Aliaksei is the Sales Strategy Director, EMEA at AppsFlyer, where he built and leads a team of industry experts helping customers scale their mobile apps and grow their businesses. With over twenty years of experience in B2B sales and more than a decade in SaaS, he lives and breathes verticalised, segment-based selling. Prior to joining AppsFlyer in 2020, he spent five years at data.ai (now part of Sensor Tower).
In your own words, what’s your role in the app business right now?
In a nutshell, we help apps scale. There is a clear correlation between our customers’ business growth and how much they spend with service providers like us, so my primary focus is finding ways to help them scale efficiently. This can be achieved by identifying and addressing inefficiencies on both the performance marketing and product sides, as well as by adopting best practices.
How did you end up working in apps?
I was fortunate to join the mobile gaming revolution early on. In the mid-2000s, I licensed mobile games from leading gaming companies for mobile carrier portals — several years before app stores even existed.
What are you most excited about in apps right now?
The AI revolution — both redefining existing verticals and creating entirely new niches—is what excites me most. Apps like Suno, which has completely changed how aspiring musicians create music, deserve a huge shoutout. And there will be many more examples like that.
Is there anyone you’d like to shout out to who has influenced your journey in the app industry?
I’m extremely grateful to the people who helped me get started on this path and those I’ve learned the most from: Nikolay Okorokov, Olivier Bernard, Martje Abeldt, Kate Bazhanova, Tomek Chudzinski, Silvia Burmann, and Alex Grach.
What do you like most about working in apps?
It’s a community that never stops coming up with new ideas. Watching the evolution of the mobile app industry up close over the years has been absolutely fascinating. Some early-adopter verticals and genres — such as many in gaming — have matured and are unlikely to sustain double-digit YoY growth going forward. Others, however, still can. Entire verticals continue to reinvent themselves on the fly.
There’s also strong, AI-infused growth in subscription apps, and significant potential for growth in verticals with a high share of digital transformation companies.
What one thing would you change about the app industry?
I don’t like long ads that you can’t close – there should be a more user- and ecosystem-friendly approach.
As for opportunities, observing multiple verticals in parallel has shown me that almost every vertical or genre can learn something from adjacent ones. There’s always room for improvement: eCommerce has mastered retargeting, subscription apps lead in web flows and out-of-store payments, and gaming excels at pLTV calculations for campaign optimisation.
If you weren’t working in apps what would you be doing?
For me, it’s not just about apps — it’s about sales and revenue-generating processes in SaaS. SaaS is so diverse that, if not for mobile attribution, I would likely be working in another SaaS market.
Is there anything else we should know about you?
I’m an avid road cyclist. If you have your favourite routes with plenty of climbing, let me know.
Do you know someone driving change and growth in the app industry? Nominate an app leader here.
