issues like on-site link rot and streamlining the commercialisation of their content.

Winning the award emphasised the value in specialist roles that tackle industry-wide opportunities but also highlighted my enjoyment of tackling business issues with technical solutions. My current role hones in on this but in a much more multifaceted way. Leading on Awin’s App Tracking strategy enabled me to retain my penchant for problem-solving and strategizing but opened up the chance for me to do it across the entire business and for clients of all shapes and sizes rather than focusing on one publisher-type in one region.

2020 was a very difficult year for many – what were some of the career challenges you faced during this period, and how did you overcome them?

I was extremely fortunate to work at Awin during 2020 as much of digital advertising managed to avoid the turmoil that lots of other industries suffered. Having said that, the challenges weren’t totally unfelt; both personally and professionally. My new role required me to move to Amsterdam which, amidst a pandemic, definitely came with its challenges. From a professional point of view, a lot of Advertisers had much less budget for the channel which led to increased difficulty in gaining traction with App Tracking conversations and, consequently, successful implementations. This was overcome mainly by focusing on the Advertisers that were fortunate enough to be in a position to be able to invest in new projects, partnerships and tracking methods.

As well as a more refined approach regarding which Advertisers to work with, a lot can be said for providing sufficient educational material for clients to ensure that App Tracking wasn’t only front-of-mind for businesses, but the value of it truly understood. I achieved this through taking part in presentations, webinars, roundtables and producing lots of written material as well as working closely with top Publishers to support them in pushing their App Tracking agenda.

Are there any projects that you are working on currently that are particularly exciting to you? 

With the big push towards consumer privacy extending ever more so into the app world I’m working continuously on how this can be adhered to whilst still enabling sufficient tracking – the crossover of legal, technical and strategic frameworks is really exciting. Alongside this, the Global Strategic Partnerships & Innovation Team at Awin is looking to capitalise on the scale of the network by redefining our partnerships programme – watch this space!

Looking forward to another years’ time, what are some of your goals and aspirations for the next moves in your career?

Whilst my current role is global and enables me to collaborate with multiple departments, it has a very specific focus and objective. I’d love to start expanding my scope beyond just App Tracking by working on some larger-scale projects for the business. Whatever I do, I hope to continue to grow professionally, honing in on new skill sets and taking on fresh challenges.

What would be your number one piece of advice for the future rising stars in regards to entering the industry, and thriving within it?

Challenge the status quo and take calculated risks – just because a certain role or strategy doesn’t exist, it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t. If you recognise a gap in the industry, whether it be a certain product, a service offering or even a seemingly obvious process, and you think you can better your company and wider industry by making a change – kick start conversations with the relevant people to set things in motion.

If you want to see who this years’ judging panel and the industry voters selected as 2021’s Rising Star, you can download the Book of the Night for free.