Medium Rare Communications is a boutique PR, media, and booking agency that helps aspiring chefs break into the U.S. culinary entertainment industry. We also work with established celebrity culinary personalities to manage and grow their media and entertainment opportunities.We provide PR, media, event booking, corporate sponsorship, and social media support.Unlike other agencies that support a wider range of industries and clients, our agency is rare in that it solely supports the culinary industry. By being strictly culinary-focused, we provide our chef clients with more professional opportunities and are the agency more event, and media producers turn to when they need help sourcing chefs for their events and media projects

I brought marketing in-house at Strategic Mobility Group by creating their first marketing department which oversaw all marketing communications & co-op marketing programs with partners and distributors like Motorola, Honeywell, Ingram and many more. Mobile technology is a very competitive industry. My goal was to help Strategic Mobility break through the noise as a value-added reseller and help companies leverage technology to improve their operations, which ultimately helps them provide better service to their customers. Responsibilities:• Oversaw all marketing communications: Branding, Email Marketing, Press Releases ( PR ), Advertising, Tradeshows / Events. Content Marketing, Sales Collateral, Website, SEO, Google Adwords ( PPC ), SEM, Google Analytics, Copywriting, Creative Design, Graphic Design, Videos, Social Media Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Webinars, PowerPoint, Digital Marketing, ROI Analysis, Online Conversions, Lead Management, ROI Reporting, • Channel Marketing Management: Managed the Marketing Development Program (MDF) and create marketing programs for our mobile hardware & software manufacturers/distributors (Zebra, Honeywell Motorola, Ingram Micro, BlueStar, ASSIST, and more)• Brand Refresh: Updated the company's brand aesthetics which starts by collecting feedback from customers and ends with all refreshed materials: website, sales collateral, social media re-skin, presentations, etc.

I sat on the advisory board for HiFiKids.com providing the founder with ideas on how best to launch his educational tool to schools domestically and abroad.

I helped the International Institute of Marketing Professionals develop Internationally Accepted Marketing Standards for marketing practitioners. When complete, the adoption of Internationally Accepted Marketing Standards will distinguish the marketing field from other disciplines, and the standards will provide a framework and reference for training programs, marketing processes and designations.

Managed the International marketing for Follett's Pre-K through 12 educational products and services. My team and I worked hard at helping make Follett a "house-hold" name within schools overseas as Follett is within schools domestically. As Director I: • Developed a multi-regional marketing plan • Oversaw all marketing activities (collateral development, copywriting, email marketing, advertising, PR, social media, market research, multimedia, promotions, website development, trade shows, conferences and professional development trainings) • Created and managed the marketing budget, negotiated contracts • Tracked and reported on ROI • Supported channel partners • Developed product launch plans • Hired, trained and managed staffI traveled to various regions around the world working closely with sales leadership and regional field reps to develop localized marketing programs that solved problems for educators while driving sales for Follett.

As Marketing Manager for Follett's International business unit, I created the International marketing department from the ground up. In doing so, I created a global marketing plan and communication strategy which incorporated message mapping to keep sales and marketing communications on the same page. Custom marketing pieces and a new website were created to tell the complete Follett story to schools overseas. I expanded participation at conferences and trade shows and developed regional "iFollett" professional development events to gain face-time with customers to in an effort to learn how to better solve their needs.

As a Marketing Consultant I managed all marketing communications for Renaissance Mark (8/06 -6/07) who outsourced their marketing to me (national label manufacturer now owned by Fort Dearborn). I helped Renaissance Mark re-brand their company's identity, developed a product launch plan for three new products, organized their trade shows and oversaw all creative development.At the same time I consulted a local Catholic school (Providence Catholic School, 11/05-6/07) who was preparing to close its doors due to low enrollment. I instituted a direct marketing and PR program within the community, developed fund raising activities, counseled various school committees and parents. Within two years Providence doubled its enrollment and is still educating students today, including my six year old niece.

As Senior Product Manager I managed InterCall's event conferencing platforms and features (WebEx®, Microsoft® Live Meeting and Mshow®). My responsibilities included writing a product development plan, creating digital and print communication pieces for all event conferencing products, managing pricing and product enhancement requests, conducting regular product trainings for sales, developing sales promotions and investigating event conferencing products, services and companies for acquisition.

InterCall was experiencing tremendous growth when I joined the team as Marketing Manager. There were many acquisitions made and it was my job to create collateral and communication pieces for new products and features. I developed and executed regular email marketing messages to over 100,000 customers, managed mailing lists, opt-outs and ROI tracking, managed the SEO enhancement project for InterCall's website, developed sales promotions, co-managed the marketing partnership of Microsoft with the Director of Marketing, developed communication materials and plans for new product launches, conducted and reported on competitive research, developed Salesforce.com templates for reps, and created/executed weekly internal marketing updates to keep the company in tune with our marketing activities. I was promoted to Senior Product Manager after helping the InterCall and Microsoft Real Time Collaboration teams successfully launch Live Meeting to InterCall's customers, resellers and agents.

After two successful years as the Marketing Coordinator for Tetra Pak Processing (U.S.), I was promoted to Marketing Manager. My responsibilities expanded as did my team. In addition to managing all marketing communications, some of the things I am most proud of include:* Database Management: We had the cleanest marketing database. I instituted a process for updating our customer data every year. Every contact was called, every title and email address updated. As an outcome our marketing ROI reaped the benefits.* Guerrilla PR: Since our marketing budget was small and we could not afford to outsource PR, I developed strong relationships with media representatives from trade publications, newspapers, local news stations, etc. I invited editors, writers and reps to our office for a "media" day or out to our sales meetings to learn about what we did and to meet our team. When trade publications were getting ready to write an article on new technologies in food processing..I always got a call. Leveraging media relations proved to be a low-cost way of telling thousands of customers and prospects the Tetra Pak story.

Tetra Pak was my first professional job in marketing after college. I started as a temp and was hired as a marketing coordinator for the U.S. Processing Division after convincing our business unit President that we could manage more of our marketing in-house. He bought me a Mac, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark..and I was off and running developing direct mail pieces, print ads, trade show graphics, etc. I worked with our corporate office in Chicago and parent company in Lund, Sweden. It wasn't long before event coordination, PR and media buying became my responsibility as well. I was able to help the President reduce corporate marketing expenses by over $200,000 in the first year.