Many women are now building a strong industry presence and taking leadership roles as the gender gap in tech industry leadership roles decreases.
To acknowledge and recognize their contribution and get to know them better, we continue our blog series featuring women game changers in the mobile industry.
Kele Song
Product Lead, Supply at Chartboost
In my two years at Chartboost, I’ve had the amazing opportunity to work directly with advertisers and publishers as an account manager. I later transitioned into a new role as Chartboost’s first programmatic partnerships manager, focused on developing strong partnerships to scale out our exchange offering. Now I live and breathe all things programmatic. As a Product Manager at Chartboost, I’m laser-focused on building transparency and efficiency into the Chartboost Exchange, connecting demand side partners and brand advertisers to premium in-app inventory.
Chartboost is the leading mobile in-app growth and monetization platform.
- Where do you see programmatic heading in the next five years?
I think the keywords for programmatic in the next five years are “mobile”, “growth” and “trust”.
On the demand side, traditional programmatic buyers will have better awareness about mobile in-app inventory and allocate a bigger percentage of their media budget for mobile in-app. Performance advertisers will reform their user acquisition and re-engagement strategies and utilize more programmatic channels and become a lot smarter in this new realm of buying.
On the supply side, mobile app developers are being educated more on the programmatic topic. They will open up their inventory more to the programmatic buyers. Viewability measurement and anti-fraud methods like ads.txt will have bigger impact to help consolidate and establish trust between mobile in-app inventory and buyers.
- What is your favorite feature of Chartboost’s product and why?
My absolute favorite feature about Chartboost’s product is that we deeply care about being 100% transparent to our customers. Transparency has been one of the most important pillars of Chartboost core value since day 1 of the company. It is deep-rooted in every single product Chartboost has built, to be the trustworthy partner for both our advertisers and publishers. For the Chartboost Exchange specifically, our DSPs have full visibility into what inventory they are buying and how the performance is at a very granular level. I have been working with our programmatic partners closely on shaping our exchange product and establishing the transparent buying in the industry. - Tell us about a challenging situation you faced in your career and what you did to overcome it.
Coming from the mobile performance marketing background, I didn’t have much experience on the programmatic side. When I first started working on the Chartboost Exchange, mostly everything was new to me. I spent a lot of time extensively studying everything programmatic, everything from the concepts and lay of the land to the vocabulary and key players. I went to conferences and events to talk to partners and be in the frontline of the programmatic industry. I also learnt a lot across teams inside Chartboost. It has been a steep learning curve and also an amazing journey at the same time.
- What’s the coolest thing you’re working on right now?
I am currently working on revamping the ads experience on the Chartboost Exchange. The look and feel of an ad is determined by many components of the template. We are taking that experience to the next level to guarantee user satisfaction and high levels of performance. We want to make sure our publishers and their end users are having a great time watching our ads. Meanwhile, it can also ensure good click-through rate and install rate for our buyers, minimizing accidental clicks. - What are the common challenges for women in your line of work?
One of the common challenges is the gender imbalance in meetings and industry events. Often times I would see myself as the only female in the conference room or one of the few female in the event venue. It could seem a bit intimidating in the beginning. I’ve gradually learnt how to adjust my body language and properly express my opinions in these occasions.
- Where is the best place you’ve been so far?
My favorite place on the planet is Japan. The food and the culture just fascinate me. I like everything matcha, and can eat ramen non-stop. My latest visit to Japan was last May and I will probably plan more trips in the upcoming years.
- Name one thing you’re most passionate about and why.
I have a deep passion about traveling. I enjoy talking to people coming from different culture background and speaking different languages. It can always teach me something new and have some new interpretations about life.
- Tell us something that might surprise us about you.
One surprising fact about me is that I dream to open a restaurant someday. I want to create some unique menu based on all my travel experience and source ingredients from my own or other local farms. As a small step, I sometimes bring homemade cookies to the office.
- What is the coolest innovation you have seen and why do you like it?
AI is the latest coolest innovation I have been amazed at. Nonetheless the industrial use of the technology, AI can even bring so much convenience to people’s day-to-day life even for people who are not tech-savvy at all. It can probably reach beyond impossible in the upcoming years or decades.
- What game have you spent the most hours playing?
I have spent quite some time playing Homescapes in the past six months. Playing match 3 games is always a good relaxing activity for me. It is also great to experience the game play and study the monetization ads our publisher serves.
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