Shout expands senior leadership team hiring Gabriela Serrano Ruiz as head of paid media

Off the back of continued growth – including celebrating its 100 retained clients milestone at the start of this financial year – digital agency Shout has brought on Gabriela Serrano Ruiz as head of paid media.

With 13 years of experience in performance marketing, and having most recently led paid media for a decade at Jaywing, Serrano Ruiz brings extensive nous in developing and implementing data-driven marketing strategies that have delivered award-winning results.

Serrano Ruiz began her career in market research in her home country of Mexico. After moving to Australia to further her studies she graduated from Macquarie University with a Masters in Commerce (Marketing) and moved into the bought media space as a paid search strategist with @E-Web Marketing.

She explains her shift to Shout was about embracing a fresh set of challenges – including being able to lend her depth of experiences to SME businesses and to be a part of Shout’s aggressive growth strategy: “I was inspired by the opportunity to help businesses of all sizes fine tune their paid efforts, increase their conversion points and enjoy exponential success. I have a results-driven mindset and also loved the idea of being part of an agency at a pivotal phase of its own growth journey.

“Being able to work remotely enables me to balance my career goals with caring for my young family. The fact that Shout’s team is largely made up of very senior hires is another factor that drew me in. We can work at pace alongside each other to deliver multichannel digital solutions that are strong across the board.”

CEO of the 100% remote, national digital growth agency, Michael Jenkins, is thrilled to add talent of Serrano Ruiz’s calibre to his expanded senior leadership team: “Gabriela’s past performance speaks for itself. She has managed sizable teams and budgets, grown and retained clients across myriad sectors and she’s at the right moment in her career to embrace a change that allows her to operate at a very senior level whilst also achieving more life balance.

“While many of the industry’s giants have been forced to reduce headcount, Shout has invested in a 20% increase in its workforce in the first half of 2024 and we’ve brought on a dedicated team of senior leaders to allow clients of all sizes to access staff with deep experience. Our goal is double our client roster by the end of.”

Other major appointments this year include the hiring of head of growth, Matilda Toepfer, the internal promotions of Shanaka Thanapathy into the role of head of SEO and Ari Saikkonen into the role of head of client success.

Serrano Ruiz oversees a team of four providing paid media strategy and execution to more than half of Shout’s client roster.