Mark Staples Email & Phone Number

Partnering with IBM's Retail Clients to help them drive business value and competitive advantage from the transforming and converging force of Mobile, Cloud ,Advanced and Predictive Analytics, and Social.This role leverages IBM's broad portfolio of Software -including Watson for Retail, Softlayer Presence Zones , Personalization , API economy capabilities and our widely recognized Retail Global Business Consulting Services team .

Helping our clients transform their business model into a digital customer centric one using cross channel commerce and optimize social and mobile analytic capabilities .

Selling Cross Channel and B to B Commerce Solutions to Communications Industry clients .

In this sales role I led successful deals and sales efforts in :* Launching the highly successful AT&T Experience Store * Using Social Networking and mash-up technology to achieve real client business value* In store Digital Media to assist in the successful launch of the iPhone* Business Intelligence at point of service in store* Content management to enable self service* Using 360 degree view of AT&T customer data to enable a unified household profile* Helping AT&T with an Innovation Agenda for rapid application development and new product or service introduction* Developing Intellectual Capital associated with Advanced Advertising a potential new business model for AT&T

In this World Wide Marketing role I led the effort to develop and launched into the market IBM's Retail Business Intelligence Solution Worldwide. In this role I was responsible for setting up and managing key strategic partnerships and joint go to market activities. The role also involved creating a strategic and technology roadmap for the solution. The launch was highly successful with adoption by Target, Autozone, Dillards and Canadian Tire all within a year of market introduction. I led the effort to create all marketing collateral associated with the solution.

One of the core sales team to work with IBM Retail Marketing to help launch IBM's first Retail Solutions Team.In this role I was responsible for leading a team of IBM Services ,Software, Hardware , Research and 3rd party software vendors (SAP,Oracle) and Business Partners to close a complex technology solution sale to major Retail and CPG customers . This role required deep Retail industry expertise and an understanding of emerging technologies to deliver client value in all the major areas of Retail: Store, Web, Merchandising, Supply Chain, HR . My technology expertise covers Business Intelligence, Business Performance Management; Demand Driven and Locational based merchandising and price optimization; Digital Content Management; Store Workplace Optimization; Store Topology’s and Architectures to enable multichannel capabilities.

This role involved me leading a marketing and sales team in developing and successfully launching both private label and branded product lines. In this job we were able to build highly differentiated product lines that produced Gross Margins of 55% plus with accelerated inventory turnover. The role also involved managing and collaborating with Retailers to bring product to market. Successful pricing and product sourcing from the Orient also was a key part of my teams reponsibilities.

In this role I was one of 4 senior officers reporting to the CEO. My responsibility focused on managing a team of buyers, product development and planners to deliver a 3 year CAGR of 25% from a starting base of 50 million dollars US with maintained gross margins of 51%. In this role I led a team to help build the first private label product line for the company achieving maintained gross margins of 60%. This job also involved negotiating highly successful product exclusives with the vendor community. Our positive results eventually attracted and led to a highly successful sale of the company to Foot Locker.

-Held increasing executive merchandising positions to Divisional Merchandise Manager Level Key highlights: 1) Led a team of buyers and planners that was responsible for successfully driving positive assortment ,markdown and profit strategies 2) Led a team in all facets of brand marketing for the division 3) Served on Federated Private Label brand committee (now known as Macy's Mechandising Group) achieving 60% Gross Margins 4) Conceived and implemented a successful re-branding turnaround strategy 5) Was an earlier adopter of and successfully created key planogram and localization assortment strategiesKey Education : Nominated for and attended the Harvard Business Fast Track Executive Program while in this position.