Katie Lazarus is the Director of Partner Marketing at Lyft, where she leads the marketing team behind Lyft’s consumer partnerships – from travel and membership rewards to payments. She brings a background in product marketing and growth to build programs that benefit riders, partners, and the business.
Named to our Marketers to Watch list in partnership with The Wall Street Journal, Lazarus shared her insights on partner marketing, AI, and the importance of empathy.
What book or podcast do you recommend to marketing leaders?
I read “The Power of Moments” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath years ago, and I’ve often revisited it. The book explores how certain experiences lead to outsized impact, and how we can ultimately craft these experiences by leaning into moments to elevate the experience, create connection, elicit pride, and drive insight for our customers.
How are you and your team currently using AI?
We’ve found AI tools to be powerful partners throughout the marketing process at Lyft and we continue to learn and get more elegant in using it. I’ve particularly appreciated the robust (and immediate) insights it’s unlocked to better understand key audience segments, relevant macrotrends, and competitive analyses that underpin our strategies and campaigns.
What’s a prediction you have for marketing over the next few years?
Marketers will be challenged to navigate the tension between ever-increasing consumer expectations around personalization and the ability for AI to unlock deeply personalized content and experiences – along with increased privacy restrictions that inhibit cross-platform personalization. We’ll need to really hone our ability to extend our first-party data across platforms, in order to unlock the full potential of personalization.
What’s the most innovative or exciting project you’ve worked on recently?
In August, we announced that we’re partnering with United Airlines and it’s been a blast to work through the go-to-market. Beyond working with incredible internal colleagues and counterparts from United, it’s a special opportunity to bring together two beloved brands and elevate the travel experience for our customers. Stay tuned!
What’s the biggest business challenge you’ve faced in the last year and what have you done to solve it?
With partner marketing, there’s an inherent need to reconcile our own Lyft objectives and outcomes with those of our partners – ensuring that shared customers are reaping the benefits and both organizations are seeing success through our work together. To unlock outsized growth, we start driving that alignment at the beginning of an engagement and by building co-marketing plans through the duration of our partnership: What are each organization’s goals? Where can each of us lean into our unique reach and audiences to get there? How can we come together to elevate moments?
What leadership muscle is most important for marketers to exercise?
As marketers, we need to marry strong business acumen with empathy for our customers to meet their needs and ultimately drive impact for the business.
What’s the most game-changing piece of career advice you’ve ever received?
One of my first managers at Lyft ingrained the importance of ‘influence without authority’ to successfully get work done and grow in my career. I’ve realized it’s been the perfect summary of so many attributes that I care deeply about: building trust and credibility with colleagues, operating from a place of empathy, and fostering strong communication and collaboration skills.
What gives you energy and inspiration outside of work?
Traveling and exploring new places really fills up my cup. It’s especially fulfilling when we bring our daughter along for the ride. Seeing and experiencing new cultures and adventures through her eyes is such a great reminder of how much we all have to learn, and to really embrace new experiences.
Marketers to Watch is a recognition series to spotlight highly innovative and forward-thinking marketing leaders in the community. If you have someone you’d like to nominate for the series, apply here.
