Stefano Balestra
Director, Marketing Strategy, Operations & Shopping Emea & Latam @YouTube
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WORK HISTORY
Director, Marketing Strategy, Operations & Shopping Emea & Latam @YouTube
Zurich, CH
Scope: Marketing Strategy & Ops, Insights & Analytics (EMEA & LatAm) · Shopping/Commerce Marketing (EMEA) · Country Marketing (DACH & EMEA Emerging Markets).Leading a hybrid executive portfolio that combines central strategy, regional commerce growth, and direct market leadership across a diverse set of geographies.Strategic Steering: Directing annual planning and resource allocation for strategic marketing investment across two continents.Commerce Launch: Spearheading the EMEA rollout of YouTube Shopping. Securing key partnerships and driving go-to-market strategy that is accelerating creator adoption and affiliate revenue across the region.Market Growth (DACH & Emerging): Maintaining market share leadership in DACH while driving double-digit user acquisition growth across high-potential markets in Turkey, MENA, and Sub-Saharan Africa.Operational Transformation: Deploying AI-powered tools across the marketing value chain, reducing operational friction to accelerate time-to-market and maximize campaign impact.
EDUCATION
Université de Fribourg - Universität Freiburg
Master, Business Administration
University of Zurich
PhD, Marketing
Universidad CEU San Pablo
Business Administration and Management, General
German School Singapore
Abitur / Baccalaureate
SKILLS
ABOUT STEFANO BALESTRA
I am a Strategist and Marketeer with over 20 years of global experience, whose operating mode integrates the massive scale of Big Tech (Google/YouTube), the agility of a Founder, and the structural rigor of McKinsey.Currently at YouTube, I hold ROI accountability across a multi-billion-dollar platform business, operating at the intersection of Content, Commerce, and Technology. I lead a hybrid executive mandate spanning Marketing Strategy & Operations, Commerce Growth (YouTube Shopping), and Country Leadership. Across this portfolio, I drive future-readiness by operationalizing AI to accelerate impact, automate operations, and elevate media and creative performance.Prior to that, I built and scaled businesses globally - from co-founding artoogle and building Zalando’s ad-tech unit (ZMS) to market leadership, to driving growth across Automotive, Banking, Retail, Media, and Tech.I combine commercial grit with the financial fluency of an MBA (Finance) and the analytical depth of a PhD (Marketing), leveraging fluency in 5 languages (EN, DE, FR, IT, ES) to lead senior, matrixed, multi-cultural organizations.
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