Careers are interesting things. When you start out, you don’t really know what you are doing, and nobody works for you, but you invariably work for lots of people. You learn by doing, watching, getting it right and getting it wrong. And, if you’re lucky, through the help of your colleagues and leaders, you start to grow. Slowly, we amass the skills and insights necessary to progress whether that means into management or more deeply as an individual contributor. Throughout the process, consciously or unconsciously, we’re always learning. 

Over the 20-plus years I’ve been in advertising — through my work, network, and great organizations like IRTS Foundation, She Runs It and NAMIC — I’ve had the opportunity to speak with lots of groups and individuals about the things I have learned on my journey. When I talk with people just starting out, inevitably a lot of questions come up around how to navigate a career, especially in an industry that is constantly changing. One of my recent mentee groups asked me to write some of those lessons down. It’s a long list but I am eager to try “pay it forward” by sharing more broadly 26 lessons learned or actionable insights that hopefully resonate.

I would be remiss not to include here a big thank you to all the colleagues, friends, mentors, and allies that have been and continue to be my teachers — generously sharing their wisdom with me. 

1. It’s the professor, not the class. The people you work with and for will make or break your happiness and long-term success more than any other factor. Choose wisely.
2. You become successful by making other people successful. That means your customers, team, boss, peers, colleagues, partners, etc.
3. If you feel like you don’t fit in, remember that what makes you different is a source of unique (and needed) value.
4. Time is a finite resource. Make good choices about where and with whom you spend yours.
5. Don’t compromise on operating with integrity and respect for others and yourself.
6. Never underestimate your (or another’s) ability to learn new things so long as you (or they) are willing to make a sincere and sustained effort.
7. Wisdom comes from unexpected sources and in unexpected packaging. Strive to be an avid reader and active listener; there is something you can learn from every conversation, person, or experience.
8. Take care of yourself and others. Give yourself and others grace and kindness. We’re all only human.
9. Take the enterprise view. It immediately elevates you, your thinking and your work.
10. Learn to be a good storyteller. Humans are wired for narrative, and a story is much more memorable, compelling and shareable than a collection of data or facts. 
11. There is huge value in simplifying. This also applies to communication. Strive to use less jargon, fewer words or metrics, and shorter lists (I am breaking my own rule here!).
12. Your actions and how you consistently show up every day will define your experience more than what you studied, where you went to school, what company you work at, what your job title is.
13. You are the steward of your own experience and career.
14. You can lead from any level or position. If you want a bigger platform, start with the one you are standing on. Choose how you show up. Leaders think about what groups and teams need and contribute in ways that are additive. An act of leadership can be as simple as the energy and body language you bring into a meeting.
15. Being able to disagree with someone or critique something openly, productively, constructively and keep the conversation positive, is a valuable skill. Find low-stakes (maybe even non-work-related) ways to practice because there is no other way to get better.
16. Bravery isn’t the absence of fear, it's feeling fear or discomfort and doing something anyway. Have hard conversations, try new things, take risks, own your mistakes and ask directly for what you want. The more comfortable you are being uncomfortable, the more possibilities you unlock. 
17. Change is constant, suffering is optional (hat tip: Doug Weaver).
18. You can negotiate just about anything, so long as you have two rational parties. If you don’t have two rational parties, you’ll have to find another solution.
19. There is always another bus. Don’t focus on the setback, deal you didn’t close, job you didn’t get, etc. for too long. Look for any lessons. Remember it’s not always about you. Throw yourself a tightly timed/finite pity party if you need it and then move forward.
20. If you don’t know what to do about something, take a break. Go for a walk, grab a bite, sleep on it, talk it through it with a trusted person or all of the above. Clarity will find you.
21. “Everything will be OK in the end. If it’s not OK, it’s not the end.”
22. A great professional network is one that goes up, down, across and beyond your direct function.
23. Sometimes you just have to let things play out. One of my favorite people shared this important lesson in a memorable joke, the punchline being “Look, the czar could die, the dog could die, lots could happen … it’ll work itself out.”
24. Test, learn, iterate. And when you make mistakes, which you will because we all do, do your best to ensure they are new ones.
25. Whether you’re building a relationship or navigating a hard problem, a moment of genuine levity or humor can make things inordinately easier. 
26. Just breathe. You are enough, and you’ve got this. ■

One term that could be used to sum up Comcast Advertising chief growth officer Pooja Midha’s career is also screamingly appropriate in today’s streaming video world: In demand.  

A veteran of the TV ad business, with stints at ViacomCBS, Disney/ABC Television Group and ad-tech firm true[x] before joining Comcast Advertising in March, Midha has been in demand as both employee and employer. That’s partly due to her business successes: For example, as president of true[x], she led the company to record revenue and income levels and to acquisitions by and integration with The Walt Disney Co. and then Gimbal. 

Comcast Advertising CEO Marcien Jenckes hired Midha in March 2021 to oversee global marketing across Comcast Advertising’s Effectv (local ad sales) and FreeWheel (ad-management solutions) components. Jenckes said he had been trying to find a spot for Midha at Comcast for years. 

“She is amazingly intelligent, she understands the dynamic of the industry very well and can see around the corner into the future and what we are going to need to be successful,” Jenckes said. “She understands, and we are very philosophically aligned on this front, that the best way for our industry to be successful is to work together, not work at each other’s expense.” 

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Jenckes pointed to Midha’s ability to not only attract good people to work with her, but to inspire loyalty that has lasted over several positions at several employers. 

Take, for example, Rick Mandler, currently VP of growth strategy at Comcast Advertising. He first worked with Midha at Disney/ABC, moved with her to true[x] and then joined her at Comcast. 

“We have each other’s backs,” Mandler said. “She’s very determined and really focused on getting stuff done, but she’s also a very caring and humane person. That’s a rare combination for a leader to have.”

A former boss, retired ABC Sales president Geri Wang, first met Midha on a flight to CES in 2011. In their conversation, Wang was struck not only by Midha’s intelligence but by her ability to articulate a path to get things done. 

Over the next few months, Wang worked hard to bring Midha to her team, finally hiring her away from Viacom [now ViacomCBS] as senior VP of digital ad sales.

“Each time we met it was more and more cement for our relationship,” Wang said. “I had great confidence that if Pooja joined the team she would be a superstar, and I was right. She made the team better by joining ABC and just as importantly, she made the business better.”

Midha might have never even had the chance to find her success in the advertising business if not for a little serendipity. 

A native of Saskatchewan, Canada, Midha graduated from Lehigh University with a degree in international business. What drew her to advertising was equal parts practicality and happenstance: She wanted to stay in the U.S. and figured working for a big company would allow her to do just that. She picked ad sales, she said, because she figured it would give her skills that could be utilized in practically any career path she chose.

Learning to Sell, and Sell Yourself

“I thought that learning how to sell, not so much a product but your idea, your point of view and how to negotiate, would be a useful skill to have,” she said. 

The advice of a mentor led her toward the ad tech business, figuring it would be good to understand not just the technology behind the ad business but how it fit into the overall process. 

“It opened up this whole new side of the business for me and tons of things that I was interested in that I didn’t even realize,” she said. “It moved me closer to the part of the business that was always more interesting to me, which is where the change and transformation was happening.” 

Comcast’s advertising division named Pooja Midha as chief growth officer, a new post at the company.

Midha, most recently president of ad tech company true[x], will oversee global marketing across Comcast Advertising, Effectv and FreeWheel. Comcast Advertising has been pushing advanced advertising, including addressability, audience based campaigns, multi-screen content and using data to boost effectiveness.

She will report to Comcast Advertising president Marcien Jenckes.

Also Read: FreeWheel Taps Yuling Ma as Chief Technology Officer

“Pooja has been a great partner and leader in the advanced advertising space for many years,” Jenckes said. “Now that she has joined our team, we are beyond excited that she will channel her exceptional skills and vision to help us drive growth during this time of true transformation.

“Her ability to sort through complexity, synthesize technology and drive marketing innovation is unmatched in the industry and will be invaluable to both our company and our clients.”

Midha was president of true[X] as it was acquired by The Walt Disney Co. when it bought 21st Century Fox, and then as it was sold to Gimbal in 2020. 

Before true[X], she held posts at ABC, Viacom and started her career in ad sales at Dow Jones & Co.

“I’m thrilled to join the Comcast family at such an exciting time for the company and the industry. The work that Comcast Advertising is doing across Effectv and FreeWheel to more effectively connect brands with their audiences and drive measurable results is industry-leading and inspiring,” said Midha. “I look forward to helping to propel this work and the company to the next level.”

NEW YORK — Though there’s some frustration about set-top box video-on-demand advertising being undervalued, the category must continue to evolve, or risk getting overrun by other, more agile platforms.

Cable VOD advertising needs to get better and faster, “or it will fall out of the mix,” Scott Rosenberg, senior vice president and general manager of advertising at Roku, warned at VideoNuze’s 2017 Online Video Advertising Summit here.

Related: Set-Top VOD Ad Views Surging

Set-top VOD can suffer from delays in reporting and from other shortcomings that aren’t present in the OTT advertising realm, he said.

Set-top-box VOD tends to focus on C3 and C7 ratings, but from days eight and beyond, “it’s feeling fragmented,” Maureen Bosetti, chief partnerships officer at media planning and buying company Initiative, said. “There’s an opportunity to get the measurement right.”

It’s also important to get the right creative for dynamically inserted ads, Pooja Midha, senior vice president of digital ad sales and operations at Disney/ABC Television Group, added. “It’s a different pitch process,” she said, noting that such inventory tends to get lumped in with traditional TV.

Although set-top VOD faces challenges ahead, it’s still a significant growth business. Canoe, the MSO-backed advanced ad joint venture, reported in April that VOD ad impressions reached 5 billion in the first quarter, a 21% jump. Canoe, now on track for more than 20 billion ad impressions for 2017, delivered a record 17.9 billion impressions in all of 2016.

However, in the digital advertising realm, there is an increasing pivot toward TV-connected devices. Last week, FreeWheel, the online ad-tech firm owned by Comcast, said Roku players and other TV-connected OTT devices toppled PCs/desktops to jump into the lead with respect to online ad view share in the first quarter of 2017.

Related: OTT Devices Gobbling Up Ad View Share: FreeWheel

“There’s incredible growth to be had there” when set-top VOD and OTT are combined, James Rooke, general manager, publisher platform at FreeWheel, said here as he presented those results.

“We’re very bullish on OTT,” Bosetti said. “The growth there is tremendous … but we need to plan for it appropriately.”

MOBILE MUST BE ‘AGNOSTIC’
A separate panel here focused on the evolution of advertising in another big growth area — mobile.

Mobile video advertising faces a significant challenge because it’s supporting a wide variety of short-form as well as premium, long-form TV content.

Mobile video must be approached as “agnostically as possible,” but the way the market is evolving also means one can’t put a 30- or 60-second spot in front of every piece of content heading to a smartphone, Mike Law, executive vice president and managing director of video investment at Dentsu Aegis Network U.S., pointed out. “I don’t know if we’ve completely solved for that.”

But what type of content is being viewed also matters. Shorter ads and smaller ad loads should be tied to shorter videos viewed on mobile devices, but not so with a show such as ABC’s Scandal, if it’s being viewed on a smartphone.

“That shouldn’t limit the [ad] supply,” Law said. “They’re still a viewer.”

For something like Scandal, those core metrics will be the same across multiple platforms, agreed Justin Fadgen, vice president of business development at Beachfront Media.

Spotify, the music streaming service that has expanded into video, is experimenting with ad models that use smaller loads in order to provide a better overall experience, Brian Danzis, head of global video monetization at Spotify, said.

Using TV-like ad loads on a mobile device can be “kind of annoying” to the viewer, he added.

Spotify has also created an ad matrix that delivers a certain ad format, depending on the device the consumer is using. “Fragmentation is a result of convergence,” Danzis said.