Ryan Stephens Email & Phone Number

Houston, Texas, United States

OVERVIEW: Lead the strategy and execution of corporate cause marketing campaigns that have fundraised more than $35M for patient care, research, education and prevention.• Oversees the strategic and tactical direction for the Corporate Alliances' department, including the overall management and coordination of all corporate alliances and relevant cause marketing activitivies and requirements.• Develops overarching strategy for MD Anderson's corporate alliances and cause marketing fundraising programs.• Provides leadership and direction to the team responsible for corporate relationships to ensure strategic, coordinated and consistent cause marketing activations and the successful stewardship of corporate partners to grow and enhance corporate relationships.• Leads strategy for growing and securing new corporate partners.• Develops end-to-end plans (timelines, deliverables, and processes) to meet program goals and project manage corporate partners.• Builds trust and maintains positive relationships with senior leaders at constituent organizations including: corporate social responsibility, corporate communications, marketing, and within HR / people operations• Collaborates with cross-functional teams to evolve marketing strategy, messaging, content and channels• Innovates, evolves and continuously improves upon best practices and cause marketing frameworks• Responsible for tracking and sharing overall ROI including, but not limited to: fundraising dollars, awareness and engagement

Houston, Texas Area

Houston, Tx

Since 2008, I’ve worked behind-the-scenes building and shaping companies, and amplifying the efforts of small business owners, entrepreneurs and freelancers.Let me help you with the following:✔ Creating diversified business strategy that will provide measurable ROI✔ Benchmarking key metrics to drive performance improvement, gain strategic advantages and facilitate new ideas and learning✔ Identifying core competencies to define position and competitive advantage(s)✔ Reducing complexity by identifying bottlenecks and streamlining communication and workflow✔ Increasing organizational productivity by improving employee morale/engagement and identifying opportunities to delegate authority and standardize decision makingFeatured expert on business, marketing and entrepreneurship topics in media including: Inc., The Huffington Post, Mashable, Fox Business and the Upstart Business Journal.

Houston, Texas Area

BSX Athletics is a seed-stage sports technology company that combines real-life coaching and wearable technologies to help athletes train smarter, not harder.• Managed an integrated marketing and PR effort that included brand DNA/messaging, strategic sponsorships, partnerships, print collateral, a word-of-mouth blueprint and a digital content strategy that included a balanced variety of paid, earned and owned media.• Led holistic marketing and PR strategy and execution for a Kickstarter campaign that raised just shy of $122,000, which was 243% of the funding goal and represented the top 1% of all Kickstarter campaigns at the time; included e-mail open rates of 57.7% and CTR of 26.9%.• Led small content team in charge of comprehensive content strategy including, but not limited to: educational blog posts, multi-part expert interview series, and social media strategy and execution.• Mentored colleagues on the best practices of business writing, lead generation and sales funnels.

Houston, Texas Area

I led the Proton Therapy Center's digital efforts which included showcasing clinical expertise, highlighting patient and survivor stories, and raising local and national awareness about proton therapy as a viable treatment for many types of cancer. I also worked to build and cultivate relationships with influential people and groups capable of spreading our core messages.I worked extensively with the PTC's metrics and referral data. I tracked our marketing efforts from the market entry point to actual patients. Collecting and sharing these metrics in a clear, concise way and evaluating KPIs and ROI enabled our team to shape our marketing efforts moving forward. These efforts led to best-practice models that were applied to other service lines across the institution.In addition to the above:• Project managed multi-million dollar paid search budget, which included interfacing with multiple internal departments, working on billing and budgeting issues, managing agency partners and serving as a liaison between key stakeholders within the department to help them achieve their campaign’s goals. • Project managed the Center’s first mobile site from the ideation phase all the way through the institutions’ elaborate risk assessment process, which required collaboration across departments: IT, security, legal and compliance. • Started a bi-weekly e-newsletter highlighting innovations, trends, news and best practices to keep the institution informed of the rapidly changing, ever evolving digital media space.• Shot and edited over 40 videos for social media content creation and dissemination.• Developed and executed PR stories highlighting technological advancements and compelling survivor stories.• Led the strategic planning and execution of multiple photo and video shoots• Reviewed creative and ad copy for both print and radio• Contributed to the evaluation and analysis of multiple RFPs• Collaborated on multiple sponsorship opportunities

Houston, Texas Area

* Led marketing research* Led strategic marketing initiatives from ideation phase through execution (including one of the first Groupon's for a furniture store)* Member of strategic team that implemented Magento CMS to launch Gallery Furniture online store* Trained sales staff to leverage the iPad as tool in their sales aresenal

Charlotte, North Carolina Area

As the company's first Community Manager, I led the activation of the Sports Media Challenge brand online through our corporate blog, and participating in industry-wide conversations. I also played an integral role in developing and activating intricate web 2.0 strategies for sports, entertainment and lifestyle brands. Two of the brands I worked with most extensively were ESPN and Conference USA.As a media analyst I monitored online buzz for professional athletes, Division I athletic programs, companies sponsoring sports events and other sports industry companies. I leveraged these online conversations to diagnose points of emphasis and deliver weekly reports and recommendations to our clients. Often times we leveraged these recommendations to create social media marketing strategies that enabled sports brands to join the conversations their fans were already having online.

Weaving intricate webs, facilitating conversation, and utilizing other strategic marketing initiatives to increase the exposure and usage of the Squidoo platform.

Masters Of Science, Marketing

• #2-ranked MS Marketing Program in the U.S. • Curriculum includes: Marketing Metrics & Accountability, Marketing Research, Marketing.

Bachelor Of Arts, Communication Studies, English

Activities and Societies: Texas Lutheran Baseball Team, Alpha Chi Honor Society• PACE Scholarship Recipient • Summa Cum Laude Graduate.