At SmartNews, we uphold three Core Values as the principles that guide our decisions and actions every day: "For the Common Good," "Outcome Obsession," and "Nothing is Somebody Else's Problem." To celebrate employees who embody these values through their work and help shape our culture, we regularly recognize outstanding individuals through our SmartNews Igniter award.

Today, we're spotlighting Aura Novembre, Senior Media Partnership Manager — recognized "for demonstrating relentless ownership and commitment to results while maintaining a trustworthy, team-first spirit."

Aura's world revolves around the thousands of content providers who power SmartNews's diverse information ecosystem — and she does it with a team of  just three. That gap in scale says everything about how she works. We sat down with her to talk about her journey at SmartNews, how she builds relationships with publishers, and how she brings the Core Values to life every day.

— Can you tell us about the Media Partnership team's mission and your role? 

Our team is just three people. Three people for thousands of publishers. So naturally, each of us wears many hats. But honestly, I love it. I get to work on so many different projects with so many different people — that's what makes it exciting for me.

Our team’s mission is to establish trust by building and nurturing relationships with our thousands of partner publications whose content powers our app. In my day-to-day work, I do things like negotiating commercial terms with our content and data providers and help build internal systems that support onboarding and payments. I also work closely with my colleagues in other divisions, such as accounting, legal, product, and engineering.

— How do you build trust among publishers?

I focus on keeping publishers informed about the things we’re working on, like different features or products, and what that means for how we’d be using their content. Whether I’m personally demoing new features to their executive teams or walking them through product updates, I want our publishers to see the value firsthand. A lot of it is just making sure that we have open communication between us so that they feel comfortable coming to me with any questions or concerns they might have.

Whether I'm demoing a new feature directly to a publisher's leadership team or walking them through a product update, I want them to genuinely feel the value. A lot of that comes down to a simple, consistent commitment to open communication. My goal is for publishers to feel like they can always reach out to me — that "I can just ask Aura" feeling. That kind of trust is what I'm always working toward.

— What led you to SmartNews?

What’s funny is that when I was at my first tech job at Screaming Media, my now-manager, Bernie Davis, was one of my colleagues. After he went to SmartNews, I downloaded the app and became a regular user—and this was years before I joined the company. When Bernie reached out to say SmartNews had a business development role open, I was psyched because I’d be able to use my decades of licensing experience and managing hundreds of deals with publishers while challenging myself to learn more about the consumer-facing side of the business. I guess I’ve always been passionate about helping to maintain the sustainability of quality content. I love that SmartNews is committed to both its users and its publishers.

— You joined in May of 2021. How has the company changed since then?

I think we’ve definitely become stronger outside of the Japanese market and have established a stronger footprint in the US. I've also seen our operations change toward more structured cross-functional collaborations, especially between my team and engineering. We’re working closely together to improve the experiences for both users and publishers.

— What Core Value do you feel most drives the work that you do? 

I’m super detail-oriented, so “Outcome Obsession” is a big one for me. Within my operations work, I’m thinking about ways to streamline, automate, and improve our processes and workflows.

And then there’s maintaining our relationships with the publishers. I worked on a couple of big projects leading up to my nomination for SmartNews Igniter that were very important to the company, but also had the potential to impact our publishers. Our partners know we’re going to innovate, but I need to make sure they understand the reasoning behind the decisions that we make and the products we are building. 

— I imagine “Nothing is Somebody Else’s Problem” is another big one for you on a team of three?

Oh, yes. That’s a key one, because you’re the one publishers are going to reach out to when they have questions. As I mentioned, our publisher partnerships power the app. We want to make sure that they’re happy and that they trust us. I think they’re really excited to work with us in this space.

— Is there anything that you would like to say to people who are considering joining SmartNews?

I love the people here. The people are what make SmartNews special. My colleagues are brilliant, creative, and super thoughtful about the “why” behind what we build and how we build it. I've learned a lot from them, and they challenge me in the best way. They're super generous with their knowledge. I still honestly believe that joining SmartNews was one of the best decisions I've made for myself and my career.

Interview & Photography: Inside SmartNews Editorial Team (Rachel Aoki)
Translation & Editing: Inside SmartNews Editorial Team (Yamautsuri)