At The RiverHorse Group, we are fully committed to working with you to navigate the challenges and opportunities in today’s marketplace. We bring over sixty years experience and expertise in strategy development, execution optimization, organizational effectiveness, leadership excellence, and cultural evolution for optimal results in an ever increasingly competitive environment.We are passionate about quality in all that we do. Our quest for excellence, value creation, and innovation delivers superior results to our clients and improves all aspects of your business. We understand what’s at stake and our focus on ideas and optimal solutions make the difference.

Played key leadership role in change management development and execution efforts across the organization, including time of merger/acquisition integration, external challenges, and internal re-organizations.Re-structured and realigned organization to meet current business needs AND to better prepare for a changing future operating environment (competitive activity, regulatory requirements, more product innovation, and evolving consumer touch points). Led major initiative to flatten the internal organization to ensure greater individual/team empowerment, transparency of processes, less complexity and greater speed of moving ideas from concept to execution.Led significant efforts to out-source non-core/non-strategic capabilities to best-in-class partners (e.g. meeting planning, marketing materials management, Supply Chain Management, fleet management).Skills and Competency Mapping for internal Consumer and Trade Marketing employees.Led and served on Succession and Performance Appraisal PanelsLed and played a pivotal role in integration activities associated with mergers/acquisitions to include portfolio prioritization, cycle plan, work plan, systems/processes and culture evolution.Led the company's initiative for a Customer Engagement Management platform that moved the organization's 2000+ Trade Marketing employees from a transactional role to one for building collaborative relationships with wholesale and retail partners through improved industry knowledge and provision of tools and solutions for addressing customers' business opportunities.Led development of Consumer and Trade Marketing education and certification platform designed to ensure greater and more consistent levels of business acumen, company and product knowledge, customer and consumer dynamics, and information about the external operating environment.Development of workplace practices, policies and procedures.

Responsible for the coaching and development of 100+ employees through direct reports and one-to-one. Sponsored and played an integral role in the development of a 10-year marketing Roadmap which clearly articulated assumptions, impacts, resource needs, and strategic imperatives for the next decade. This assisted with development of strategic plans (3-5 year), and more immediate operational plans.Led major initiative to evolve and standardize customer management protocol to ensure best-in-class capabilities and enhance skills of all personnel in accounts management.Key contributors to a significant shift in a long-standing multi-billion dollar consumer pricing and promotion strategy and execution. Played key role in aggressive SKU rationalization and complexity reduction initiative, which served as the foundation for a disciplined Product Life-cycle Management approach, and for a resource re-allocation behind brands that represented the best opportunities for long-term business optimization.Streamlined the procurement of multiple data sources and refined strategy for ensuring all acquired information was utilized for developing insights, tracking analytics, and driving business decisions. Streamlined trade customer and employee communications with development of web-based technology thereby allowing stakeholders to access information on a real-time basis and improving the overall efficiency of interactions.Played integral role in the implementation of an S&OP process, which integrated Product, Supply, and Demand decisions and activities into a single, streamlined company-wide approach focusing on continuous improvement.Successfully implemented disciplined project management approach which permitted improved transparency, accountability, scope, and resource allocation and an improved on-time success rate for major cross-functional projects.Guided bi-annual customer satisfaction assessment to determine company standing vs. other CPG companies.

78 Employees/Top level 3rd Party RelationshipsDirect Budget >$400 MillionResponsible for all facets of developing strategies and programs for 2000+ employee Trade Marketing Department. Oversight included developing go-to-market channel and distribution strategies for brand portfolio, market coverage plans and organization design and sizing, development and execution of wholesale and retail incentive programs, development of cycle plans and accompanying activities, quarterly work plans and employee and customer communications, development of retail merchandising materials and tools, Trade Marketing employee and customer websites, customer engagement strategy and tactics, customer services and satisfaction measures, Trade Marketing education and up-skilling programs as well as provision of all support services (administration, ES&H, fleet, meeting planning, etc.).

50 Employees/Top level 3rd Party RelationshipsDirect Budget >$225 MillionResponsible for all facets of developing strategies and programs for 1500+ employee Trade Marketing Department to include go-to-market channel and distribution strategies for brand portfolio, market coverage plans and organization design and sizing, development and execution of wholesale and retail incentive programs, category management platform, development of cycle plans and activities and all customer and Trade Marketing employee communications.

Responsible for developing retail channel strategies for Convenience, Grocery, Tobacconist, Mass Merchandiser, Hotels, Duty Free, Bars and Clubs for the company’s portfolio of brands for their global markets (150+ countries). Duties included developing merchandising strategies, tactics and materials for all channels. Additionally, developed Supply Chain models for different markets dependent on marketplace dynamics and business conditions. My team was also responsible for developing the category management platform and for deploying the company’s S&OP platform (Effective Market Focus) in new and emerging markets in Eastern Europe and the Far East.