A Q&A with Sarah Lewis
Global Director, CTV- ShowHeroes Group
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About ShowHeroes Group:
ShowHeroes: the leading, independent provider of instream video solutions for digital premium publishers and brands in Europe, driven by semantic technology and content. Founded in 2020 – as a result of the ongoing expansion and growth of its premium digital video brand ShowHeroes. It operates from 15 international locations: Berlin, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Hildesheim, Riga, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Amsterdam, Vienna, Paris, London, Milan, Florence, Madrid and Tel Aviv. The team of 200 employees is led by the Founding Heroes llhan Zengin, Mario Tiedemann and Dennis Kirschner.
Like many of us in Ad tech I didn’t initially set out to work in the industry, but after finishing a degree in publishing and aiming to work in a sales role I started on the agency sales team at BBC Advertising and throughout my career gradually transferred over from media owner/publisher to ad tech.
I am currently Global Director, CTV at Showheroes where I head up everything Connected TV related in all markets. I’m really lucky to have a role that focuses on CTV, which is one of the fastest growing media platforms, and has so much variety. I work on demand sales, supply, product, marketing and much more across all of our markets so it’s a really exciting role.
I’m a worrier! I’ve always had a problem with overanalysing and worrying about every little thing, causing myself a lot of stress along the way. It’s taken time and experience but I’m now much better at taking a step back, prioritising and not wasting time worrying about things that don’t matter.
I’ve been really lucky to have many great managers throughout my career. Some notable ones would be Guy Hughes-Wilson who was my Director when I was at the BBC and was so supportive in my first role in the industry. Graeme Lynch, my manager when I was at SpotX really helped me with personal development and learning to be a manager and leader within a company. And my current manager Ilhan Zengin has been extremely supportive of me, trusting me to build out a department and always being there when I need advice and guidance.
To trust and believe in myself. It sounds a bit cheesy, but I have definitely had the common problem of believing that everyone else knows more than me and doubting my own ability which inevitably leads to self-sabotage. It’s taken a while, but I now trust myself to do the job well and feel much more confident in myself.
Find something you have a genuine interest in and enjoy. There are always ups and downs with every job, but if you have something that you have a genuine passion for this will keep you going through those downs and thriving through the ups.
Driven, Hard-working, resilient
I think CTV will just be TV- our predominant way of watching content and I think AI will play an even more integral role in our ad technology.