OP #253: Bringing Smart People Together, Jobs, and Reading

Recapping a great OP dinner in Boston and the resurfacing of the long lost Jobs section.

Author

Darren Herman
April 02, 2024

Happy Tuesday OP Community.  Welcome to the first few days of Q2 if you are operating on the calendar year. Scary isn’t it?

🥇 I want to congratulate our good friends at Stagwell’s Gale for winning Campaign US advertising agency of the year. I have known Brad and David way back to my MDC Partners days and it’s amazing to see their shop grow incredibly over the past decade. 

🔉 Lenny’s Podcast is usually really good. I enjoyed the latest episode on How to Speak More Confidently and Persuasively.  Additionally, two of my favorite New York Knicks (Brunson, Hart) started a podcast called Roommates Show. Still a bit rough around the edges but it’s been fun to get to know the Knicks squad a bit more personal than what we’d typically see. Speaking of sports, check this out: How to Make It In Basketball: Become a Manager at Indiana (Front Office Sports).

💡 David Berkowitz’s AI Marketers Guild has been impressive to watch and participate in. At a time of such innovation, learning from peers and getting inspired with applications of AI is important. If you are a marketer or working in growth at a company, large or small, you should consider checking out his community. There is a nice List of events ever. 

🍾 Congrats to Gotham Gal for launching her first line of fragrances under Gotham Goods.

⚡ My friend Rob is producing the AdTech Economic Forum on April 24th at the Times Center in New York. The speaker lineup is solid and the agenda looks at our industry from the top down, inside out. Over 200 bankers, CMOs, CEOs, investors, and analysts will discuss what comes next in our industry. OP Subscribers get a 20% discount thanks to Rob. To register, go to the registration platform and use the code Forum20.

Here are some articles to get us started…

I hope you have a wonderful week.

Darren

OP Dinner: Bringing Smart People Together

A less than professional photo taken from my iPhone @ OP Dinner 3/28/24

Last week, I hosted the first OP Community Dinner here in Boston. I was blown away by the dinner conversation and the camaraderie of the attendees. A huge thank you to our friends at Fogo de Chao for hosting us and providing a great backdrop and fantastic food.

For those who did not attend, the 12 of us sat around a rectangular table and had a single conversation for the majority of the dinner.

I did some research on each attendee ahead of time and had prompts printed out for each attendee to talk to.  We got through two full rounds of prompts and learned from everyone. Conversation ranged from talking about companies we’d bet on 10 years out, how AI was going to affect search, to short term productivity hacks. It was absolutely a participatory dinner where I did very little of the talking (that’s a good thing!).

If you’d like to join us for future OP dinners, put your name down on this list if you have not already. Our next dinner/lunch will most likely be in Dallas in the next couple of months.

This dinner reinforced that the subscriber base of the OP is humbling. I appreciate you and the time you spend with this letter each week. Thank YOU for subscribing!

Interesting Jobs

Below are hand curated list of jobs that I found across the internet. None of these companies know that I’m posting here and I assume the jobs are still available because they are still listed on their site. If you are interested in applying or learning more, I urge you to click the respective links and finding your way in.

Quince.  Growth Manager - TikTok.  In this role, you will be responsible for managing TikTok channel. This role is apt for an individual who has the passion and curiosity for going granular and reviewing channel level campaign performance whilst having the ability to look holistically across paid social channels; has the desire to manage teams and implement process improvements whilst also empowering the team to develop their own approaches; has the growth mindset to continually explore opportunities for incrementally whilst not losing sight of existing partner marginal growth opportunities.

ShipBob. General Manager, Fulfillment Operations. We are looking for a dedicated General Manager to join the leadership team in our Grapevine, TX Fulfillment Center. You will be responsible for managing staff, fostering a positive work environment, ensuring customer satisfaction and proper departmental operation. You will have a hands-on approach and be committed to the expansion & success of the business by implementing strategies that increase productivity and enable the company to hit revenue goals.

Bobs Discount Furniture. eCommerce Product Manager. The eCommerce Product Manager will be responsible for delivering excellent digital customer experiences on mybobs.com and related digital products through the product delivery cycle – planning, execution, and measurement—in support of the company’s growth objectives and site features roadmap. Reporting to the Director of eCommerce Product Management, you will play a critical role in the success of our fast-growing $200+ million eCommerce channel and in increasing eCommerce share of $200 billion overall company sales. You will work to plan, deliver, and measure results in support of the ecommerce roadmap, working directly with stakeholders across IT and business teams. You will manage the backlog, prioritizing the right enhancements and fixes, both directly and by working through others to achieve desired outcomes.

Varsity Spirit. eCommerce Analyst. The Ecommerce Analyst will provide insights to optimize our growing ecommerce business through the analysis of SEO, customer flows, and sales channels like point of sale, online, and social media. Utilizing tools and data sources like Google Analytics, Power BI, SEMrush, and ad accounts. Additionally, this role will coordinate with our warehouse team to acquire product and inventory data, and will be responsible for identifying errors, processing and formatting that data for mass imports, and will work to streamline tasks for a more expedited and efficient workflow to keep our POS stores up-to-date and in sync. The Ecommerce team will rely on you to provide accurate and updated data that will be used to ensure optimal decision-making, discover insights, and identify opportunities at every level.

NBA. DTC Strategy & Analytics. The Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) Strategy & Analysis team is a key part of the NBA’s DTC Monetization group. The Monetization group focuses on driving growth of the NBA’s digital DTC business globally (including League Pass subscriptions, NBA ID membership, and overall digital platform), by using data-driven insights and decision making. They work dynamically within a matrix organization to align efforts across Marketing, Content, Product, Membership, Finance and Partnerships, among others.

I haven’t done extensive reading this week but here are a few links that I’ve curated. If you come across an article that you believe would be a great addition to future OP letters, don't hesitate to share it with me. However, please note that I retain the discretion to decide on the content that goes into each OP letter.

Squeezing Time. (Rishad Tobaccowala)

Top 10 College Sports NIL Earners (Business Insider/Yahoo!)

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