This article is part of our first-ever 2021 Partnership Leaders Awards, highlighting powerful professionals in the partnerships space. Learn more about the awards and check out all the winners.
We recently named Lindsay Kolinsky as our first-ever Rising Star: Partner Marketer. Lindsay was nominated by many of her peers to receive this award thanks to her innovative efforts this year, including a powerful partnerships events strategy.
We’re grateful to have Lindsay Kolinsky with us today, shedding more light on the initiatives she’s implemented since joining the Okendo team earlier this year.
Lindsay’s Path from Parades to Partnerships
Like most professionals in partnerships, Lindsay shared that her journey hasn’t been very straightforward. “I’ve gone on a bit of a zig-zag throughout my career. After college, I started as a temp in the Macy’s Parade and Entertainment Group, which turned into a full-time role. I was there for three years. At the time, we were still doing lots of newspaper ads and print ads. Unfortunately, budgets were typically designed in advance, so there wasn’t much space for strategy.”
Ultimately, Lindsay moved to tech to take a more strategic approach. “I started as a Sales Coordinator, but then moved into Customer Success. I knew right away that sales wasn’t for me, but I liked the customer relationship aspect of the role. Ultimately, I wanted to move back to marketing, which I was familiar with from my time at Macy’s. This opportunity came about as the company was growing the partnership team, so it was a perfect fit given my past experience.”
Partner Marketing at Okendo
Today, Lindsay Kolinsky works at Okendo as a Partner Marketing Manager and is based in NYC. However, Okendo is a fully remote company headquartered out of Sydney. “I’ve been working at Okendo since June. My role as Partner Marketing Manager is to be the intermediary between partners and marketing. I want to give Partner Managers an outlet to promote and nurture relationships. Agency, tech partners, and more love to be included in everything we do. I work with them to create ebooks, webinars, events, and more — anything to bring partners in and drive leads together. My role involves a mix of marketing to partners and marketing partner initiatives.”
This year, Lindsay has implemented an incredible events strategy for Okendo. Unsurprisingly, after her time supporting the second-largest event in the country, Lindsay realized she has an event mindset. “The events we do at Okendo are very scaled-down compared to my past experiences. I’m naturally detail-oriented with events due to my experiences at Macy’s.”
Over the summer, Lindsay started coordinating small-scale partner dinners. She explained, “Partner Managers helped choose and coordinate the partners we were collaborating with. We hosted small format dinners and happy hours where we could each invite five merchants of ours to introduce to each other. Meeting the merchants our partners brought to those dinners has been a great strategy for us.”
Lindsay’s perspective on hosting smaller events was, “Do it right. I’d rather do a smaller but more memorable event that makes each merchant feel it was worth spending their evening with us. This strategy worked out with COVID, too. The Delta variant definitely was a concern, but it worked out. We found outdoor venues in locations where the virus was more of a concern and kept our guest list small so everyone felt comfortable.”
Our 2021 Rising Star Partner Marketer
We’re proud to celebrate Lindsay as our first-ever Rising Star Partner Marketer. Of the award, Lindsay shared, “It means a lot to me. Being so new and switching roles so many times, it validates that all of the experiences I took from each of those roles perfectly combined into partner marketing. Starting during COVID, having to meet everyone over Zoom, while being remote in NYC, this award feels like I’m part of the network. Also, having partners in NY that I have been able to meet in person, and knowing those people support me externally as well has been really nice and validating.”
Congratulations, Lindsay! It’s incredible how far you’ve come in such a short period of time spent in partnerships. We can’t wait to see what strategies you implement next.
This month, we’re celebrating all of the incredible partnerships professionals who took home our first-ever Partnership Leaders awards. Be sure to follow us on LinkedIn so you don’t miss any updates.
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