Celebrating the 2023 Amplitude Pioneer Award Finalists

The finalists for this year's Pioneer Awards showcase remarkable achievements spanning marketing, data, product development, engineering, and analytics.

Customer Stories
November 14, 2023
Image of Aly McGue
Aly McGue
Former Customer Advocacy Director, Amplitude
2023 Pioneer Awards Finalists

Today, we’re honoring 24 of the most innovative Amplitude users in the third annual Pioneer Awards. Amplitude is utilized by over 2400 organizations, and within each of these organizations, there are pioneering data-seekers who are actively crafting charts, sharing insights across teams, and implementing strategic actions informed by the data.

These customers harnessed the power of Amplitude to enhance the well-being of their customers. Whether refining existing offerings or introducing new solutions, these teams demonstrated innovation by s optimizing efficiency and gaining deeper insights into their customer bases. The finalists for this year's Pioneer Awards showcase remarkable achievements spanning marketing, data, product development, engineering, and analytics. Fearlessly taking risks, leveraging data for transformative change, inspiring and empowering colleagues, and crafting impactful products are at the core of their progressive approach.


The Pioneer of the Year

This award honors three leaders globally (one per region) who have led their teams and organizations to do more with data. These winners thrive on creating strategic business value for their customers.

  • Dan Grainger - Head of Analytics at Haven
  • Hassan El Tahan - VP of Growth and Marketing at Gathern
  • Loren Lam - Group Product Manager at SafetyCulture
  • Mike O'Rourke - Director of Analytics at a large sports organization
  • Shin Okubo - Chief Product Officer at LIFULL HOME’S
  • Tony Hui - Head of Product at VidIQ

Data Culture Award

This award singles out leaders who led the transformation to a customer-first, data-driven culture. This pioneer democratized insights that enabled more people to access data and analytics in their everyday work. They have helped cross-functional teams go from qualitative to quantitative decisions and created an environment where teams across the data literacy spectrum feel autonomous, safe, and enabled.

  • Alena Bushuyeva - Product Designing at IBM
  • Anna Kirkova-Indzhova - Senior Product Analyst at GfK
  • Ani Lopez - Senior Data Engineer, Strategy & Analytics at Unity
  • Daniela Medina - Data & Analytics Technical Leader at Mercado Libre
  • Josh Chan - Director of Data Analytics at Culture Amp
  • Michael Kuhl - Director of Growth Platforms at Appfire

Product-Led Award

Honors a customer whose product is now the competitive advantage and driver of customer loyalty. This winner has helped their organization show tangible examples of a data-driven product strategy through experimentation and effective use of Amplitude to deliver new business growth via their products.

  • Abid Ali - Co-founder and CEO at Pictory
  • Brian Chen - Team Lead at Barco

Marketing Insight Award

Honors a marketer with a "customer-first" motto. This winner has found game-changing insights and unique ways to use Amplitude data to improve marketing KPIs, drive significant business impact, and increase audience activation through personalized experiences.

  • Candas Demir - Head of Digital & Performance Marketing at TicketSwap
  • Edwin Indriantoro - Product Manager at Traveloka
  • Supattra Jinlert - Vice President, Marketing at CP All / 7-Eleven TH (Agency: Appsynth)

Product Innovation Award

Honors individuals who used data insights through analytics and experimentation to build a new, cutting-edge product, experience, or feature. Their innovation set a new bar for the industry and delighted their customers.

  • Novita Olivera - Product Manager at Tiket.com
  • Zsanna Vantulek - Associate Designer at IBM

Activation Accelerator

Recognizes a dedicated customer committed to leveraging Amplitude to grow their active user base. This recipient successfully executed strategic initiatives that improved digital adoption, optimized acquisition strategies, or effectively grew market share among existing customers.

  • Anastasia Kusmartseva - Lead Growth PM at Appfire
  • Richard McGovern - VP of Digital Product Management at Lindblad Expeditions

Retention Driver

It’s never been more important to engage, delight, and retain your customers. This category celebrates the folks who helped their companies drive increased customer lifetime value by unlocking higher engagement to boost retention, personalizing customer experiences to increase customer loyalty, and turning one-time purchasers into repeat customers.

  • Becky Nobach - Senior Director of Operations at Lindywell

Revenue Monster

Honors an individual who has leveraged Amplitude to increase monetization metrics such as conversion rate, average order value (AOV), or average revenue per user (ARPU). This winner focuses on driving revenue through initiatives such as optimizing the path to purchase, monetizing the freemium base through trials and paid features, or increasing upsells and cross-sells.

  • Agastya Sanjai - Product Manager at ACKO
  • Jake Heller - Product Manager at RocketMoney

The winners of this year’s Pioneer Awards will be selected by our panel of expert judges, including Amplitude CMO Tifenn Dano Kwan, Global VP of Customer Success Jenna Elliott, VP of Product Somer Simpson, Field CTO Blaise Pangalos, Slalom’s Director of Digital Strategy Heather Roth, and previous Pioneer of the Year recipient Patrick Gordon, Head of Growth at JUMBO Interactive. Winners will be announced in early December, so stay tuned to see who gets top marks!

About the Author
Image of Aly McGue
Aly McGue
Former Customer Advocacy Director, Amplitude
Aly McGue is the Customer Advocacy Director at Amplitude. She focuses on building and nurturing strong Amplitude advocates and bringing their stories to life.