The Fierce Video editorial team is proud to present its third annual Emerging Leaders Awards, recognizing the brightest young professionals rising up the ranks of the streaming TV industry. Throughout the month of May we’ll be featuring these profiles with each of our finalists. We will announce the winners during our StreamTV Show with a live awards ceremony in Denver on June 6 at 7:30 p.m. MT. Not yet registered for the StreamTV Show, running June 6-8? Be sure to register now!
Karen Chan/GroupM:
As the managing partner and investment strategy lead at GroupM, Karen Chan works across teams, departments and agencies to push through a holistic approach to the evolution of TV. Chan has strategically helped to usher in new thinking for the video and digital investment teams on what the convergence of TV and digital would look like for the future. An active member of GroupM's Asian Pacific Islander ERG and numerous industry groups, Chan also works closely with the learning and development team to educate and mentor new associates and new hires into the advertising industry.
In addition to previously working at MediaMath, Tremor Video and SHE Media, Chan came from Vizio where she started and built the product marketing and marketing efforts for the Platform+ division (Inscape, Vizio Ads, Project OAR, and SmartCast OS/WatchFree+). While at Vizio, she was honored as one of Cynopsis' Top Women in Tech in 2020 and co-led marketing efforts for Vizio's IPO in March 2021.
What her colleagues are saying:
"Karen has an impressive digital and TV background that has been invaluable in driving strategic changes across Video and Digital Investment at GroupM. She can take big convoluted concepts and make them into a digestible narrative for anyone to understand, including the streaming and OTT space for those unfamiliar with the industry." - Adam Gerber, executive director and head of investment strategy at GroupM
"I've worked with Karen before working together again at GroupM, and she has been one of the smartest people I've worked with. She can see the high level, three-year plan with executive leadership, explain and sell in streaming innovations to clients and discuss detailed technical solutions with engineering." - Mike Fisher, VP and head of advanced TV at GroupM
Streaming Industry Q&A:
What streaming services do you subscribe to?
Subscription accounts to Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+ and HBO Max. Ad-supported accounts with YouTube and Peacock. Also TV everywhere across networks through DirecTV and a few different FAST offerings. I'm a big fan of TV!
Describe your biggest career highlight so far.
Bringing about the Vizio IPO at the New York Stock Exchange. It was a very stressful period of my life, but getting to be there after putting so much work into building the company and into that specific event was extremely rewarding. Helping take a company public was something I never thought I would do.
What has been your biggest career learning experience?
Everything happens for a reason. Usually it's because something even better is going to happen afterward, or it's supposed to be a learning experience or it's time to reap some benefits. Either way, acknowledge what happened, find joy in the moment and work to make the future better.
What's next for you in terms of new challenges in streaming TV?
For me, there is always something new to learn about streaming TV, and the challenge is to stay on top of the innovations and help communicate that out. Fragmentation is rampant, but consolidation will happen to an extent. However, one of the biggest issues with TV currently is not the choice of what to watch between programs or how to watch TV, but it is what TV is going to compete with now that the world has opened up a bit more. And working in advertising, that issue affects where we might find our audience - taking our ad budgets with it.