Drugs & Diagnostics for Tropical Diseases (DDTD) is a unique non-profit (501c3) venture based in San Diego, CA, with a mission “to discover new treatments and develop diagnostics for neglected tropical diseases and diseases that affect impoverished populations”. These diseases have been typically neglected from research and development efforts due to the perceived lack of profitability and are commonly referred to as Neglected Tropical Diseases or NTDs. As part of our mission, we are developing easy to use, rapid, inexpensive diagnostics to specifically detect NTDs and diseases that affect low-income communities, both domestic and abroad. We are passionate about serving the needs of the underprivileged within our capacity as scientists and believe it is important to increase public awareness of the dire need to improve global health. The community’s resulting civic engagement can make an impact globally and DDTD wants to lead these efforts.DDTD embraces the idea of eliminating diseases that do not belong in the 21st century. The first step towards eliminating a disease is the ability to detect it. Mapping diseases is critical for the World Health Organization (WHO) and its affiliates to initiate mass drug administration programs, allocate resources, monitor progress, and eventually verify elimination. Neglected Tropical Diseases is a group of diseases that afflicts 1 in 6 people, or approximately 1.4 billion individuals worldwide. NTDs are severely debilitating, lower cognitive function in children, and hamper economic development. Worldwide, 149 countries and territories are affected by at least one NTD, resulting in approximately 57 million years of life lost due to premature disability.

Four Blocks Consulting’s primary focus is to work with nonprofits, churches, and faith-based organizations to help them optimize their current resources to provide the biggest return to their community. We want to plug in where help is needed, whether that be fundraising, donor stewardship, running social media, etc., so that organizations can focus on growing their programs and reaching more people. We pride ourselves in working solely with not-for-profit organizations and focus primarily on helping start-up and small nonprofits to get over the ‘formalization’ business hump to become a fully functional, successful operation.

- Provided direction and leadership to the formulation and achievement of the organization’s philosophy, mission and its annual goals and objectives.- Worked with the Board of Directors and staff to develop and implement policies, procedures, and long range strategic plans, including bi-annual offsite planning sessions and an end of the year BOD strategy planning session. -In charge of all administrative, financial, personnel, and programmatic matters. Managed the day-to-day business, including accounting, human resources, and general operational management. -Responsible for preparing and measuring progress against the foundation's annual budget, including quarterly reforcasted numbers.-Prepared and submited annual contract negotiations for grant funding from corporate partners, foundations, and medical device companies. -In charge of diversification of revenue streams for funding purposes, including new media plans, retail products, and sponsorship opportunities. -Maintained a close working relationship with current partners at key hospitals, physicians, device companies, corporate partners, donors, and volunteers. -Worked directly with key stakeholders to develop and build relationships with new corporate partners and physicians to increase grant revenue and expand Patient Services and Education Program. -Kept informed of trends, issues, events and developments within the industry field through professional peer contacts, conference attendance.

-Worked with media agencies, large brands, small to medium businesses, and non-profits building an initial and long-term monetization strategies for all digital assets and needs of their business with an emphasis in leveraging marketing, sales, and operational tools to drive revenues. -Advised on the how and where to improve efficiency of operations and increase overall profitability. Recommendations for changes internally were derived from a completed 360 degree analysis of tools, personnel, resources, budget and completed financials. -Advised businesses on how to set up and run efficient monetization strategies which included marketing on social media platforms, in market advertising techniques, and effective sales techniques. -Helped clients on building strategies to expand their brand awareness and reach, driving people to their site, and generating phone calls to their businesses.-Client and campaign work included: The Joe Niekro Foundation, National Ovarian Cancer Coalition, The Marketing Arm, Epsilon, Willow St. Agency, The Atkins Group, TimePiece PR & Marketing, Dallas ISD, StubHub, JCPenney, GameStop, Blue Diamond Almonds, Bayer, Top Golf, Philips, Mustela, ASUS, Exxon Mobile, the Lifetime Network, MARS, Petmate, Tasigna, Sophias Formula, South Padre Island Tourism, Bamboo Realty, 911 Security, and McNutt CPA.

-Developed and drove global monetization strategy for digital footprint across all products, including merchant listings, display advertising, text link advertising, and third party monetization.-Collaborated with analytics team on the creation of a global monetization dashboard that included key KPIs, traffic lights, and action items to improve awareness and profitability.-Analyzed business development opportunities and conducted meetings with multiple potential third party partners across the US, UK, Spain, and Latin America.-Partnered with US Go to Market and Digital Sales teams on the collection of qualitative data on current performance and opportunity of sales for digital products. Completed a pricing and opportunity analysis, which ultimately surfaced low sell-through/high search volume opportunities as well as identified areas where pricing adjustments could be implemented to increase sell-through.-Worked with Finance on the creation and implementation of current and future fiscal budget and reforecast, as well as reporting on third party monetization revenue.-Conducted cross-group collaboration meetings across all teams and geographies to ensure that all groups were up-to-date on current efforts as well as ensured no duplicate or overlapping efforts were in place.-Collaborated with mobile team on building mobile strategy across all geographies, implementing pricing changes in the US, and determining ways to monetize unsold inventory through partnerships with third party vendors.

-Defined long-term product strategy, expansion of offerings in markets, drove innovation and developed and executed a multi-year product roadmaps that supported the business development plan (BDP) and aggressive double-digit revenue and EBITA growth targets. -Directly managed product manager and worked collaboratively with the design, business analyst and product development teams to ensure successful product execution.-Developed and executed a 2-year strategic product road map (PEP) for gaming offering including user experience enhancements, expanded functionality and new game offerings that supported the greater product strategy and organization’s business goals.-Collaborated with marketing and sales to identify market expansion opportunities, build product strategy and road map to support both content and functional localization requirements and ensured successful product launch into markets.-Identified and implemented opportunities for increasing revenue including proposing and justifying user experience improvements that enhance the customer’s experience, optimizes return on investment, and promotes long-term financial growth for the community.-Gathered and interpreted current market and economic trends that may impact the game offering, and analyzed financial performance, management reports, products and processes as well as applied advanced forecasting techniques to key value driver forecasts.-Developed methodologies and processes that provided transparency of costs and cost drivers to recipient businesses, and analyzed current financial results to identify and address evolving business issues and opportunities.

-Identified, defined, and drove measurable analytics that promoted increased spending across MSN C&O Channels: Lifestyle, Delish, Glo, Fitbie, MSN Health, Wonderwall, MSN Movies/Music/TV ($85M business).-Managed rhythm of the business for online ad impression capacity, pricing, delivery, and sponsorship packaging for advertisers, working with business partners across the MSN Lifestyle Media and Entertainment channels to determine appropriate places where changes can be implemented, increasing profitability by $1-2M annually.-Provided all-up measure of accountability and pacing against budget by creating monthly scorecards, which were then presented at the Monetization Monthly Business Review, as well as shared with the broader monetization and business group communities.-Collaborated with Finance on determination and creation of quarterly and annual budget and forecast numbers for all MSN Entertainment and MSN Lifestyle Media channels.-Worked with sales on annual and ongoing account planning, including initial annual upfront pricing and negotiations and development of client specific packages and opportunities. -Identified operations and platform gaps for over-delivery of impressions on sponsorship packages. Created and drove v-team to tackle issue, resulting in major process and platform changes which improved CSAT and yield across all MSN channels by 100% (reduction of $7M in opportunity cost in US).-Analyzed spikes in traffic on Wonderwall (celebrity gossip channel) to determine effective ways to capture and more effectively monetize unpredictable social events. Implemented spike monetization via ‘US Project Viper’, ultimately improving profitability by $3M annually (45% increase).

-Analyzed client operation and financial data, integrating results with pertinent industry research to develop valuation and marketing documents for companies desiring to go to market.-Evaluated companies attributes include clients both domestic and international, multi-entity, and generate annual revenues ranging from $1M to $100M. -Conducted a valuation process, which included a complete analysis of company operations; three year trailing historical and five year pro forma projections of revenue, cost of goods sold, operating expense, and balance sheet trends analysis; valuation methodologies such as DCF, public and private comparables, and the cost approach; researching relevant demographics, industry, and economic factors; and using industry standards to arrive at a fair market enterprise value for each company.

-Selected as Project Manager for the department’s high-profile asset information clean-up project, at the start of 2006. Oversaw and trained six contract members, provided detailed reports and analysis on progress and specifications, which included statistical analysis of weekly and cumulative productivity as well as budgeting forecasts and allocation.-Recipient of the “Above-and-Beyond” Award Aug ’06 in recognition of my outstanding efforts and early completion of the asset clean-up project, four months prior to the allocated budget deadline. -Maintained database application performance and developed releases ensuring the product delivered was with highest integrity to the subscribers. -Analysis of complex production issues. Developed code to patch bugs and enhancements. Testing of new code prior to promotion to production environment. Designed and implemented test plans and scripts, and worked with business partners to find appropriate solutions for each issue. Assisted production support developers to identify and resolve problems, and documented test procedures and findings.

-Coordinated product demonstrations in 100 locations within a tri-state region, managed 100 supervisors and 400 demonstrators, prepared weekly summary reports, solicited prospective clients, and recruited and trained staff and audited areas for quality assurance and compliance of company policies and procedures. -Instrumental in successful contract negotiations with a major client that currently represents 40% of the company’s business.