October Marketer of the Month
Our October Marketer of the Month is Sophia Jin from Seated! Sophia leads Seated’s CRM strategy as Associate Director, CRM Marketing. We’re excited to recognize Sophia for her work spearheading an exceptional team as a Braze champion and consistently helping others in the Braze Bonfire Community. Congratulations, Sophia!October Marketer of the Month
Our October Marketer of the Month is Michelle Forde, Senior Marketing Manager at Hachette Book Group! 🎉 With over a decade of experience in the publishing industry, Michelle has been instrumental in leading Hachette's consumer email marketing program and audience acquisitions. Her passion for books and innovative marketing strategies have driven successful campaigns, including her exciting plans for Cyber Week and the holiday season. Join us in celebrating shelloquent achievements! 🌟 Check out her blog post here.July Marketer of the Month
Join us in congratulating ConorIrvine as our July Marketer of the Month! As a CRM Automations Specialist at DICE, Conor has been instrumental in transforming fan experiences. His dedication to building strong customer relationships and his passion for collaborative problem-solving truly embody the spirit of the Braze Bonfire community. Congratulations Conor! Read more about his career journey here.January Marketer of the Month
Celebrating our January Marketer of the Month, Voula Dimitrak, Product Owner, Braze at Sky! Voula's innovative use of marketing technology, especially her successful implementation of Braze Connected Content, has led to a significant boost in subscriber retention and viewership at Sky. Her dedication to personalization and real-time engagement truly sets her apart. Discover more about vouladimitrak's remarkable contributions in the blog post here. Congratulations, Voula! 🏆August Marketer of the Month
We're excited to announce that our August Marketer of the Month is ilana-fromm , Director of Marketing, Lifecycle and Email at Little Spoon. Her efforts in developing a streamlined lifecycle marketing strategy and her focus on customer retention have been instrumental in shaping the future of Little Spoon. Please join us in celebrating Ilana's achievements and dedication to innovation in customer engagement! Read more of her career journey here.March Marketer of the Month
Our March Marketer of the Month is Roshni Patel, Senior Lifecycle Marketing Manager at Talkspace! We’re excited to honor Roshni’s contributions as an exceptional teammate at Talkspace as a Braze power user. From the beginning of onboarding with Braze, Roshni has been essential to her team’s success with the platform, solidifying herself as a resource for all things lifecycle marketing thanks to her deep familiarity with the ins and outs of the Braze. Congratulations, Roshni!Get to know our 2025 Torchie Awards finalists
The competition for the Torchie Awards was fierce this year, and our finalists represent the top tier in a field crowded with creativity. Let’s dive into the stories of our finalists for four categories: Bonfire Community Leader of the Year, Rising Marketing Star, Marketing Leader of the Year and Braze for Impact. Bonfire Community Leader of the Year This award recognizes a community member who stands out for helping other Braze users. We are continually impressed by the passion, dedication, and collaboration in the Braze Bonfire community. You all really look out for each other, and bring a spirit of innovation and desire to grow in everything you do. Let’s meet our finalists! Allan Heo, Founder & CEO at For Now Marketing Allan, a 2024 runner-up for Bonfire Community Leader of the Year, is a dedicated Braze professional who empowers the marketing community. As a Badge, Discussion, and Solutions Leader, he's a prolific contributor to the discussion boards, sharing educational resources and guides daily. Daphné Leblanc, Director of Lifecycle Marketing & CRM at Spark Networks As a Bonfire Marketer of the Month and a tenured Braze user, Daphné empowers her peers on their journey with Braze. During her popular Ask Me Anything session on Bonfire, she shared tactical ways to center personalization in a core lifecycle marketing strategy and expanded on trends from the 2025 Customer Engagement Review. Lior Peleg, Co-Owner at HippoCampus Tech LTD Lior is on a mission to create tools and content useful to all Braze users—and as a member of Braze Bonfire, he doesn't gatekeep! He's an active contributor to the discussion boards, sharing his expertise and valuable resources for the community to leverage. Manoj Kumar, Technical Lead at Digitas This is the second year in a row that Manoj has been a finalist for the Bonfire Community Leader of the Year, for good reason! Manoj consistently contributes to Bonfire, and is leader in Badges, Solutions, and Discussions. Whether he’s troubleshooting a bit of Liquid on someone’s post or helping them to understand how to push the boundaries of Canvas, Manoj is always willing to share his expertise. Ted Scott, Sr. Solution Architect, Braze at Cognizant A long time Braze expert, Ted is extremely active on the Bonfire Community, both in answering questions and helping fellow community members out with problems big and small. He’s also passionate about the ever expanding Braze ecosystem of careers, and helps to boost and amplify roles posted on the Bonfire Job Board. Rising Marketing Star This award recognizes exceptional new users of the Braze platform who show great promise and use technology to support stronger customer relationships. While they might be new to customer engagement or to Braze, they are no stranger to success! Here’s a peek into their stories. Divyanshu Pandey, Associate, CRM at Chegg Divyanshu, an exceptional early-career marketing technologist, earned four Braze certifications in one year and created automation scripts and validation checklists that have saved hours of manual work and become best practices across teams. Ellie Ledwith, Sports Content Deputy Manager at bet365 Ellie played a critical role in her company's transition to Braze from outdated tools, leading the effort to create a complex and dynamic email footer system and training over 100 staff members. Lindsey Spillman, CRM Specialist at Wendy’s In just over a year, Lindsey transformed the CRM program at Wendy’s, increasing campaigns from 15 to over 50 unique touchpoints per month and achieving a 66% increase in loyalty sales year-over-year. Maxim Radoczy, Lifecycle Marketing Lead, Engagement at Canva Despite a lack of direct management experience, Maxim launched Canva’s first "Next Best Action" model, which delivered a 55% uplift in engagement, and is now leading an initiative that incorporates predictive models and generative AI. Nicholas Baltovski, Lifecycle Marketing Manager at Venmo Nicholas went from no experience in lifecycle marketing to leading some of Venmo's most impactful programs, delivering millions in incremental profit and getting promoted twice in two years. Marketing Leader of the Year This award honors marketing executives who demonstrate excellence in leadership and customer engagement. They’re taking their team to new heights and their strategy to the next level, and have the results to prove it. See for yourself! Jason Feldman, Senior Director, Customer Experience at BEES US Jason championed the adoption of Braze to digitize operations across 26 countries, using advanced solutions like a dynamic email template that saves over 125 hours per month. Josh Hanson, Associate Director - Growth Marketing at Optus Sport Josh transformed the company's lifecycle marketing from a fragmented function into a strategic, data-driven engine, leading to a 50% increase in offers converted via Braze and a 5% increase in minutes watched. Maria Bonello, Subscriber Engagement Director at MGM+ As a solo marketer, Maria built MGM+'s customer engagement program from the ground up, engineering a robust automation system using Connected Content and APIs to deliver real-time, dynamic messaging at scale. Melissa Neikirk, Director of Lifecycle at Remitly Melissa's empathetic and experimental approach to lifecycle marketing led to a 400x increase in daily email click-through rates and the creation of a digitized, full-year customer journey map that has been instrumental for cross-functional teams. Pedro Solís Cámara, Head of Growth at RappiCard As Head of Growth, Pedro created a unified vision that integrated growth, engagement, and financial performance, leading to a 40% increase in portfolio value and a 70% improvement in retention. Braze for Impact This award recognizes companies that have used the power of Braze to create positive social change within their communities. In addition to being recognized at our flagship event Forge, the winner of this award will also be able to direct a $10,000 grant from the Braze for Social Impact Fund to the charity of their choice. Boys and Girls Club of America Boys and Girls Club of America completely reimagined their internal and external communications with Braze, helping them improve their CEO email open rate by 5% and drive a 61% increase in email revenue from critical fundraising campaigns. iFood iFood used Braze to engage delivery drivers in two social impact initiatives: "My High School Diploma," a program aimed at completing high school and enabling drivers to enter higher education, and "Decola," which is an online course platform. This platform offers learning options for iFood's internal topics, as well as entrepreneurship, financial education, workplace safety, delivery safety, motorcycle maintenance, among others. Over the past year, iFood engaged more than 370,000 delivery drivers in the education initiative, with the educational platform on the app recording over 1 million course completions. Braze was instrumental in providing strategic, segmented, and automated communications, saving iFood's team time while enabling deeper and smarter data and strategy analysis. Venmo Venmo’s Small Business Grant initiative used Braze to generate over 150 million impressions, driving incremental business sign-ups and 50,000 grant applications to support small businesses from historically excluded communities. Volo Sports Through Canvas flows, Volo introduced new players to its charitable arm, the Volo Kids Foundation, driving a 41% volunteer recruitment rate and helping provide free youth sports programs to over 70,000 kids. Ready to see who takes home the Torchie? Join us at Forge to celebrate all the finalists, learn from the best in the industry, and cast your vote for the People's Choice for Creative Excellence and the People’s Choice for Campaign of the Year. Whether you're a long-time member of the community or just getting started, Forge is where you’ll gain the insight, inspiration, and support to stand out by using your creativity in new ways.September Marketer of the Month
Our September Marketer of the Month is Tania Da Re, Global Digital Communications Manager at BEES! Tania embodies the Braze Bonfire community through her innovative personalization initiatives and creative use of data. Her work streamlines processes, reduces manual work, and creates targeted campaigns that truly showcase the power of Braze. Congratulations, Tania!November Marketer of the Month
Our November Marketer of theMonth is Guendalina Braga, CRM Automation Lead at BlaBlaCar! Guendalina has been at BlaBlaCar for 7 years and recently spoke at FORGE London on how they increased feature adoption by 400% via multichannel campaigns powered by Braze. Thank you for being a part of our community, Guendalina! Congratulations!April Marketer of the Month
Join us in honoring our April Marketer of the Month: Kayla Upton, Senior Manager of Marketing Automation at Neighborly®! Kayla has taken the lead on over 28 live canvases across 15 brands, showcasing her exceptional ability to launch Content Cards that effectively drive engagement. She doesn’t just enhance processes—she creates a symphony of marketing excellence. Her remarkable skill? Transforming intricate technology into innovative, customer-centric solutions that shine. ✨ Active in the Bonfire community, Kayla is always ready to share insights and collaborate with fellow marketers. Whether she’s designing impactful campaigns, tackling complex MarTech challenges, or working with teams to turn ambitious ideas into reality, Kayla embodies the spirit of a proactive marketer who consistently delivers results with grace. Congratulations, @kayla_upton ! We’re proud to have you as a vital member of the Braze Bonfire community. ⭐🤩🌟 Read more here!
