Responsible for all marketing strategy and execution - customer acquisition, client growth, product marketing, brand and creative, content development, social media, pr, and marketing automation - as part of an eight person executive leadership team. M1 - a venture backed, 270-person financial technology firm - helps over 1 million users grow long-term, sustainable wealth and was named Chicago’s fastest growing company by Crain’s in 2023.- Scaled activities and up-leveled the marketing group from four to 26 team members plus four agencies with an annual budget of as much as $29 million, as the company raised its B through E funding rounds, contributing to a greater than 10x growth in assets under management - from $800 million to more than $8 billion. - Increased target customer wallet share penetration by 2.9x and grew initial activation rate 37% with revamped, segmented messaging, focused client development outreach and intervention, educational content, and targeted promotions.- Led the go-to-market launches of five new product offerings - checking account, crypto, credit card, savings account, and personal loans - including messaging, positioning, creative, and launch strategies that involved customer activation and client engagement across digital (search, social, affiliate marketing, newsletters, display, and content), streaming and linear television, podcast, direct mail, client development, webinar, and pr channels.- Overhauled M1's messaging to clarify the company’s position and value proposition to its ideal customer; included strategy and execution of revised look, feel, presentation and language to this more tightly defined ideal customer.- Created weekly and monthly performance monitoring to accelerate marketing and product activity adjustments.- Recruited and mentored a highly collaborative marketing group that consistently ranked amongst the highest scoring teams in semi-annual, company-wide employee engagement surveys.

Oversaw all marketing activities as a member of nine person executive team for Jellyvision, a venture backed 460-person, award winning B2B SaaS business that helps employees make smart decisions about their employment benefits and pay. Jellyvision’s platform, ALEX®, was used by three million employees at over 1,500 companies, including 114 of the Fortune 500®.- Architected and built out the marketing group as first CMO of the company and helped drive a 34% CAGR for overall top line and 59% growth rate for the SaaS products. The marketing group consisted of nine people, pr agency, and freelancers, with a budget of $2.4 million.- Stood up and scaled demand generation activities and sales funnel tracking and analysis across nine online and offline channels. The team generated over 29,000 leads and contact activations annually and realized a 4.9x return on media spend – 2.6x on total department spend - for marketing-sourced, new logo deals (first year contract bookings value). Overall, marketing activities influenced 74% of total sales.- Launched first multi-touch, multi-channel account based marketing approach and campaigns in 2016; programs scaled and consistently generated a 5 - 7x return on media spend, targeted thousands of HR decision makers and influencers and insurance brokers and were segmented by persona, industry, and pain point.- Created and implemented a content marketing, email, and pr strategy focused on thought leadership in decision making and effective communication that grew the email newsletter list to over 15,000 from under 800 and led to 95% compounded y-o-y increase in organic and email traffic.

Responsible for marketing strategy and execution as first CMO for this top 10 US retail mortgage lender. The company generated over $500 million in revenue and funded $12.4 billion in home loans in 2014 through over 170 branch offices and its website. Marketing team had 36 people, outside advertising and pr agencies and a budget of $18 million for B2C, B2B, and recruiting activities.- Helped launch and set strategy for the company's online division in February 2012. Division had over 50 employees and $14 million in revenue in 2013, up 2.5x from 2012.- Contributed to the development, positioning and marketing of the company's award-winning online loan application that generated over $1 billion in funded loans in 13 months.- Led the advertising agency review, selection and management process and helped launch the company’s first national television, radio and web advertising campaign with spokesperson Ty Pennington. Initial campaign had a budget of $10 million. - Launched the company's first voice-of-customer program that improved BBB rating from B to A+ and revamped the company's closed loan survey that improved response rate to 40% from 12%. Survey results became part of producers’ scorecards.- Developed and launched the company's social media and content strategy. Notable implementations included (1) a unique video program that educated real estate agents on practical, engaging ways to use social media to drive business and (2) three in-house ebooks to “demystify” the mortgage process for customers; ebooks were downloaded more than 2,400 times monthly.- Overhauled the company's customer retention email program that drove 3.8x more traffic in its first seven months and created and launched an automated loan status email program that kept customers up-to-date on the processing of their loans.

Responsible for strategic direction and marketing of Timelines, a vc-backed startup that enabled people and companies to record and share events online and via mobile apps. Helped create, position and successfully launch four B2C and two B2B services.- Photogram, a mobile app for sharing photos quickly and creatively, launched as #2 featured app in AppStore (4.5 stars) and had over 100,000 downloads in its first week (June 2011), more than Instagram did in its first week.- Timelines had a successful exit and reached a “confidential and amicable resolution” to a trademark dispute with Facebook.

Member of executive leadership team for ShopLocal, a B2C and B2B provider of web-to-store marketing services for major multi-channel retailers. Responsible for company marketing strategy and implementation, including corporate, B2B, B2C, product marketing (online and offline), product development and business development. Managed team of 17 people. Responsible for Shoplocal.com: $11.3 million topline, $7 million SEM budget, 25 mil yearly visits. In 2008, the company had $29 million in revenue.

Member of the executive team for Toplander, a vc-backed compiler of internet-derived, integrated direct marketing data. Responsible for data acquisition partnerships and strategic relationship development that resulted in more than 50 contributing partners and a database of over 52 million unique records. Acxiom acquired Toplander in 2003. Managed eight person sales group at Acxiom and was responsible for a sales budget of $12 million.