Full Name
Kate Monaghan
Job Title
SVP Director of Video Investment
Company
Horizon Media
Bio
Kate Monaghan is a home-grown talent and longtime leader at Horizon Media, having risen through the ranks from Assistant Buyer to SVP of Video Investment. Kate has overseen the linear buying for the agency’s longstanding GEICO client for 15+ years, seeing GEICO grow from the #7 to the #2 auto insurer during her tenure. That type of longevity has enabled Kate to build trust with her client and within the industry, empowering her to become a change agent and respected industry leader. Kate’s depth of understanding of the marketplace and its players puts her in a unique position to push innovation forward in creative ways.
Kate takes a creative approach to a very numbers-oriented business and is one of the more balanced left and right brained people you’ll encounter. This has been key in driving her success at balancing recommendations aligned with the broad spectrum of needs of her clients, from advanced television executions to high profile brand integrations.
Her industry reputation and expertise has led her to great success in leading Horizon’s first holistic video investment team, responsible for linear and digital video investment for GEICO, Weight Watchers, and Kind Snacks. She leads a team of 25+ video investors responsible for $1 Billion in the marketplace. And that’s no small feat.
Amid great disruption throughout the industry, Kate has reconciled longstanding linear principles with a less mature, and fragmented digital marketplace with great fragmentation and little standardization. She’s been more than up to the challenge. Kate brought a breadth of linear expertise to the table and leaned in early to how digital would impact the television and media industry. She has helped her team bring a maturity to digital negotiation tactics and evaluations, and has found key areas where a digital perspective can help evolve linear buying as well.
Perhaps Kate’s greatest, and most beloved, achievements are where she has colored outside the lines. With increasing viewer fragmentation in the current media landscape, it’s increasingly difficult to grasp viewers’ attention; this is an area where Kate strives to break through and bring entertainment and value to viewers. She has developed brand partnerships and integrations with typically untouchable environments, talent & programming for clients like GEICO and Weight Watchers. One example where she combined her linear, digital, and branded entertainment focus, Kate developed a partnership with The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where she helped create the GEICO Skybox within Ellen’s studio audience (in 4Q’16 and 4Q’17). The partnership included signage on the Skybox, a sponsorship of Ellen’s 12 Days of Giveaways, integrations into the show (they actually recreated the GEICO Sloth commercial in the GEICO Skybox), digital & social extensions, as well as a sponsorship of Ellen’s “Head’s Up” mobile game where GEICO gave players extra time to play (to align with GEICO’s “More, more, more” messaging). This partnership was awarded a Silver Clio (2017 Television/Streaming Partnerships) as well as winning within the Branded Integration category at the 2017 Cynopsis TV Awards.
Kate is recognized across the industry as someone who knows true partnership and brings a human touch to her work and to her colleagues, partners, and the team she manages. She was also selected by the Horizon leadership team to participate in the inaugural female leadership class, Limitless. Her accomplishments thus far have meant great success for all those that have worked with her, especially her clients. She most certainly will continue to do great things.
Kate takes a creative approach to a very numbers-oriented business and is one of the more balanced left and right brained people you’ll encounter. This has been key in driving her success at balancing recommendations aligned with the broad spectrum of needs of her clients, from advanced television executions to high profile brand integrations.
Her industry reputation and expertise has led her to great success in leading Horizon’s first holistic video investment team, responsible for linear and digital video investment for GEICO, Weight Watchers, and Kind Snacks. She leads a team of 25+ video investors responsible for $1 Billion in the marketplace. And that’s no small feat.
Amid great disruption throughout the industry, Kate has reconciled longstanding linear principles with a less mature, and fragmented digital marketplace with great fragmentation and little standardization. She’s been more than up to the challenge. Kate brought a breadth of linear expertise to the table and leaned in early to how digital would impact the television and media industry. She has helped her team bring a maturity to digital negotiation tactics and evaluations, and has found key areas where a digital perspective can help evolve linear buying as well.
Perhaps Kate’s greatest, and most beloved, achievements are where she has colored outside the lines. With increasing viewer fragmentation in the current media landscape, it’s increasingly difficult to grasp viewers’ attention; this is an area where Kate strives to break through and bring entertainment and value to viewers. She has developed brand partnerships and integrations with typically untouchable environments, talent & programming for clients like GEICO and Weight Watchers. One example where she combined her linear, digital, and branded entertainment focus, Kate developed a partnership with The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where she helped create the GEICO Skybox within Ellen’s studio audience (in 4Q’16 and 4Q’17). The partnership included signage on the Skybox, a sponsorship of Ellen’s 12 Days of Giveaways, integrations into the show (they actually recreated the GEICO Sloth commercial in the GEICO Skybox), digital & social extensions, as well as a sponsorship of Ellen’s “Head’s Up” mobile game where GEICO gave players extra time to play (to align with GEICO’s “More, more, more” messaging). This partnership was awarded a Silver Clio (2017 Television/Streaming Partnerships) as well as winning within the Branded Integration category at the 2017 Cynopsis TV Awards.
Kate is recognized across the industry as someone who knows true partnership and brings a human touch to her work and to her colleagues, partners, and the team she manages. She was also selected by the Horizon leadership team to participate in the inaugural female leadership class, Limitless. Her accomplishments thus far have meant great success for all those that have worked with her, especially her clients. She most certainly will continue to do great things.
