Meet the Team
Jessica Luthi – Founder
Her career started in Fleet Street at the age of sixteen as archivist and runner for Central Press Photo Library. Jessica entered the world of offline loyalty marketing in 1997 working for Classic FM’s “The listeners club” and the out sourced Mercedes Life & Style loyalty rewards program. It was here that Jessica first realised that new customer acquisitions could be obtained by using a new medium called “The internet”. It was also at this time that Jessica discovered that loyalty marketing was already happening online and in the US and its name was Affiliate Marketing.
In December 1999, Jessica joined UKAffiliates.com and can claim to be at the birth of Affiliate Marketing in the UK. In Sep 2000, Jessica joined Affiliatewindow.com then in March 2002 became ASOS.com affiliate manager. In 2005, Jessica became an independent affiliate marketing consultant and now is head of a growing and thriving business.
Jessica has written and co-produced a number of white papers and was instrumental in bringing AffiliateSummit.com, one of the largest US affiliate marketing conferences, to the UK.
It’s no secret that Jessica is controversial and fairly outspoken and her no nonsense approach to online businesses can be a bitter sweet experience. “Its simple, you want to make money right? Then you need to listen and forget what you think you know or have been told and be prepared to listen, learn and implement. There is no magic wand it’s hard graft and both parties need to be committed, end of the day, if you don’t make money… neither do we!”.
When not at the computer, Jessica can be found travelling and reading and talking to dead people, may not be as one-sided as one may think. As an avid history buff the quest to find answers about the past is where Jess lives and to quote “Sometimes the dead are more interesting then the living, in order to make sense of our present and help predict the future, we need to know and understand what got us here and what makes us tick. Social networking is nothing new, neither are trends and analytics have been around for centuries, the internet is just another way of measuring human behaviour only the data is more accurate”.
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Catherine Dunn – APA Coordinator and organic Search consultant
Catherine has been working at Affiliate Program Advice for over a year assisting with the Redsave and LoveHoney affiliate programs, helping affiliates with website copy, affiliate management and blogging for some of our clients.
Catherine worked in business development for a number of years (within the charity sector of one of the major international banks) dealing with marketing, advertising and putting together written proposals for new charity clients. She launched an online IT consultancy company gwycon.com in 2006 to help clients with designing and launching websites, and is skilled at web copy, web design and organic seo. As well as having honed her skills at blogging and advanced excel! Catherine has also recently launched a math coding forum for all math geeks out there to share and exchange information! mathcoders.com
In Catherine’s spare time she is developing an IT training website in the hopes of putting to good use all those years of training colleagues when she worked in the financial sector! The website will offer customised video training to suit individual client needs. As well as more general IT training that individuals can download for free, or subscribe to. vercana.com
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André Shapps - Freelance Senior Project Manager
André has over 25 years experience as a software engineer and project manager, as well as over 20 years experience as a musician (both sentences running concurrently). On leaving university he joined a young Psion to work on their business suite and the early PDA, the Psion Organiser, as well as developing the 3D interface to Psion’s chess program. later on he had a hand in a very early version of the operating system that went on to become Symbian before going freelance as a developer (initially with Reuters digital image transmission group) and as a musician, producing, writing, playing and touring with Big Audio Dynamite.
These days André can still be found freelancing as an e-commerce web systems developer, as well as enjoying (more than ever) playing with Dickensian hip hop outfit, “Rotten Hill Gang“.
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Christine Gray- Affiliate Manager
Christine has a background in organic seo, web copy and blogging. She has terrific communication skills, and is a great organiser who enjoys helping colleagues and clients, and problem solving generally! Christine will be assisting with the Redsave and LoveHoney affiliate programs, as well as the newly launched Dr. Nirdosh affiliate program. In her spare time, Christine has been busy studying courses with the Open University and is currently studying social change and globalisation!
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David Nakeeran – Affiliate Manager
David has been working in a customer service environment in a management capacity, where he has developed good communication skills and a love of helping others. He’s a keen, enthusiastic individual and a quick learner. After studying advanced computing and art for his “A levels” at college, David remains a keen learner and has developed excellent skills in all Microsoft Office systems, Adobe Premier, web design, Flash, Photoshop, Maya and 3D Studio Max. He’s managed to put his twin loves of art and computing to good use and enjoys designing computer graphics also. In his spare time, he’s also a musician who enjoys writing lyrics, composing music and rehearsing with his band.
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Rennie Hand – Ecommerce solutions manager
Rennie entered the affiliate arena four years ago with a background of accounting and a Del Boy personality disorder. Using this character malady to his advantage he fit right in to the affiliate mould and is now making a “nice little earner”. Rennie has worked with Jess for a number of years now but prefers to stay under the radar and out of the limelight working quietly in the background. Can be found mostly lurking and occasionally posting on a few forums like A4U, and in affiliate groups on Facebook most notably the groups associated with innovation notably ‘Affiliate Marketing Innovation’. His areas of experience are small content niche sites and PPC and when not working enjoys a spot of fishing or a tinkle on his piano. www.70shorrorfilms.com
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Chuck Couch – Designer and Web Developer
With decades of professional experience, Chuck brings to Affiliate Program Advice a deep passion for design, trends, web development and constant forward “2.0″ way of thinking with projects. His creative edge pushes affiliates into the next arena of success by providing them the best affiliate related graphics and web based projects. He has an eye for detail and a vision that expands into all his designs. When Chuck is not behind the computer designing the next top-rated affiliate related design, he can be found traveling, reading, cooking or rock climbing. His passion for music effects every aspect of his life and he can always be found singing a song or playing his guitar when he’s not behind his Mac.
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Luke Morrison – Freelance Sourcing Relationship Manager
Luke is the ideas and creative member of our team. His passion in the internet and all its possibilities stems from a love of philosophy and creative thinking. Luke is one of life’s natural organisers. Planning and implementing and a stickler for procedures he says, ensures that things work like clock work. Luke manages a team of two other colleagues and his role is to source information to assist Affiliate Program Advice and associated projects. When Luke is not working, he is chilling out with his band or writing his block buster novel.
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Alex Shennan – Freelance Researcher, content manager.
Alex started out his career in music and music journalism. Writing music and articles allows his creative and analytical skills to come together to produce some of the best content on the web, affiliates have been the recipient of some of his work which is of such a high standard. Writing is a skill and being able to adapt content to some of our clients products takes a little know how. Alex has a natural curiosity in everything he does, so when we ask him to research a topic, he does the job without leaving any stone unturned and has become a real asset to Affiliate Program Advice and associated projects.
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Michael Cooney – Freelance Sourcing Relationship Assistant
Michael left school in 2006 armed with impressive qualifications and set out to make his mark on the world and make his fortune. When Michael arrived, he had drive, ambition and he was tenacious and very self assured…well we soon knocked that out of him and gave him a real job helping out Luke. We love Michael and value his input and real determination to get the task done and his sense of fun at work is a tonic and as it should be. When Michael is not working his head is into music, listening and making it. Ireland is his second home and he can be found in Kerry every summer.
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Marcus Boylan – Freelance Sourcing Relationship Assistant
Marcus is a natural born people person, his skill is in communication and can charm the birds from the trees. So we are very lucky to have such a charismatic personality working for us. Of course it was a foregone conclusion that Marcus should assist Luke in sourcing strategic partnerships. When Marcus is not working he can be found going to all the music festivals.
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Joy Larson – Freelance Data Analytics
Joy Larson started out doing affiliate management for a couple of our clients but it soon became clear that her skills were well and truly about data formatting and analytics. Her background is from the online sphere notably Foot Locker, Inc., New York, NY, USA.
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John Gilbert-Jupp – Freelancer / Independent Consultant
John first became involved with affiliate marketing in 2003 and in just five years has amassed a string of successes including lucrative work with Singapore Telecom providing script services support and design. Active in the Far East, US and UK markets, John has concentrated on advising smaller companies on affiliate marketing start-up and promotion, affiliate recruitment and brand awareness. An innovator in technology innovation and implementation, John is currently working behind the scenes on a number of larger projects aimed on capitalising and monetising the emerging social networking market and is also highly active in the production of tools for use in online marketing. John’s background in analysis and industrial relations, economics and labour law coupled with his past work within the Southern & Eastern Regional TUC has given him a remarkably clear perspective in preparation and planning. Working International hours means that John can generally be found at work during unsocial hours whether in conference to the Far East or the USA. A firm believer in ethical marketing, John in addition has a team at his disposal for the purposes of monitoring and researching brand protection, ethical promotion and affiliate history. This includes close co-operation with leading anti-spam organisations, isp’s and registrars.
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Muhammad Faisal – Software Developer
Muhammad worked with a software development company as a software engineer on Electronic Banking for over a year after my graduation and worked on producing several banking systems. He holds a Bachelors in Software Engineering and started his own business about two years ago developing software. APA and Muhammad have already worked on a number of projects. He’s based in Karachi and is very fluent in written and spoken English.
He agrees with Jessica when she says “The great thing about our industry is that you can be any where in the world and still collaborate on projects without needing a bricks and mortar office.” In his spare time, he likes to hang out with friends and play computer games or go out and party on the weekends. Muhammad is also very athletic and can be found engaged in all sort of sports, extreme sports in particular. He loves music by Coldplay, Linkin Park and several local bands.
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Stuart Reed
Stuart’s background is primarily Sales and Business development within Technology and Internet related companies (ISP’s and account managing merchants), after being made redundant Stuart set-up as a merchant and became involved in affiliate marketing 2003, after running a successful online merchant business for 3 years Stuart decided that although the business was working it was time to move on and continue with his own life goals, the business was slowly wound up and Stuart started looking at affiliate marketing form the other side of the fence.
Having built up a few affiliate websites with some help of a web designer Stuart quickly realised that there was another opportunity staring him in the face, coming from a Sales and Business Development background Stuart realised that he could continue to run a few niche affiliate websites whilst helping his web designer build his business, a few conversations later his web designers sole trader business was merged into Upshot Media Ltd, a company originally set-up as a holding company for Stuarts affiliate websites. As part of Upshot Media’s solutions and services, Stuart uses his merchant and affiliate knowledge to advice merchants on setting up ecommerce websites, designing the websites and back-end systems for order processing and utilising his knowledge from both sides of the affiliate fence also advises merchants on setting up and running an affiliate program and manages these under the Affiliate Program Advice brand.
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Associated Partners we proudly work with:
Studio3k.com
E-Consultancy.com
Addworth PLC
MediaTrust.com
AffiliateHeat.com
PaidOnResults.com
Affiliatewindow.com
AffiliateFuture.com
PepperJam.com
Shareasale.com
BrandConversions.com
IslandGate
Cj.com
WebGains.com
