Adreana Starke
Head of brand and integrated marketing
Amazon Japan
Throughout her 11 years at Amazon, Adreana Starke has proved herself an asset in every role she has turned to.
She joined Amazon in 2013 as a junior online marketing manager in Germany, taking a series of more senior roles before being promoted to head of portfolio strategy and planning for Amazon’s EU market.
She is now turning her considerable skill to pastures new, having headed to Tokyo to lead the mass advertising business for Amazon Japan last month.
Starke’s nominator says she has shown notable ability to learn quickly as she picked up execution skills, first in online marketing, mass advertising and then brand strategy. She then moved to portfolio, focusing on measurement, ROI, and overall planning and strategy.
Throughout her time as a marketer, accountability has always been a key word.
“I believe brands that approach AI with optimism and curiosity will be the ones leading the way forward.”
“The old ‘50% of ad spend is wasted, I just don’t know which half’ is no longer, and frankly can no longer be, accepted. It's about marketing accountability. Measurement is key,” she asserts.
This increased need to be accountable means adopting a commercial mindset, she says, and balancing a desire to be creative with data-driven decision-making.
Starke identifies the perpetual need for marketers to balance the short and long term as the most significant challenge the profession faces. While data-driven decision-making is central to her approach to marketing, she adds that access to instant metrics means it can be easy to focus on the immediate. “I’ve learned that sustainable growth requires both: delivering short-term results while investing in long-term brand equity,” she says, adding that in a previous role she was collaborating directly with finance to strike this balance.
Looking to the future, Starke approaches the much talked about topic of generative AI with enthusiasm rather than trepidation. She acknowledges that anxiety around this new technology, and what it will mean for marketers of the future, is somewhat natural, but that her approach is to see AI as enhancing what humans can do, not replace.
“I believe brands that approach AI with optimism and curiosity will be the ones leading the way forward,” she asserts.
Empathetic leadership has been and will continue to be extremely important to Starke throughout her marketing career.
“Marketing is a collaborative discipline, and empathetic leadership helps create teams that not only perform well but thrive,” she says. “Lead with empathy, support your colleagues, and you’ll unlock the potential in others – which is one of the most rewarding parts of this career.”
