Allen Stern Email Address

Head of Performance Media

AKQA is an ideas and innovation company. We exist to create the future for our clients.

Allen joined AKQA as Group Media Director in 2011 and has recently added the responsibility of leading the internal programmatic trading desk team. Allen has spent considerable time making media accountable. His lengthy direct marketing tenure of six years with eBay and four years with Nike D2C, set him on a path of deep understanding of the power of programmatic media buying. His aim is to surpass client expectations by being at the vanguard of new media opportunities and technology. In early 2015, Allen helped create the in-house Trading Desk team at AKQA. Allen’s team of 20 people is responsible for all programmatic media buying for AKQA's media clients -- over $40MM in annual spending. Allen was a part of Agency.com, when it became an independent Omnicom agency -- Signal to Noise. Allen had joined Agency.com in 2005 as Media Director for San Francisco. Allen took the lead in developing client's media strategies and then guided the media team in implementing that strategy through media planning, media buying and ultimately optimization. Allen's experience in online media covers a wide range of clients and objectives from direct response to branding. Allen has been working in online media since 1999, but also has eight additional years of experience exclusively in traditional media. Allen started his media career at Young & Rubicam working on Clorox brands and negotiating sports marketing contracts for Chevron. Allen also spent two years at OMD as a Group Director where he was responsible for Heinz Frozen Foods and B2B marketer Robert Half International. Allen has a BS in Finance and an MBA in Marketing. Allen is married to an HIV clinical pharmacist who actually does save lives. Before business school he was a partner in an Italian restaurant, but he does not miss the monotony. He has traded that for teaching his fifteen year old daughter how to throw a pizza and teaching his thirteen year old son how to duck.