MarTech Outlook: Specials Magazine
Brandi Adkins Meredith is the Vice President of Marketing at Qolo, a leading fintech and payments company. With over 25 years of experience in the financial sector, she began her career as a banker before transitioning into marketing leadership within banking and fintech. Meredith has held strategic marketing roles at FNBO, Finastra and Marqeta, where she specialized in bridging complex financial technology solutions with client needs. At Qolo, she focuses on demystifying payments infrastructure, building credibility, and driving growth through targeted marketing strategies that balance technology, human insight, and industry expertise. Human-Centered Marketing in B2B Before I understood marketing, I understood what it felt like to sit across from a client who was confused, overwhelmed, or about to make a costly mistake because no one had given them a clear picture. That experience - a decade as a banker, helping people navigate financial decisions that had real consequences - is the lens I carried into marketing. In B2B, we talk a lot about buying committees and decision cycles. What we talk about less is the person inside the committee who actually has to champion a solution, defend the budget and absorb the risk. That person is a human being. And humans need to understand before they can trust, trust before they can commit. That’s a reality that every marketing strategy has to account for. A CFO wants to increase revenue, a compliance officer wants to protect assets, and a technology leader wants a seamless, frictionless experience. Understanding these perspectives is critical for tailoring campaigns and communications that resonate across a 20- or 25-person enterprise buying committee.
Technology and Software
Once upon a time, publishing seemed more straightforward. Magazines thrived on ink, paper, and passion, but behind every glossy cover was a tangled web of chaos. Editorial teams struggled to coordinate their efforts. Ad sales teams relied on outdated methods to track deals. Accounting departments spent countless hours reconciling invoices buried in spreadsheets. For many in the publishing world, this was business as usual—until one man believed it didn’t have to be. “Brilliant editorial work was often buried beneath the weight of operational chaos. A magazine’s success isn’t just about great content—it hinges on smooth workflows, strong sales, and keeping audiences engaged,” says Mark McCormick, founder, president, and CEO of Magazine Manager. McCormick spent years watching talented publishing teams miss deadlines, lose out on ad revenue, and waste hours navigating clunky manual processes. Yet, he realized the deeper problem: inefficiencies weren’t just slowing publishers down but draining their profits. Without a unified system to streamline operations, even the best publications risked falling short. McCormick believed publishing should focus on strategy and storytelling, not chasing lost data. That belief sparked the creation of Magazine Manager, an all-in-one platform that would transform the publishing industry. What began as a simple solution to manage ad sales and billing has evolved into a robust system that powers thousands of publishers worldwide. It replaces disconnected workflows with a single space where sales, production, and operations come together seamlessly. Streamlining Chaos into Clarity Magazine Manager offers an easy-to-use system for small independent publishers that cuts through administrative headaches. For large media houses, it delivers automation and analytics that drive measurable revenue growth. The software scales effortlessly, adapting to the needs of businesses at every stage. Unlike traditional systems focusing solely on contact management, Magazine Manager takes an expansive approach. Publishers can handle ad order entry, automate billing, and integrate effortlessly with QuickBooks and Xero, eliminating manual invoicing errors. The software also includes a sophisticated marketing suite with predictive analytics that enhance audience engagement and campaign performance. Its built-in email marketing tools allow users to execute campaigns directly within the platform, reducing reliance on third-party services.
Influencer Marketing
Every viral trend begins with a signal; the first surge of engagement that shows an idea is catching on. Captiv8 started as a technology to track those signals as a social listening tool for Instagram, measuring the velocity of content as it spread across feeds. But as brands leaned on those insights, prediction only took them so far. They needed to act on influence, discovering the right creators, activating partnerships, managing campaigns and proving impact. That need shaped Captiv8’s evolution into a complete end-to-end influencer marketing platform. Today, brands can run the entire campaign journey in one place, from finding creators through its AI engine to activating partnerships, scaling the creator content through paid, and all the way to measuring performance. By unifying these steps, Captiv8 delivers a centralized platform for data and insights in an ecosystem where brands, agencies, PR teams and talent managers often struggle to stay aligned. At the core of Captiv8 is its AI discovery engine, built to bring precision to influencer marketing. It combines more than 500 filters, creator profiles and real-time engagement data to move beyond simple matching and into predictive modeling. To fuel this engine, the platform unifies three powerful datasets: creator data gathered through onboarding questions on lifestyle attributes and brand affinities, audience data that shows which content formats resonate and which segments drive purchases or installs, and brand data such as years of purchase history shared by partners. Working together, every campaign adds new data, new intelligence and improves future predictions, which in turn sharpens predictions about which creators will perform best and what content will deliver the strongest outcomes. These insights flow directly into commerce integrations such as TikTok Shop, branded storefronts and affiliate programs, transforming creator collaborations from surface-level partnerships into measurable business outcomes. For marketers under pressure to move beyond vanity metrics, Captiv8 also provides advanced analytics, attribution and real-time dashboards, ensuring every dollar spent can be traced back to outcomes. “Whether you’re an NGO driving awareness, a retailer increasing sales or a brand boosting engagement, you can benefit from our platform built to adapt campaigns to your mission. As a true full-funnel solution, we help you tap creators for top-of-funnel visibility and connect those efforts to bottom-line outcomes you can measure with confidence,” says Krishna Subramanian, co-founder.
Ad Management
Advanced Audience Strategies in a Fragmented Media Landscape
Jade Blakney, Advertising Manager, Advanced Audiences, NBCUniversal
Digital Marketing
Strategic Clarity in the Age of Medical Innovation
Paulina Thomas, Marketing Director, Pajunk Medical Systems
Ad Management
Leading Marketing as a Growth Function in a Noisy Marketplace
Lauren Henss, CDMP, PCM, VP of Marketing and Strategic Initiatives, FirstTeam
Ad Management
How Digital Marketing Rewards the Bold
April Hackstall, MBA, Director of Digital Marketing, North America, Nando's PERi-PERi North America
Social Media Management
Leading Global Social Strategy Through Human Connection
Sandra Kolder, Head of Global Social Media, Danfoss Power Solutions
IN MY OPINION
Social Media Management
Why Social Media Strategy Starts With People, Not Platforms
Savannah Chilton, Director of Social Media Marketing, Fathom Holdings LLC
LAST WORD
Digital Marketing
The New Rules of Performance-driven Social Media
Justin James, Head of Social, JG Wentworth
IN FOCUS
Benefits of Leveraging AI-Powered Site Search Solutions
AI-powered site search improves content discovery, user satisfaction, and conversions by delivering faster, more accurate, and personalized search experiences.
Latest Advancements in Digital Marketing Platforms for Seamless Engagement
Digital marketing platforms advance with AI, automation, personalization, data integration, and omnichannel tools to deliver efficient and engaging customer experiences.
EDITORIAL
Building Trust In Modern Marketing
Our cover story recognizes Brandi Adkins Meredith of Qolo as the Marketing VP of the Year 2026. Bringing years of experience in banking and fintech, she has helped raise Qolo's profile in the payments infrastructure space and build credibility across the industry. She believes that effective marketing starts with clear communication and a genuine understanding of customer needs. That perspective has enabled the company to strengthen relationships with clients and partners while continuing to grow its presence. Her leadership reflects the value of staying close to the market and keeping customers at the center of every decision.
The issue also features perspectives from marketing leaders who are navigating change in different ways. Paulina Thomas, Marketing Director at Pajunk Medical Systems, shares how creativity and compliance can work hand in hand in highly regulated healthcare settings. She explains how collaboration across teams, careful planning and clear messaging help organizations communicate with confidence while earning trust. Meanwhile, Savannah Chilton, Director of Brand & Digital Marketing at Fathom Holdings Inc., reflects on why strong social strategies are built around people, not platforms. For her, consistency, authenticity and meaningful interactions remain essential for building lasting connections, regardless of how platforms and algorithms evolve.
The leaders featured in this issue demonstrate that effective marketing is built on trust, clarity, adaptability and a genuine understanding of audience needs. Their perspectives show that technology is most powerful when paired with sound judgment and human connection. We invite readers to explore the insights and perspectives presented throughout this edition.
