Marketing operations (MOps) professionals are the behind-the-scenes heroes of marketing teams everywhere. They're the folks planning, executing, and analyzing every marketing campaign. This year, as part of Zapier's Marketing Ops Appreciation Day celebrations, we're thrilled to shine the spotlight on three outstanding MOps professionals who have gone above and beyond in their roles.
Please meet our 2023 Marketing Operations MVP Award winners.
Alek Flekel
Senior Marketing Operations Manager, EngageSmart
Alek has spent seven years in the MOps field, and at EngageSmart, he's responsible for spearheading improvements to the marketing database, leading audience management, and training the marketing team.
Under his leadership, EngageSmart witnessed a remarkable 49% increase in email engagement rates, and Alek's data management and targeting strategies contributed to over a third of the marketing pipeline, surpassing the 2022 goal by an extraordinary 270%. Alek's colleagues also emphasize that he has been a great mentor to his team and has provided invaluable guidance to the Customer Acquisition team as well.
Greg Ah Sue
Senior Director of Marketing Operations, Entrata
Described as a Zapier wizard by his peers, Greg often jokes that his ultimate goal is to automate himself out of a job. He's an expert at every part of marketing ops—from platform ops to campaign ops and anything in between—and his automation practices have saved the company thousands of hours of busywork.
At Entrata, Greg has built all sorts of Zaps, but his favorite is one he made for their Sales team. When an opportunity changes stages in Salesforce, the Zap automatically validates the mailing address with a Google Places API. Then it uses a webhook to trigger Sendoso to deliver a cake—yes, you read that right, a literal cake—to the customer. This is one instance where you can have your cake and eat it too.
Stacy Li
Marketing Associate, NRG Energy
A rising star in the MOps field, Stacy Li has already had a significant impact at NRG Energy—in just over a year and a half.
She led their "Here's to 15" campaign, supported a major departmental merger, and organized many important team-building events. She has also served as a marketing resource for 15 business resource groups, modernized career fair materials, revamped the internship recruitment process, and implemented a diversity, equity, and inclusion content dashboard.
Once again, congratulations to our winners for their exceptional achievements and contributions to their organizations. We're excited to see what the future holds for them and wish them continued success in their careers.
