Kaitlyn Bradley is a professional singer, personal trainer and a Digital Technology Queen. After pursuing her music career for many years, she made her way to digital marketing and eventually to LiveIntent. She started as a Publisher Development Manager (now known as Customer Success Manager) and now can be found on the product side of things for the demand side of our platform. She handles everything from Liveconnect tags, to audiences to changes in the UI of our platform.
Read more to find out about Kaitlyn’s amazing journey and about why she’s been one of the greatest additions to the LiveIntent team (and company band RIFFF).
What led you to LiveIntent?
Before LiveIntent, I had been working in the industry for many years with roles in digital marketing, operations and account management. At the time, I was working for another tech start up; the industry was changing, and they were having a very rocky year financially. In my gut, I knew it was time to leave, at which point, I started reaching out to my network for opportunities. A friend introduced me to Kerel Cooper and he was starting a new team to manage/develop some of LiveIntent’s largest enterprise accounts. LiveIntent appealed to be because of their unique value prop and the role just happened to be exactly what I was looking for at the time. Thank the heavens Kerel and I hit it off because my other company flopped shortly after I left.
Has your perception about email changed since working for LiveIntent?
Since I had been in the digital marketing space for a while before LiveIntent, I understood the power of email as a leading CRM channel for brand advertisers, but had limited exposure to the publisher world at this point so hadn’t thought about it as an additional revenue stream. As soon as I started having conversations with people at LiveIntent, the overarching value prop immediately clicked, and I drank the kool-aid so to speak. Email is the most widely used verification tool (outside of cell phone) and we use it for EVERYTHING – from purchasing products online to managing your bank or social media accounts to consuming articles or books from your favorite media sources to communicating with friends and family etc. To answer the question, yes, my perception has changed and so has the industry’s over these past few years. When I started, people-based marketing was just ripple in the water. Today, it’s a full-blown hurricane and LiveIntent is in the eye.
How did you get into this industry/business?
A failed career in musical theatre and a little bit of luck. When I was a girl, I had an undying passion for singing, dancing and acting and my childhood dream was to be a Big Broadway Star. I auditioned for NYU when I was 17 and was accepted into the musical theatre program at the Tisch School of Arts. Many of my professors at NYU would echo, ‘Only pursue a life in theatre if you can’t picture yourself doing anything else.’ While I was certain I didn’t want to do anything else, I’ve always been keen on backup plans and thought it would be a smart idea to get a business degree…just in case. After college, I was lucky and landed a National Tour and spent my first 7 months as a ‘real’ adult touring around the US. Once the tour ended, I was back to the grind and began personal training as my side gig. Long story short, I burned out and realized that ‘I could actually picture myself doing something else.’ However, I didn’t know ‘what’ that was. So naturally, I absconded (not for legal reasons) to Asia for 4 months on my own Eat Pray Love adventure. After a mugging, broken wrist, trip to the US embassy and bed bugs, I returned to NYC and started submitting my resume to temp agencies, recruiters, friends, anyone who could help. Shortly thereafter, I received a call from Discovery Channel and took a temp job as a sales coordinator working in Television. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but a few months later my resume ended up at Mindshare and I received a call from a recruiter looking to fill a role in SEM. I couldn’t see myself in TV sales, and given Digital was the hot new industry, I took the interview. I landed the job and the rest is history.
Congrats on your new career move! What made you interested in moving from Customer Success Management to Product?
Back in early 2017, I slowly evolved into the liaison for most products launching from our Berlin office and realized that I had an affinity for learning technology and developing/growing our products. This coupled with the fact that women make up only 5% of product managers in the tech space, I felt like this was my time to take on a new challenge that I am truly passionate about and at the same time, empower and set an example for women who are thinking about entering male dominated careers- regardless of where they are on their path.
Do you have any advice for people wanting to switch careers?
‘Don’t sit back and wait.’ Too often we have a feeling something is not working in our career, but we keep waiting for the perfect opportunity to show up before we do something about it. We want to know what to do next, and we want to see a safe path to it. And so we wait, day after day, for that “aha” moment when we finally just figure it all out. Unfortunately, the only time that ‘moment’ has come, is after I’ve taken a leap and am knee deep. Follow your hunch that you should be doing something else and then try to do something different, fail, pivot and try again and again until you find something that challenges you and makes you happy.
Since it’s a New Year, do you have any resolutions that you’ve planned for 2019?
I have a superman complex where I think I can take on the world while simultaneously running at the speed of light. I have decided that it is finally time to ‘CHILL OUT,’ slow down and scale back. I’d like to see another decade.
What are three things most people don’t know about you?
I had a career in Musical Theatre prior to MarTech. I started my first company when I was 16, teaching voice lessons to junior high school kids. I have traveled to 34 countries.
