Special Sauce
Episodes
Atit Shah, Chief Creative Officer at Digitas North America
30 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Atit Shah has spent nearly three decades at one agency -- not because he stood still, but because the agency always let him keep moving forward. What ...
Kristine Segrist, Global Head of Consumer Marketing at Canva
16 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Kristine Segrist got her start writing meta tags for SEO at a small St. Louis agency (probably not exactly the Don Draper copywriter role one might en...
Kevin Wassong, Early Digital Leader and Founder of Mktng.AI
02 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Kevin Wassong has spent his career chasing what’s next — often before the rest of the industry was even ready for it. From television to entertain...
Chrissie Hanson, CEO of OMD USA
17 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Chrissie Hanson has built her career at the intersection of rigor and curiosity -- shaped early by growing up in Hong Kong, navigating multiple cultur...
Tim Castelli, VP of Global Advertising Sales at Instacart
02 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Castelli has built a career by repeatedly stepping away from what was comfortable in order to lean into what was coming next. From print to dig...
Katherine Naylor Pullman, CEO at Our Third Place
20 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Katherine Naylor Pullman has had a big few years. She got married, became a mom, left her full-time job, and turned a side project into a fast-growing...
Bob Lord, President at Horizon Media
05 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Bob Lord has built his career helping companies navigate moments of profound change — from early automation on factory floors to digital transformat...
Mike Romoff, Chief Revenue Officer at Reddit
15 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Mike Romoff has built a career at the crossroads of community, technology, and commercial leadership — from early roles in ad tech and publishing to...
Janet Balis, Managing Director & Partner at BCG
01 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Janet Balis has spent her career at the intersection of media, marketing, and transformation — from Time Warner and AOL to Martha Stewart Living, EY...
Seb Tomich, Chief Commercial Officer at The Athletic
17 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Seb Tomich has helped redefine how legacy media evolves for the digital era. After early hustles selling Patagonia jackets in Boulder and sunglasses i...
Jacki Kelley, Chief Client & Business Officer at IPG
03 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jacki Kelley’s career spans the full breadth of modern media — from the circulation department at USA Today to leadership roles at Yahoo, Martha S...
Rob Norman, Former Chief Digital Officer at GroupM
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Rob Norman has spent decades helping to define the modern media industry. Starting as a media assistant in London, he rose to lead GroupM North Americ...
Abbey Klaassen, Global Brand President at Dentsu Creative
06 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Abbey Klaassen is the Global Brand President at Dentsu Creative, where she leads thousands of creative professionals around the world. Earlier in her ...
Penry Price, Long-Time Media Executive at Google and LinkedIn
22 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Penry Price is a media and technology leader whose career has spanned publishing, ad tech, and some of the world’s most influential platforms. He’...
Sarah Personette, CEO at Puck
08 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah Personette is a media industry leader who has worked at some of the most well known media brands over time: Facebook, Twitter, Starcom, Universa...
Lee Brown, Global Head of Advertising at Spotify
07 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Lee Brown has been the Global Head of Advertising at Spotify for the last 5 years. Before that, he held senior revenue positions at Buzzfeed, Tumblr, ...
Gurman Hundal, Co-Founder and CEO at MiQ
23 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Gurman Hundal leads MiQ, a programmatic media company that is beloved in the ad tech industry by its clients and partners. He started MiQ with his par...
Robert Mads Anderson, Long Time Ad Creative & Legendary Mountaineer
02 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Robert Mads Anderson is one of the most accomplished mountaineers of his generation and has balanced those pursuits with a multi-decade run working at...
Joy Robins, Chief Advertising Officer at The New York Times
19 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Joy Robins has been working in the news business for almost 20 years. In her most recent 3 jobs, she has led the ad revenue teams at Quartz, The Washi...
Jill Kelly, CEO of North America at Assembly
05 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jill Kelly has worked exclusively in advertising agencies for almost 30 years. First as a media buyer, famously as a successful Comms leader, and ulti...
Matt Derella, VP, Marketing Solutions at LinkedIn
21 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Matt Derella is the VP of Marketing Solutions at LinkedIn, the team focused on serving the advertising industry. Prior to his current role, Matt spent...
Jack Myers, The Original Media Influencer
07 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jack Myers is an author, consultant and content creator, who has been a steady presence in the media industry for 50 years. Having started out working...
Suzie Reider, EVP at Lyft
24 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Suzie Reider might be the OGest of the Digital OGs. Her career took off in the pre-Internet era of the tech publishing world, bridged to early new med...
Rich Lehrfeld, GM at Walmart Connect
03 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Rich Lehrfeld is the General Manager at Walmart Connect, the company's advertising platform that helps brands reach shoppers online and in stores....
Lisa Sherman, CEO at The Ad Council
17 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Lisa Sherman is the CEO at The Ad Council, the organization that brings together the best minds in advertising and media to create public service camp...
Jeremi Gorman, Leader at Amazon, Snap, Netflix and Fanatics
03 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jeremi Gorman loves to be "at the beginning" of things. She helped plant the seeds and grow the ad businesses of both Amazon and Netflix. The ...
Ryan Barwick, Senior Reporter at Morning Brew
20 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ryan Barwick is a journalist covering media and advertising. He is a rising star on the beat. In just the last year, he has reported on Lina Khan and ...
Los Angeles Fires: A Brief Message
13 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With the Los Angeles wildfires still raging, we're using this episode to share a brief story about our next guest and suggest a worthy cause in ne...
Eric Berry, Co-Founder and Former CEO at TripleLift
30 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Eric Berry has been a founder of companies in two disruptive categories: advertising technology and healthcare technology. He started TripleLift, the ...
Peter Naylor, Digital Media Pioneer
16 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Naylor has been one of the most respected names in digital media since...the beginning of digital media. With stints at Lycos, iVillage, NBC, Hu...
Heather Freeland, Chief Brand Officer at Adobe
02 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Heather Freeland has held senior level marketing jobs in Silicon Valley for over a decade, with roles at Facebook, Lyft and Adobe. Prior to moving out...
Carl Fremont, CEO of Quigley Simpson; Mentor
18 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Carl Fremont is a long time veteran of advertising agencies. He's also my mentor. Ask anyone who has known him closely over the years and they wil...
Lisa Caputo, Chief Marketing, Comms & Customer Experience Officer at Travelers
04 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Lisa Caputo has worked in the c-suite of some of America's largest companies for over two decades. Prior to her career in the business world, she ...
Wenda Harris Millard, Board Member and Digital OG
21 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Wenda Harris Millard is a true digital pioneer. Over her career, she has held game changing roles at companies including DoubleClick, Yahoo! and Media...
John McCarus, Founder & Co-Creator of The NewFronts
14 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
John McCarus is the founder and co-creator of The NewFronts, the multi-week event each Spring featuring dozens of digital content companies and servin...
David Kenny, Executive Chairman at Nielsen
07 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
David Kenny's career has spanned media & marketing (as CEO of Digitas, The Weather Company and Nielsen), technology (Akamai and IBM) and the b...
Sarah Hofstetter, President at Profitero and Board Member at The Campbell Soup Company
30 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah Hofstetter is a long time ad agency executive, public company board member and podcaster (check out "Brave Commerce"). She talks about t...
Michael Kassan, Founder of 3C Ventures
23 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Kassan is the Founder of 3C Ventures, his follow-up to MediaLink, the legendary company he founded 20 years ago and left this past Spring. He ...
Marla Kaplowitz, CEO at The 4A's
16 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Marla Kaplowitz is the CEO of The 4A's. She joins Special Sauce to talk about the difference between running an ad agency and being charged with h...
Christine Cook, Chief Revenue Officer at Bloomberg Media
09 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Christine Cook is the Chief Revenue Officer at Bloomberg Media. Christine joins Special Sauce to reminisce about her post-college job as a high school...
Jennifer Lotito, President & Chief Operating Officer at (RED)
09 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jennifer Lotito is the President and Chief Operating Officer of (RED), the organization that has worked with the worlds largest brands to generate ove...
Introduction to Special Sauce
05 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Special Sauce is here. Our first episode will be our shortest. In less than 4 minutes, we'll tell you everything you'll need to know. Like: wh...