Christopher Dragon Email & Phone Number

Stamford, Connecticut, Us

Our world continues to evolve as does how we shop and consume information to drive purchasing decisions. In this connected world, we move fast and the majority don't spend and exhaustive amount of time researching their buying decisions. This is where video and effective visuals come in. How we choose to inspire consumers with these mediums has also evolved. The days of products on a plain white background and videos with exhaustive amounts of copy are not effective. At Harman we invest in understanding consumers and how best to communicate with them. Then marketing professionals within our organization like myself apply those learnings to help craft visuals and videos that speak to the target audience. For the amazing new JBL Endurance Headphone Line, we mounted a week long photo and video shoot at four separate locations to capture moments and activities that will inspire our target audience. Myself, my team and our crew then hiked and climbed to the locations we scouted out in advance with the mission to speak to our consumers passion points in a way that drives sales.

Stamford, Connecticut, Us

In my most current role at Harman I am thrilled to be re-engaged in the automotive space leading the charge to re-grow our traditional aftermarket auto sound business in addition to spearheading the marketing of emerging new categories such as SEMI-OEM and Services. In parallel, I am responsible for the planning and execution of our largest event activities including the Consumer Electronics Show, New Product Experiential Activations, and other events that call for my caliber of expertise and execution. This past January I delivered the most successful consumer electronics show in the company's history. This event consolidated all of Harman's business verticals under one roof and provided a platform for over 700 scheduled meetings and presentations. The performance of this show paid for itself by lunchtime on the first day.

Stamford, Connecticut, Us

Harman is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of a wide range of high-fidelity loudspeakers, audio and video components, and multimedia systems. I was instrumental in the re-aligning the JBL brand’s distribution strategy and strengthening its reputation within the car audio aftermarket, yielding a significant increase in sales within 18 months. During this period I drove the company’s largest consumer facing advertising campaigns in its history. These campaigns have delivered significant increases in brand recall and brand consideration globally and contributed to significant sales and placement wins in both the branded automotive and consumer product spaces. This campaign delivered traditional media in addition to robust digital elements that leveraged social media to gain brand awareness and activate consumer products. The brand campaigns featured artist alignments including Paul McCartney, Maroon 5, Jennifer Lopez and Tim Mcgraw. Proven Skillset: • Brand strategy - Development and execution of brand strategy and positioning. This includes full re-boot of languishing brands as well as amplification of stronger brands. • Integrated campaign development – Proven experience in development of fully integrated marketing campaigns with both trade and consumer facing elements. This includes traditional media, social media activation and amplification, Public relations, seeding and product amplification, digital advertising, merchandising and promotional calendaring. • Sponsorship and Strategic Partnerships - Extensive experience in activation of strategic partnerships as part of overall marketing strategy to drive high impact on business, social media footprint and brand consideration. This includes programs with Madison Square Garden, LA Live, AEG, Trek Bicycles, The Grammy Organization, CBS Radio, Warner Brothers and many others.

Stamford, Connecticut, Us

In this role, I helped drive a complete overhaul of Harman's aftermarket mobile business and delivered a total re-alignment of our distribution which yielded a 30% - 40% increase in sales YOY for several years. This also became the most profitable consumer electronics segment for Harman. I delivered several breakthrough marketing activations including the roll out of JBL's car audio competition team which grew to 300 members in ten countries. The team was used as a marketing platform to establish the JBL as the premium supplier of aftermarket car audio products. The team members were leveraged for an educational tour called Engineered Mayhem which visited car audio retailers and provided real world training on products, installation techniques and interfacing with complex OEM systems. In support of the launch of AKG consumer headphones in the US, I pioneered the first ever headphone concert, putting an entire audience in headphones. This yielded a massive on-line buzz, generated massive product coverage and drove distribution wins. I drove Harman's first sport activations establishing a partnership with Trek Bicycles Mountain Bike Racing programs. This relationship has spanned for over decade, making it the longest staring partnership in Harman company history. In addition to Trek, I forged a partnership with Dallas Friday, the world's number one wakeboarder in support of the launch of Infinity's marine product line and specifically a wakeboard tower speaker system. This partnership was leverage by key marine retailers including Prospec Electronics, Overton's and West Marine. Dallas serves a Harman spokesperson at numerous marine and CE retailer events. I managed a twenty four person field marketing organization who's primary mission was to drive sales enablement and mind share among CE retail salespeople. This organization received accolades and acknowledgment from numerous retailers including Best Buy, Circuit City, Amazon,

My greatest success at Stewart Electronics was taking a company that built accessories and small format professional amplifiers to delivering the worlds lightest switching amplifier technology, increasing the the companies size four-fold. Key core responsibilities include the following. * Development of all B to B and B to C advertising.* Development of the distribution for the PA series amplifier products. * Managed and directed national rep network* Created and implemented all programs and promotions* Responsible for all sales forecasting and company budgets* Responsible for selection and management of all export distribution* Liaison between Stewart engineering and OEM customer base including Disney, Government and other organizations. * Supervised sales administration and technical support staff* Responsible for all interaction between Stewart and export distributors.* Responsible for 400% increase in sales volume over the four year period versus 15% average in prior years.

I was a major contributor in the launch of the Soundstream brand. As this was a start up company, my roles were vast with numerous elements. * In this role I created and ran the companies customer service department* Developed all in-field product and brand training materials. * Monitored competitive product activity to drive thoughtful and market right assortment expansions. * I managed all in-field consumer and trade facing event activities ▪ Generated all owner’s manuals, press releases, sales-support materials and technical bulletins▪ Responsible for coordination and training of rep force▪ Evaluated competing products and generated comparative analysis ▪ Stimulated substantial sales growth in the field and over the telephone▪ I served as a funding board member of IASCA (International Autosound Challenge Association)▪ Served on the IASCA Board of Directors for three years ▪ Contributing editor and developer of rules and criteria* It is of importance to note that Soundstream Technologies was a brand launched by key senior executives of Nakamichi corporation with some funding from same.

In this role I developed the aftermarket car audio business and with my team of direct and indirect salespeople established Nakamichi as the number one share holder of premium in-dash AM/FM Cassette head units. I also worked with Japan on the development and expansion of the company's assortment to include component loudspeaker products, amplifiers, processors and in-dash CD head units. During my tenure at Nakamichi their aftermarket mobile audio business grew over 300% in the US. This was primarily due to the development of a supportive distribution network of over 600 promoting car audio specialty retailers. This was not the result of big box retail as this channel only served downmarket products and did not posses the sale acumen or installation expertise to satisfy our requirements.