Jana Solovjova brought digital transformation expertise to judging panel at Irish Sponsorship Awards 2025

Looking back on last year's awards, Jana Solovjova, Marketing Manager at Gowan Auto, brought 17 years of award-winning marketing experience to the judging panel at the Irish Sponsorship Awards 2025, strengthening the evaluation process with comprehensive expertise in brand strategy, digital transformation, and integrated campaign execution.

As Marketing Manager at Gowan Auto since 2020, Jana has led national marketing strategies for Peugeot and DS Automobiles, premium automotive brands operating within competitive European markets requiring sophisticated brand positioning and digital-first consumer engagement. Her role encompasses strategic brand development, digital channel optimisation, and campaign coordination across complex stakeholder landscapes including dealers, customers, and brand partners.

Her career trajectory across diverse sectors, including marketing roles at Nissan Ireland, Maxol Group, Tourism Ireland, and Diageo, provided her with comparative perspective on how marketing effectiveness and sponsorship alignment function across fundamentally different consumer and business contexts. This broad experience equipped her to evaluate sponsorship entries with understanding of sector-specific dynamics whilst identifying universal benchmarks of excellence.

Jana's particular expertise in digital transformation positioned her as a valuable judge capable of assessing how effectively sponsorship entries integrate digital channels, social media activation, and data-driven audience engagement. As an early adopter of social media capabilities, she helped launch Tourism Ireland's first Facebook campaigns, demonstrating forward-thinking approach to emerging communication platforms and audience connection methodologies.

Her recognition as 'Digital Professional of the Year' in 2018 reflected substantial contribution to digital marketing evolution within Ireland. Her recent feature in Business Plus Top 40 Under 40 Marketers acknowledged her continued impact on contemporary marketing practice and thought leadership within the sector.

Jana's expertise spans brand strategy development, digital transformation execution, and integrated campaign delivery, reflecting understanding that modern sponsorship effectiveness requires seamless coordination across traditional and digital channels, sophisticated audience segmentation, and measurable performance tracking.

Such expertise equipped Jana with sophisticated understanding of how sponsorship creates measurable brand impact whilst enhancing customer engagement and digital channel performance. Her insights contributed to the balanced and rigorous judging process that underpins the Awards, ensuring winners reflected true excellence in digital innovation, campaign integration, and measurable marketing effectiveness.

With judges bound by strict confidentiality and guided by rigorous evaluation standards, the integrity and credibility of the process remained paramount.

For past winners, category details, and updates, visit the official Irish Sponsorship Awards website and subscribe to the newsletter for exclusive insights and coverage from Ireland's sponsorship sector