215. The Trader’s Corner: Data, Design, and Making Space for Women in Ad Tech
Release Date: 11/04/2026
215. The Trader’s Corner: Data, Design, and Making Space for Women in Ad Tech
Programmatic Digest
🎧 Summary: Traders, when was the last time your creative team saw the same campaign report you did? Recorded live at Programmatic I/O, this conversation brings Hélène Parker together with Mike Toney, Global Creative Director of Custom Programs at Foundry, to explore what happens when paid media and creative teams actually share what they know. Mike explains how audience insights, interviews, and heat mapping help his team create experiences that resonate. Hélène reflects on optimizing campaigns by the numbers without always giving the creative itself enough attention, and the two unpack...
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214. The Trader's Corner: Communication, AI, and Growing as a Programmatic Leader
Programmatic Digest
🎧 Summary: Knowing how to optimize a campaign is one skill. Explaining what it means to a CMO is another. In this episode of The Trader’s Corner, our special Programmatic Digest series highlighting fellow programmatic ninjas and their everyday challenges, wins, and lessons, Hélène Parker catches up with Dennis Paredes of WMX, recorded at Programmatic I/O. Dennis shares how he approaches agency work through problem-solving, starting with understanding what clients need and translating campaign details into clear conversations with leadership. They also discuss helping junior employees...
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213. The Trader’s Corner: Pharma, Privacy, and the Everyday Reality of Programmatic
Programmatic Digest
🎧 Summary: What does a programmatic trader’s day look like when every platform has a new AI solution, your team needs hands-on guidance, and your clients operate in a highly regulated industry? Welcome to the first episode of The Trader’s Corner, a special Programmatic Digest series spotlighting fellow programmatic ninjas and the everyday challenges, wins, and lessons that shape their work. In this episode of Trader’s Corner, recorded at Programmatic I/O, Hélène Parker sits down with Kristin BelleFountaine, a programmatic channel manager who leads a team of five specialists. Their...
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212. What’s Behind Your Location Targeting? Privacy, Risk, and Results with Charlie Simon
Programmatic Digest
🎧 Summary: When you select location targeting in your DSP, do you know what data you’re actually using? In this episode of the Programmatic Digest Podcast, Hélène Parker sits down with Charlie Simon, Global VP for Private Advertising at RTB House, to unpack the data behind location targeting and the questions media buyers should ask before using it. Charlie discusses how privacy rules are changing, why consumer consent may not answer every question, and why being near a store doesn’t necessarily mean someone intends to buy. They also explore a fashion retailer example that challenges...
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211. Understanding Programmatic Sustainability with Brian O’Kelley
Programmatic Digest
Let’s first highlight some “not so fun facts” about the topic covered in this episode, according to Anne Coghlan, COO of Scope3 in . Programmatic advertising creates 100,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide every month in the United States, which is equivalent to burning about 11.2 million gallons of gas. Serving 1,000 digital ad impressions uses the same amount of energy as doing a load of laundry in a washing machine — excluding the dryer — which produces a global average of 514.8 grams of CO2. Brian O’Kelley co-founder and CEO joins the programmatic meetup, a...
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210. How A Nurse Started in Programmatic Media
Programmatic Digest
Gulshan started as a nurse and realised that her passion was outside of the medical field. She knew she wanted to work in Marketing but did not know where to start. Luckily, her grad school professor recommended that she looked into programmatic and that is how she “fell” into the programmatic industry where she is now working for an ad agency who specialise in pharma and healthcare brands. Gulshan is such an inspiration for standing up for herself and pursuing something she wanted to and not being afraid to start “again” and take risk learning something new. It’s never too...
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209. The Future of Ecommerce: AEO, AI, and One-to-One Personalization
Programmatic Digest
In Episode 209 of the Programmatic Digest Podcast, Hélène Parker sits down with Avani Oswal, founder of Catalyst, to explore what retail and ecommerce leaders need to know as AI reshapes discovery, technology decisions, and customer experiences. Avani shares how her career moved from finance and consulting at EY to strategy at Macy’s, operational roles across ecommerce brands including IPSY, and eventually building Catalyst, a community that connects retail operators with emerging technology companies. She explains why understanding the numbers, listening closely to operators, and building...
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208. The Data Is Technical, but the Decision Is Human with Carole Lawson
Programmatic Digest
Programmatic advertising gives us more data, automation, and targeting options than ever. But behind every impression, click, and conversion is a real person whose circumstances, attention, and needs can change. In this episode of the Programmatic Digest Podcast, Hélène Parker speaks with Carole Lawson, founding partner of Marketstorm, about the relationship between data, technology, AI, and human behavior. Carole shares how her experience in technology, government innovation, behavioral economics, and data science led her into programmatic advertising. She also explains why traders should...
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207. The AI Middle Layer: The Next Brand Safety Battleground
Programmatic Digest
In this podcast episode, Dr. Cecilia Dones and Iesha White discuss the complex evolution of artificial intelligence within the marketing and advertising industries. They explore the shift of AI becoming a "middle layer" between brands and consumers, highlighting how automated systems can influence purchasing decisions using unverified information. These outstanding ladies distinguish between closed and open AI systems, warning that proprietary models often lack transparency and can lead to brand safety issues like hallucinations or data poisoning. They emphasize that while AI...
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206. A Discussion on The signal brief, AI Search, and Ozone
Programmatic Digest
AI-driven search is changing how people discover information, and challenging the intent-based funnel publishers and advertisers have relied on for years. In this episode of the Programmatic Digest Podcast, I sit down with Christian Robinson of Ozone to explore what this shift means for publishers, programmatic traders, and the future of the open web. Christian shares how Ozone helps advertisers reach audiences across trusted, premium publisher environments while reducing duplication and wasted media spend. We discuss why first-party data, authenticated audiences, and journalistically safe...
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Traders, when was the last time your creative team saw the same campaign report you did?
Recorded live at Programmatic I/O, this conversation brings Hélène Parker together with Mike Toney, Global Creative Director of Custom Programs at Foundry, to explore what happens when paid media and creative teams actually share what they know.
Mike explains how audience insights, interviews, and heat mapping help his team create experiences that resonate. Hélène reflects on optimizing campaigns by the numbers without always giving the creative itself enough attention, and the two unpack why fragmented reporting can leave partners without the information they need to improve.
They also discuss how to move creative feedback beyond “I don’t like it,” use audience evidence to explain design choices, and treat creative teams as partners in campaign performance.
The conversation closes with Mike’s approach to allyship: proactively making room for women, naming the person behind an idea, and making sure credit follows the work.
If you work in programmatic trading, ad ops, paid media, or creative, this episode will help you rethink the information you share and the people you bring into the conversation.
🧠 About Us:
I’m the person programmatic traders reach out to when they want to become more confident, efficient, and effective, from hands-on DSP activation to smarter optimization.
I’m also the person media and ad-tech partners call when they want to better understand those buyers, strengthen their positioning, build deeper partnerships, and grow revenue.
👤 Meet Our Guest:
Mike Toney — Global Creative Director of Custom Programs, Foundry
Mike leads custom creative programs at Foundry, working with his team to develop websites, interactive ebooks, ads, and other brand experiences. In this conversation, he shares how creative teams can use audience research and campaign insights to make more informed design decisions, and why collaboration with media buyers matters.
💻 Meet The Team:
Hélène Parker – Chief Programmatic Coach
🌐 https://heleneparker.com
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helene-parker/
Manuela Cortes – Co-Host, Programmatic Digest en Español
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manuela-cortes-/
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