Senior marketing and branding executive Resume

Desired Industry: Marketing	SpiderID: 27595
Desired Job Location: New York, New York	Date Posted: 7/2/2009
Type of Position: Full-Time Permanent	Availability Date: 080109
Desired Wage: 250000
	U.S. Work Authorization: Yes
Job Level: Executive (President, VP, CEO)	Willing to Travel: Yes, 25-50%
Highest Degree Attained: Doctoral	Willing to Relocate: No

Objective:
Senior customer insights expert, trained as a management consultant, seeks leadership role where he can leverage his extensive marketing, brand and business consulting experience and market research tool kit in solving complex business problems and exploiting major business growth opportunities

Experience:
See my link on LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/williamegordon

Consummate brand and marketing strategy expert with deep skills in mining and leveraging customer insights, honed during 25 years of client-side and consulting experience.

• 12+ years of brand strategy consulting experience across a wide array of industries, both domestically and internationally:
o 7 years with Mercer Management Consulting and Lippincott & Margulies including 2 years as partner in both (sister) firms
o 2 years under the direction of David Aaker at Prophet Brand Strategy in San Francisco
o 3 years (to present) with Optimor, WPP's brand strategy consultancy housed within brand research powerhouse Millward Brown

• Consistent sales and client relationship management performance
o 2008 consulting sales: $3 million+
o Introduced 4 new clients to the firm in 2008 while serving several long-standing clients
o Winner of coveted "Marketing Forward" award for innovation in client problem solving (Coca Cola's PowerAde Global Repositioning, 2009)

• Worked with many of the world's greatest brands
o HP, Dell, Reliance (India), Coca Cola, Kimberly-Clark, Deloitte, Experian, Visa, Blue Cross Blue Shield, ING, Charles Schwab, Harrah's Entertainment, Gucci, Ritz Paris, UnitedHealthcare, Verizon, AT&T, Vodafone, UniGroup, Georgia Pacific, United Airlines, IBM, Mazda

• Helped clients solve branding problems and exploit branding opportunities
o Brand positioning and repositioning
o Brand architecture refinement
o Brand extension and licensing opportunity evaluation
o Brand valuation and brand driver assessment
o Brand equity improvement

• Leader among fellow consultants, consistently receiving outstanding 360-degree feedback regarding teamwork, coaching and mentoring

• Ph.D.-trained, management consultant with a passion for leveraging customer insights in building strong brands

Selected Recent Engagements

• For Harrah's Entertainment, Inc., a pre-merger, brand portfolio strategy engagement supported by a massive consumer segmentation effort coupled with a brand positioning overhaul for their 3 key brands: Harrah's, Caesars Palace and Horseshoe
o Total billings: $2.4 million
o Research: $1 million+
o Result: Harrah's board accepted our recommendations and is now implementing a program to optimize their brand portfolios in their 3 major U.S. markets (Las Vegas, Atlantic City and Tunica, MS). This involves the sale of some properties and the reflagging of several others to achieve maximum, in-market share of wallet
o My role: Core member of pitch team, responsible for design, execution and integration of research program results into overall portfolio recommendations

• For Coca Cola's PowerAde energy drink products, a global brand positioning effort aimed at maximizing marketing synergies across diverse global markets
o Total billings: $700K
o Research: $350K – First-ever use of our IdeaBlog methodology, an on-line, interactive research platform accommodating 150 consumers (per blog) along with clients and agency personnel as observers
o Result: Initial phase of research resulted in the narrowing of 9 potential positionings to 3 which are now in a validation phase
o My role: Led pitch process, responsible for sale, design, analysis and recommendations. Led team of 30 colleagues in 5 countries and managed client relationships throughout the process

• For HP (Hewlett-Packard), a major Brand Extension/Brand Licensing Opportunity Assessment
o Total billings: $450K
o Research: $200K
o Result: HP now in negotiations with potential licensees on 4 B2C and 2 B2B ideas emerging from our research, analysis and market sizing exercise. We are providing on-going support for licensing requirements and licensing rate negotiations
o My role: Part of pitch team responsible for designing, executing and evaluating a large consumer research program which initially generated over 100 ideas through a robust ideation process and then isolated the top 10 ideas through quantitative research based on brand fit (consumer perspective), increased brand presence and a detailed economic opportunity assessment

Other Recent Engagements

• Metavante, Inc., a major provider of core banking transaction and payments solutions (recently acquired by Fidelity National Information Services)
o A first-ever brand positioning effort to establish the brand clearly in the minds of purchase decision makers and distinguish it from 4 chief rivals.
o I was part of the pitch team and led the brand positioning research effort, beginning with interviews of all 12 members of the clients' executive team and followed by a comprehensive survey of 400 senior executives in medium-to-large banks responsible for purchasing relevant banking and payments solutions

• Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts – A major evaluation of the member experience in a competitive context
o Client was interested in determining why its brand is consistently rated below those of two major competitors, companies who were quickly stealing share in a hotly contested market
o Project involved an intensive qualitative phase followed by a quantitative survey of 1200 consumers in Massachusetts, 400 members of each of the top three health insurance providers
o Results pinpointed 4 main deficiencies in the member experience that could be shown to negatively impact their ratings of the client's brand
o I sourced the lead, led the pitch process and managed all aspects of the engagement with a team of 4 analysts/consultants

• MD Anderson Cancer Research Center – A leading cancer research center and hospital located on the University of Texas campus at Austin.
o Client was interested in more clearly defining and positioning its brand among doctors, patients, donors and other key constituents in a market dominated by two major players: the Mayo Clinic and Sloane-Kettering in New York
o Project involved an intensive discovery phase involving qualitative research with referring and non-referring cancer physicians, physician-referred and self-referred cancer patients, other hospital employees, medical students, donors and community leaders. Core constituents were further evaluated with quantitative research and more qualitative/confirmatory research to validate findings
o Resulting brand positioning (essence: Make Cancer History) is in the process of being implemented after being approved by the Board of Directors
o I designed and managed all aspects of the research in support of the overall engagement

Education:
See my link on LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/williamegordon

Skills:
Ability to translate complex brand and marketing problems into effective, cost efficient research designs and to synthesize results into compelling, actionable recommendations for clients.

Application of quantitative and qualitative research techniques to marketing problems including brand positioning, customer segmentation, new product development, brand equity management, pricing, customer satisfaction, customer acquisition and retention.

Reference:
Available upon request.

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