The Fierce Video editorial team is proud to present its second annual Emerging Leaders Awards, recognizing the brightest young professionals rising up the ranks of the streaming TV industry. Throughout the months of May and June we’ll be featuring these profiles with each of our finalists. We will announce the winners during our StreamTV Show with an awards ceremony June 17 at 3:15 p.m. ET. Not yet registered for the StreamTV Show, running June 15-17? Be sure to register now and save your spot at this free virtual event.
Grace Lam/Roku:
As director of partner growth at Roku, Grace Lam is helping to shape the growth and content partnership strategy for the company. Grace joined Roku in 2016 as an individual contributor for the audience development team and today serves as a core leader on Roku’s growing partner growth team. She is responsible for aligning internally and externally on overall partner goals and setting the strategy to drive growth, engagement and monetization for many of Roku’s key partners including Amazon, Apple and AT&T/WarnerMedia.
What her colleagues are saying:
"Grace consistently goes above and beyond what is required of her to achieve excellent results for both Roku and its partners. She is an outstanding role model and cares deeply about the people she works with and I can’t think of a more deserving person to be recognized as an Emerging Leader." – Michael Gamboa, director of partner growth at Roku
"Grace’s incredible experience, passion for supporting the growth of junior employees and the deep respect she has earned across the industry make her an exceptional leader who will only continue to help reshape the future of television. I am proud to have Grace as core leader on the Partner Growth team and wish to congratulate her on this well-deserved recognition." – Tedd Cittadine, vice president of content partnerships at Roku
Streaming Industry Q&A:
What streaming services do you subscribe to?
It’s more like which streaming services do I not subscribe to (!). Literally all of them, but my most frequently streamed are HBO Max, Hulu, Apple TV+, Netflix, Disney+ and Showtime. I’d be remiss not to mention The Roku Channel, which doesn’t need a subscription and gives me tons of amazing free content to pick from.
Describe your biggest career highlight so far.
I had an opportunity to help form a brand-new team at Roku (Partner Growth) that enabled the business to think about our partnerships more holistically and design a structure that strategically sets up Roku to scale. The part of the team building process that is interesting to me is the people aspect – I’m passionate about assembling a team of individuals who all have their unique super powers and understanding their interests so that I can help set them up for individual growth in the future.
What has been your biggest career learning experience?
Get enough sleep – I perform best if I sleep a full eight hours a night! It’s very important to take care of yourself outside of work so that you can show up as the best teammate possible.
What's next for you in terms of new challenges in streaming TV?
It’s tough to acquire subscribers but keeping them is even tougher, especially with all the choices consumers have today. With competition heating up, it will be important to help partners not only survive but thrive in the Streaming Decade by leveraging Roku’s power and best practices to continue to engage and retain streamers.