Natalee Roan Email and Phone Number

Owner of boutique firm specializing in preparing start-up executive management for equity fund-raising - Apply lessons learned from over 500 VC presentations nationwide and $30 million in capital raised for early stage ventures even when most VCs had wallets slammed shut. Assist leadership teams with full preparation and review: Presentation style and refinement, go-to-market strategy, tactical execution plan, business model refinement based on how VCs dissect a startup prior to investment decisions. Expert in brand development, competitive positioning, website, lead generation, playbooks for executing on distribution partnerships and national account roll-outs, public relations and social media planning. Work with companies of every size, from New York City to rural Alaska, in wireless, telecommunications, software, cloud computing, real estate, green-tech, and retail.

Earth Class Mail is the first company to bring postal mail online so it can be read and managed from anywhere in the world. Customers include expats, frequent travelers, students, RVers, snowbirds and Fortune 500 companies with employees in far-flung locations. International expansion includes Swiss Post is an international partner/distributor. As Chief Marketing Officer for this cash-strapped start-up that had only 6 months of cash remaining, created the Earth Class Mail brand (they were previously called Remote Control Mail) and moved their entire messaging platform from a lackluster mail company into an exciting Green Technology company. The new brand, messaging, sales, and public relations efforts attracted interest from the New York Times, CNBC, Financial Times, Business Week, Fortune, Inc, and many others. Earth Class Mail “makeover” resonated so well that the company attracted $12 million in new investor financing, the Swiss Post office agreed to an 11-country pilot 2 years ahead of plan, and Sprint moved from a 250-employee pilot to a 17,000 employee roll-out a full year ahead of plan. Chief Marketing Officer responsibilities included all distribution, marketing, sales and customer service functions: Built these functions from scratch as company expanded from 10 employees to 100. Managed the entire customer life-cycle from lead generation through to sale and customer loyalty. Managed on-ramping of national customers and partners.Secured and managed Company's exclusive participation in the 8-episode hit TV docu-series "Startup Junkies", an exciting and unique marketing opportunity that helped launch the company into the national spotlight.Left Earth Class Mail due to car accident in 2007.

Purchased by Intuit (maker of QuickBooks and TurboTax) in 2008. Developed on-demand CRM software that helps front-line sales reps and managers streamline their workloads. Brought 12-person startup from launch to 4th largest CRM brand in the US competing head to head with Salesforce.com and Microsoft. Company later sold to Intuit, the maker of QuickBooks and TurboTax. Highlights include: *Created the new Rave brand, including an entirely new positioning by bringing video game developers into a business software company for the first time to create a truly user-friendly interface; *Reduced total cost of customer acquisition by 40% while attaining Google's best performing business software sales conversion rates - 18% vs industry average of 6%. *Managed relationships with press and analysts. Personally recognized as industry thought-leader and have been published in several industry journals.

Worked for Sprint's wireless division from launch with zero revenues to over $8 billion in revenues about 4 years later. Sprint had among the industry's highest new subscriber growth for 9 consecutive quarters. *Responsible for sales operations for 13,000 points of distribution with 35,000 sales reps comprised of retail stores, 3rd party partners, and B2B sales staff; *Developed scalable systems to reduce time to market for new promotions from 3 months to only 6 days, shocking competitors - Our first quarter with this new system caused Sprint to lead the industry in new subscribers by 127% versus AT&T; *Responsible for developing $1 billion customer acquisition budget by managing sales channel alignment so that overall acquisition targets could be met; *Built corporate marketing plan including $500 million budget covering strategic positioning, target markets, promotions and pricing for entire consumer marketing division.

3rd person into Nextel's corporate marketing group at start-up when product was literally on the drawing board and held a variety of responsibilities in corporate strategy, marketing & bus. dev. *Requisite author of Nextel’s 1995 & 1996 Marketing Plans which were distributed to board members and potential large investors including Craig McCaw prior to his investment. *Responsible for launch strategies including target market, pricing and competitive analysis, and partnership strategy. Helped land Nextel’s first two "bet the company" corporate accounts - JB Hunt & Xerox. *In field position, responsible for all marketing activities related to the launch and ongoing management in 4th largest wireless market in the US: distribution support, pricing/promotions, sales tool development, advertising, collateral development, direct mail programs, sales training, product mgt, media buys, customer application development, public relations, and competitive analysis.

Now part of Verizon Wireless, GTE Mobilnet was one of the first carriers in the United States to build and market cellular service when the technology was in its infancy. Managed pricing & competitive analysis for the West Region as well as tariff filing process for the State of California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). My expertise with CPUC provided GTE Mobilnet with creative pricing plans that normally would have fallen outside of State regulations. During a 5-month absence of a Regulatory Manager, represented GTE Mobilnet at the California Public Utilities Commission in several industry investigations.

As a consultant in what was then one of the “big six” accounting firms, conducted the research and analysis for several high profile engagements: *Responsible for determining extent and cost of several Savings & Loan failures to the Federal Government during the infamous 1980's Savings & Loan crisis; *Designed computer program which models revenues and expenditures to municipalities to determine how various land-development alternatives impact their bottom lines, including all forms of taxes – sales tax, occupancy tax, payroll tax, property tax, cigarette tax, gasoline tax, etc.

As an instructor at U.C. Berkeley and the youngest faculty member in the department, designed, organized and taught classes ranging from 25 to 300 students. Lecture topics included statistics, business management, leadership, and organization design.

Recruited by senior management to recommend new strategies for handling an ailing national commercial real estate portfolio after changes in 1986 tax code severely impacted profitability of real estate limited partnerships. Developed strategic plan which demonstrated that the best strategy for Equitec would be to liquidate much of this portfolio and in the process save itself and its investors over $20 million in negative cash flows and property value depreciation in failing markets.