AdExchanger Advisory Board
Sara Badler
Chief Advertising Officer, North America
The Guardian
Sara Badler is responsible for driving advertising revenue growth, fostering strong client relationships, and leading a high-performing sales team including marketing, programmatic, and ad operations at the Guardian US.
She was previously at Morning Brew, where she served as chief commercial officer, and prior to that, as chief revenue officer of enterprise advertising and partnerships at Dotdash Meredith.
Her career also includes serving as head of programmatic revenue and strategy at The New York Times, as well as similar roles at Hearst magazines and Forbes.
Badler is the recipient of industry awards from Women In Media, 2024; AdExchanger Aware, 2024; Media All Stars 2023; Top Media In Women, 2021; and the Cynopsis Award 2019.
She is a member of the Adelaide board of advisors and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in American Studies from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania.
Karen Chan
Group Director, Investment Innovation & Marketing
Group M
Karen Chan is the Group Director of Investment Innovation and Marketing at GroupM, where she promotes a holistic and cross-functional approach to the evolution of media.
She creates innovative ideas and processes including continuous play and measurement advancements, manages media, tech, data, and platform partnerships, and champions internal communications, partner marketing, and events across GroupM.
Karen previously worked at VIZIO, MediaMath, Tremor Video, and SHE Media (Penske Media Group).
She is an active member of GroupM’s AAPI ERG and industry groups including the IAB Video Leadership Board and IAB Tech Lab’s Advanced TV Committee. Karen is also a trusted mentor to industry up-and-comers. Her contributions have been recognized with honors such as Adweek Media All-Stars 2023, Broadcasting + Cable’s NYC TV Week 40 Under 40, FierceVideo’s 2022 Emerging Leaders, and Cynopsis’ Top Women in Tech in 2020.
Jay Friedman
CEO
Goodway Group
Jay is CEO of Goodway Group, which he transformed into a leading data-driven and tech-enabled digital media firm with a remote-first work model. Goodway’s annual compound growth rate increased by 21% from 2006 to 2022, resulting in a 15x revenue growth under Jay’s leadership. He expanded the firm’s global footprint, launching Control v Exposed (CvE) and acquiring Canton Marketing Solutions (a U.K. company, now a part of CvE) and Tuff, a thriving growth marketing agency – all of which have further strengthened Goodway’s capabilities. Jay’s strategic vision resulted in Goodway’s award-winning culture and three consecutive Ad Age Best Places to Work wins, including ranking #1 in 2023.
Goodway and Jay’s mission is to make marketing the force that helps consumers connect with each other through their shared love of brands. As a result, he is a highly accomplished writer, with two books, a Golden Stevie Award, and articles published in Ad Age, Adweek, Forbes, and other publications. Jay frequently presents internationally on marketing, digital media, and remote work.
A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Jay worked at Young & Rubicam (Y&R) prior to joining Goodway. He and his wife reside in Plano, TX, and they have two grown children.
Zach Lain
Director, Global Data Partnerships
PepsiCo
Zach is the Director of Global Data Partnerships at PepsiCo where he oversees the cross-brand and cross-market licensing, piloting, embedding, scaling, and optimizing of all new data assets entering the organization. This includes wider media use cases of advanced consumer targeting and activation; first party data generation and enrichment; digital shelf analytics; and ad verification; as well as support for supply chain, agriculture, sustainability, R&D, and other teams across the organization. He plays a central role in building PepsiCo’s consumer data strategy, creating opportunities to further understand snackers and soda buyers in increasingly new and novel ways. Prior to PepsiCo, Zach led data supply at a European CDP, and before that, held a variety of roles at Dow Jones, including a year working directly for the CEO and Publisher of the Wall Street Journal. Zach has a law degree from Peking University in Beijing, a master’s degree from the London School of Economics, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago. He has been to 84 countries.
Hyun Lee Miller
Chief Media Officer
Good Apple
A 20-year industry veteran, Hyun has dedicated her career to media and helping her clients connect their media investments to real business impact via data-driven storytelling. During her tenure at Good Apple, Hyun has more than doubled the core media team, created new revenue streams and expanded media capabilities. Passionate about tying media to real business outcomes, she’s helped healthcare clients develop award-winning, multi-channel media strategies to drive successful product launches for blockbuster brands, delivering strong ROI alongside education to rare disease brands. Most recently, with tech advancements in AI, Hyun has helped to drive awareness and education of how machine learning and algorithms can be leveraged to drive value for her clients across the media value chain from planning to activation and measurement. Her passion and expertise have been showcased at numerous industry events including ANA’s Joint Commerce Marketing and Brand Management Committee Meeting; DigiPharma Connect and more. In 2023 she was honored in AdMonsters & AdExchanger’s Top Women in Media & Ad Tech and named an Adweek Media All Star.
Allie Lichtenberg
Programmatic Optimization Consultant/Digital Media Strategist
Ad Lucem
Allie Lichtenberg is a seasoned expert in programmatic advertising and digital media, with over a decade of experience driving exceptional campaign performance across diverse industries, including retail, CPG, travel, pharma, and finance. Her expertise spans more than 30 buying platforms and advanced attribution techniques like MTA, MMM, and incrementality.
As the owner of AD LUCEM, Allie provides strategic consulting in media buying and marketing analytics, leveraging her background in optimization, cross-functional collaboration, and process design. Her work is distinguished by accolades such as the Hearst Spotlight Award and her success in leading high-performing teams at companies like Cadreon, Accordant, Hearst Magazines, and DeepIntent.
In addition to her professional achievements, Allie holds an MBA from Iona University and a Certificate in Historic Preservation Studies from NYU. Passionate about digital transformation and media analytics, she is also a certified LinkedIn Marketing Insider and Google Analytics expert. When she’s not optimizing campaigns, Allie enjoys exploring architectural masterpieces, particularly those of Frank Lloyd Wright.”
Josh Palau
VP, Performance Media & Activation
Pfizer
Josh is currently the VP of Performance Media for Pfizer leading digital paid channel strategy and activation across all brands. He leads an In-House Media Strategy team overseeing Search, Social, Programmatic, SEO, and Media Partnerships. With a focus on Media transformation, he leads an In-House Media Channel Strategy team responsible for overseeing Search, Social, Programmatic, SEO, and Media Partnerships.
Before joining Pfizer, Josh served as the SVP of Growth Marketing at LendingTree, driving customer acquisition and revenue growth. In addition to this he’s held leadership roles at PHD Media, Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Comcast, and Razorfish.
On the personal side, Josh lives in a Hallmark movie-esque small town spending his time reading, running, and adding to his sneaker collection. For the past 10 years, his family organizes a pediatric cancer fundraising event for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation which has raised over $1.6MM.
Vinny Rinaldi
Vice President, Media & Marketing Technology
The Hershey Company
Vinny brings a disruptive lens to a media ecosystem that is constantly evolving. His approach to digital transformation starts with a deep understanding of business outcomes to translate into media strategies. Vinny brings a unique approach to his role after spending the past 14 years in various roles at startups like Adap.TV, ad tech giants like Google and Amazon, leading Investment and Activation at GroupM’s Wavemaker and a 2019 Ad Age 40 under 40 nominee for his transformative work at The Hershey Company through the lens of Addressable Media. An ad technology evangelist, Vinny is committed to being provocative in his approach to using data and analytics to address a brands planning, investment, activation, and measurement ecosystem. He continues to push the system as he looks to disrupt the changing landscape of media from a linear world to an addressable first world.
Felix Zeng
Head of Programmatic & Emerging Revenues
The Weather Company
Felix Zeng serves as Head of Programmatic for The Weather Company (TWC). In this role, he leads the programmatic team who sells TWC’s suite of advertising products to agency trading desks, demand-side platforms (DSPs), supply-side platforms (SSPs), agencies and advertisers. The Weather Company inventory includes weather.com, wunderground.com and The Weather Channel and Weather Underground apps across mobile, tablet and emerging platforms. He is based in the company’s New York office.
Prior to Weather, Felix spent 11 years at About Inc, where he rose through the ranks in roles with progressively greater responsibilities. He joined About as a financial analyst and eventually was sent by About’s CEO to start About China in Beijing. He then returned to New York to get his MBA while working in yield and sales analytics. He was promoted to manager of business development, and ultimately director of business development.
Felix began his career as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs. He earned a bachelor’s degree in applied economics and business management from Cornell University, where he graduated magna cum laude, and earned an MBA with honors from Columbia University’s executive program.
