In honor of International Women's Day, I wanted to recognize 2 women that have had a profound impact on my life. One of them personal, another professional.

My mom, a lifelong nurse, specializing in end-of-life care (hospice) and mid-to-late-stage cancer care, always taught me that the most important thing anyone can do in their life is to CARE, whether for a person or a cause. With 8 billion people on this planet and countless causes to #care about, we each have a limited capacity to give our energy. While I’m not always great at expressing my gratitude, one of the things I care most about is the people I surround myself with, both personally and professionally.

One practice we’ve implemented in our team meetings is a “shout-out” session. We all may think positive things about our colleagues, but we don’t always communicate them. And I’ve never met someone who doesn’t appreciate a genuine compliment. A simple gesture of appreciation can go a long way, and this few minutes is the best part of any of my meetings all month long.

As a small gesture of my appreciation, I want to take this a step further and publicly recognize a colleague I deeply respect & and has had a profound impact on my life. While I’d love to see more of this across our industry, I understand that publicly vouching for someone comes with the risk of them getting “poached”. So it hear it goes…

I have had the honor and privilege to work alongside Amanda Bookout (not on LinkedIn ATM, otherwise would have linked) for the past 15 years. Amanda is Viant’s Director of Business Intelligence. There is simply no one better in our industry that understands both the data complexities that AdTech brings and the business application of that data to bring it to life for our internal stakeholders and clients. She handles the most challenging of issues with calmness and intellect through experience. Her positive, can do attitude is infectious and I’m thankful to have been able to witness it as long as I have. Amanda‘s ability to find, hire, onboard, and develop talent is nothing sort of amazing.

For those who have ever worked with Amanda, I encourage you to show your appreciation and continue this shout-out, whether it’s through internal Slack, an email, or a comment below. I’ll compile all the comments and include them in an Amanda dedicated episode of the AdTech AI Files Podcast to round out this shout out. Let’s celebrate the people who make a difference.

Throw the image in a PPT and introduce it to your next team meeting and hashtag#measure what happens!hashtag#ShoutOut hashtag#Recognition hashtag#Teamwork hashtag#NoAI hashtag#IWD25