The focus is on SEA: April’s employee story

Southeast Asia, a mobile-first region flying high on the back of exponential growth, offers the backdrop for our next employee story. We caught up with April Tayson, Adjust’s Sales & Business Development Director for Southeast Asia (SEA), who’s accustomed to leading transformation and changing the rules. In her employee story, she talks about how her career has prepared her to drive new growth and new customer connections in South East Asia, the hottest region in apps today.

Can you brief us about your career journey?

I’ve been very lucky to have a career that’s spanned many different verticals. I started managing my family poultry business but then moved onto a role in the foreign exchange. It wasn’t too long before I worked in USAID, and then became the first female field sales representative for Marlboro Philippines, where my sales career really began.

However, my path took me away from tobacco and into ad tech. I took a leap of faith and have spent a decade in the industry, growing in different positions across the mobile advertising landscape. My forte has always been to grow emerging markets from scratch, and it has one rollercoaster of a ride so far.

You’re a proven growth driver, especially in your time at Adjust — what’s helped to motivate you?

At Adjust, we guide the market — not only in terms of the solutions we bring but also in how we conduct business and how we empower our employees/teams.

The opportunities available to me to grow and be part of our growth story is immense. I am proud to be part of a fun-loving and passionate team.

For example, women in tech has been a persistent talking point for modern companies, and I’m happy to be working for an equal opportunity employer with females leading positions across different functions within the organization. Women account for almost half (42%) of our employees and we have active programs to champion women in tech.

Personally, as an individual, I see a lot of growth — I can see that Adjust’s vision, and culture, are stronger than any other.

Tell me about your average day as a Sales Director

“Sales Director” is just a title. What each salesperson does is more of what I’d call a Solutions Provider. Since sales cycles are relatively long, and decisions are made based on trust, credibility and support (alongside objective evaluation) we need to guide them every step of the way.

SEA as a whole is on the learning curve, and thanks to how advanced attribution has become, there’s a lot of work that goes into deconstructing the ecosystem. We have to focus on educating the market through content-driven workshops, seminars and data insights.

Adjust’s teams also go the extra mile when it comes to providing best-in-class support. We realize the importance of helping marketers leverage the tools to their full potential — in fact, my phone has six different messaging apps for six different markets just so I can communicate with my customers whenever they need support. And my clients vouch for that.

Recent Adjust data has shown Indonesia to be a hot market: What are the challenges in such a high-stakes arena?

SEA is a mobile-first market that’s felt tremendous growth in recent years. There is no doubt about the market potential, but the bigger question is how technology companies can really be a part of this growth story. One-size-fits-all doesn't apply to a market that’s rich and made up of unique countries.

But really, one of the most unique angles I can think of is how well integrated Adjust is with the market. The way Adjust is building our product really fits into a ‘SEA mindset’ — we’re adaptable. And in terms of adoption, SEA’s movement past the web into mobile means Adjust really builds around us, instead of matching a more desktop-like mindset.

This is the market to be in, we have ambitions to grow — in one of the biggest, strongest mobile markets in the world.