Stephanie Geno, Innovid CMO, leads the company’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) global task force, which she is most proud or. When asked to cite the information that is least known about her, she said, “Stevie Wonder is my second cousin twice removed.”

She identifies most with the fictional character Khaleesi from the “Game of Thrones” series, known as the mother of dragons.

“When I find a moment to myself, I look to escape in a little bit of magic, dragons, and different parts of the world,” she said. “It helps me be more creative.”  

Khaleesi is a powerful and well-respected woman, a lot like Geno.

Geno found her love for advertising and creativity in college, but she started out during her university years thinking about going into public relations. “I had a vision of being the spokesperson for a company,” she said. “I quickly pivoted toward the advertising side of the industry…. I’m one of the few people I know who got their degree in the field in which I practice — advertising. I specialized in direct-response advertising.”

Like many industries, Geno believes advertising lacks diversity. She said it’s important to examine the many types of individuals who make up the population in the world. There are nearly as many points of view and cultural perspectives as there are people. Her goal, these days, is to ensure that the work represents the consumers.

“I want to see — in advertising and technology — that the people and teams reflect the environment that we’re trying to reach,” she said. “We need to be more thoughtful and considerate about the content we put out as marketers, because there’s been a history of a one-dimensional ethnicity used in content. For many people, this is their only exposure. We need to close the cultural gap that exists between middle America and what people experience and feel on the coasts in big cities.”

When asked to cite the best piece of business advice she has received, Geno talked about working with an executive coach nearly seven years ago. She said: “it’s not how hard you fall, but how quickly you get up and recover.”

“It’s easy to take the little misses personally and let that consume us, but at this point I’ve gotten to a stage in my career where people say I’m a resilient person,” she said. “You need to look at these opportunities to learn.”

It’s about continually learning and growing, and not being too hard on yourself. Anything done for the first time means you’re learning.

Geno’s top business goal for the year is in relation to Innovid’s recent acquisition of TVSquared.

Last week, Innovid closed on the acquisition of TVSquared, a TV measurement company. The transaction provides an independent currency-grade standard for cross-platform TV measurement, powered by the automation of a global ad server. Combining Innovid’s ad-serving footprint of more than 95 million connected homes with TVSquared’s TV measurement and attribution platform, inclusive of TV viewing and ad occurrence data across millions of households globally, creates an independent, source of truth for advertisers.

“We’re now bringing connected television together with linear TV, as we start to think about optimization across both,” she said. “Real-time biddable media opens the opportunity for us to move away from the legacy model. Back in the day we would set a plan, and that plan would run for six months, and halfway through the year we would reevaluate it and then re-plan.”