The 4 Under 40 Emerging Leaders Award honors individuals who have already made significant contributions to marketing and its sub-fields and have demonstrated leadership and continuing service.

The 2022 AMAF 4 Under 40 Emerging Leader award recipients are thought-leaders, risk-takers, and mentors, and will continue to shape the industry for years to come. Congratulations!

2022 Recipients

(in alphabetical order):

Allie Dicken is in her 6th season with the 49ers and currently serves as Director of Brand & Influencer Marketing. In her role, she is responsible for driving brand strategy and developing tactics across various marketing verticals including branding, campaign development, influencer, international, advertising, promotions, retail, licensing, music, and other cultural collaborations. Dicken started with the 49ers at the Manager level and has since received two promotions and spearheaded some of the biggest 49ers branding campaigns, including the since retired “Faithful Then, Faithful Now” campaign. During the pandemic, she led the transition from that campaign to the current “Faithful to The Bay.”

In 2021, Dicken and her team helped launch the 49ers 75th Anniversary campaign, which celebrated the organization’s illustrious history while also forging a clear path for the future. Finally, Dicken launched the 49ers influencer program from scratch in 2019 and has since built the team’s database of celebrities and social media influencers to over 200. Outside of work, Dicken is a Founding Member of the PRO Sports Assembly and a member of the WORLDZ Collective.

Danilo is a Product/Program/Team Leader, Media / AdTech / MarTech / Digital Marketing Expert who is able to drive effective collaboration across functions, levels, and diverse cultures. Passionate about technology, data, innovative solutions (leveraging different industry experiences, with a touch of academic sophistication), writing, public speaking & story-telling (within large corporations, as a consultant & guest lecturer). Action-oriented person (INTJ), with several international experiences, Danilo enjoys building mutually beneficial relationships & achieving outstanding results under tight deadlines and in highly challenging contexts.

Highlights:
• Building advertising and technology products at Amazon (currently)
• Growing billion-dollar Brands at P&G via media, tech, data (2012-2021)
• Adweek Mediaweek Council Executive Member (currently)
• AdAge 40 under 40 honoree (2020), AMA 4 under 40 honoree (2022)
• PhD in Engineering (focus on risk management and decision-making under uncertainty)
• Author of industry thought-leadership bylines (AdWeek, AdExchanger, ANA), case studies (Harvard Business School) and academic articles (International Journal on Media Management)

Dr. Dustin York is an Associate Professor at Maryville University in St. Louis. Prior to entering academia, Dr. York worked in branding for the 2008 Obama Presidential campaign and clients like Pepsi Co., and Nike.

Dr. York’s specialties are two-sided: interpersonal leadership communication and digital transformation in marketing, which he now brings to life in the classroom. Beyond his primary passion for teaching, Dr. York is a subject matter expert for CNN, Entrepreneur.com, and Forbes, a contributor for Harvard Business Review, and serves as a national keynote speaker and consultant. Dr. York is passionate about building curiosity among future and growing marketers as they enter a field with such dramatic digital transformation, and diving into the current state of branding and ideating how blockchain, digital twins, and the metaverse will be a part of marketing in the future.

Julia Low is an accomplished brand marketing executive with over 11 years of experience across iconic brands such as Tropicana, Sprint, Tide, and KitchenAid, to name a few. She got her start on the agency side, quickly moving up the ranks at Publicis Groupe’s integrated advertising agency, Digitas, for almost a decade (even becoming the agency’s youngest Vice President at that time). There, she developed her passion and expertise in building consumer first brand purposes and strategies, including masterbrand campaigns, for global brands. 

Julia then made the client-side leap to Tropicana, where she currently leads brand marketing for Tropicana’s $1+ billion chilled juice portfolio – successfully keeping the brand in the #1 spot as category share leader. Recognized for seeking unorthodox solutions, Julia has innovated new ways to modernize the 75-year old brand through new campaigns, product innovations, and culture-shifting ideas (such as orange juice-friendly toothpaste and cereal, leading to 6 billion earned impressions and counting).

Inspired by many years performing in musical theater, Julia thrives at selling ideas and embracing risk – best known for lighting up a room of C-level execs with her engaging presentation skills and infectious enthusiasm. She is relied upon for her positivity, agility, and empathetic leadership – not to mention her passion for pushing boundaries that result in high-impact, high-performing campaigns.