Insights

In this issue:

• It’s Really The Year of Mobile!
• Karen Lithgow joins EC as Managing Director
• TGSLC Hires Donna Fritz as VP, Marketing
• Career Opportunities:
  • Head of Corporate Branding & Communications – Life Insurance/Annuities
  • Sr. Mgr., Digital Strategy
  • Global Head – Analytics & CRM – FILLED
  • VP, Marketing – Collections- FILLED

It’s Really The Year of Mobile!

In a recent AdAge article by Maureen Morrison, she highlighted according to EMarketer, 2016 will be the year mobile ad spending eclipses desktop ad spending. EMarketer goes on the project by 2019, mobile advertising will exceed $65B+ and will represent 70% of total digital ad spending and 30% of total media spending.

That’s quite a staggering and rapid growth rate and it underscores why Google (32% share) and Facebook (19% share) , the 2 mobile advertising juggernauts, will continue to grow exponentially and become the largest and most profitable global digital media companies. This also explains why Apple and other mobile phone and device manufacturers are making screens larger; it’s because we are in a new era of mobile-first marketing, meaning consumers are seeking and accepting marketing messages realtime, including geo-targeting which is enabling marketers and brands to reach consumers in real time at (or near) the point of purchase. Mobile-first has enabled new promotion marketing, including instant in-store coupons, and real-time loyalty marketing incentives. And it’s still early days for mobile, with ad tech companies developing new ad formats, and marketers focused on delivering relevant, targeted content messages and ads/offers conducive to the smaller mobile screens (especially mobile phones).

The automotive sector, which has been one of the bright spots in a slow growth US economy, are among the early innovators in mobile marketing. Companies including Ford and GM are utilizing geo-targeting to identify car buyers in proximity to local dealerships (and competitive dealerships), and delivering real-time offers and incentives to encourage dealer visits and test drives. In 2015, the auto sector spent $3.4B+ in mobile ads, representing 47% of total digital ad spending, which shows the auto sector is ahead of the curve in leading mobile ad innovation. One in four car buyers utilize mobile every day to research vehicles, so marketers with adept analytics are using predictive algorithms to send targeted offers to car buyers.

Retail, financial services, travel, and telecom are the other largest sectors in terms of mobile ad share and spending increases. So it’s easy to see mobile advertising is broad-based and growing across most major sectors.

Where does your company and brand fit into this mobile-first transformation? Are you a leader and innovator, or a laggard?

As always, we welcome your input and comments.

Best,

Jeff Gundersen & Lola White

Karen Lithgow joins EC as Managing Director

KAREN V. LITHGOW – MANAGING DIRECTOR, GLOBAL MARKETING

Karen Lithgow is a senior-level marketing executive and consultant with a distinguished track record of building world-class brands and global marketing organizations. Her most recent role was Senior Vice President, Corporate Marketing for ADT, a leading provider of security and automation solutions for homes and businesses, where she led all of ADT’s integrated multi-channel marketing, including both digital and traditional marketing.

Prior to ADT, Karen led her own independent marketing consulting practice serving Fortune 100 clients and non-profit organizations. She also held various leadership roles for Western Union International, including Vice President/General Manager of Western Union’s International Remittance business, leading the U.S. business to Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, South Asia, Asia Pacific, and the Caribbean.

Karen’s roots in Global Marketing trace back to Disney Consumer Products and Procter & Gamble, where she managed Character Brand and Film & TV properties for Disney, and received her initial marketing training in Brand Management at Procter & Gamble.

Ms. Lithgow holds a Masters of Science degree in International Business from Georgetown University, and a Bachelors of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania. She is bilingual in Spanish and English and conversant in Portuguese and Italian. Karen holds several leadership roles in civic and community organizations and serves as a Board member for several non-profit organizations. She resides in Miami, Florida with her family.

EC is pleased to welcome Karen to our executive search consulting and marketing strategy consulting team.

TGSLC Hires Donna Fritz as VP, Marketing

Texas Government Student Loan Corporation (“TG”) recently hired Donna Fritz as VP, Marketing. The company is a well-established non-profit organization with expertise in collection of student college loans. With regulations changing the future outlook for this sector, TG is shifting their focus to build “for profit” businesses in closely-related areas to leverage their core competencies of customer service and accounts receivable and debt collection.

Donna was previously VP, Marketing & Product Management at Take Supply Chain, a SaaS software and services division of a global B2B company and at TG she is leading a marketing transformation including new product and services offerings and B2B demand generation in collaboration with a new VP, Sales and VP, Alliances.

EC handled this exclusive retained search assignment for TG and is providing Donna our unique career transition support service to assist in her successful transition.

Congratulations Donna and continued success!

Career Opportunities

We have career opportunities at a variety of companies.

Take a moment to click on these links (below) for the complete position description:

• Head of Corporate Branding & Communications – Life Insurance/Annuities
• Sr. Mgr., Digital Strategy
• Global Head – Analytics & CRM – FILLED
• VP, Marketing – Collections- FILLED

Learn more about our Career Opportunities…

In this issue:

• Where’s Your Growth Coming From?
• Nancy Fessatidis Joins Mercer
• Career Opportunities:
  • Head of Corporate Branding & Communications – Life Insurance/Annuities – NEW
  • Sr. Mgr., Digital Strategy
  • Director, Advanced Analytics – FILLED
  • VP, Marketing – Collections- FILLED

Where’s Your Growth Coming From?

The U.S. economy finished 2015 strongly, with low energy prices and cheap interest rates fueling record years in the airline and automotive sectors. Corporations are flush with cash, M&A deals set a record in 2015, and corporate stock buybacks reached the highest level in recent years as CEOs boosted EPS by using excess cash to buyback company shares.

While increases are expected in interest rates, the overall cost of money will remain inexpensive throughout 2016, and combined with strong cash balances on most balance sheets, strategic acquisitions will be once again the #1 growth driver. U.S.-based multi-nationals will continue to acquire Asian, EMEA, India, and Latin American businesses at record paces.

Also, given this is a U.S. election year, we are already seeing political campaigns and special interest PACs spending significant amounts on advertising. And look for Washington politicians (Congress & Senate) to avoid any government shutdowns or budget showdowns. It will be another year of kicking the can down the road which will assure plenty of government (subsidies) money continuing to flow into the U.S. economy.

While most global economists are forecasting world economic growth of 3-4% and modest growth for the U.S. economy (2%), we are more bullish and expect U.S. economic growth of 3-4%. The early signals are executive hiring remains strong. EC’s Q4 hiring was strong and early hires (plus new searches) in January confirm CEOs are hiring C-level leaders who can drive growth.

Where is your (company’s) growth coming from in 2016? Is your company pursuing acquisitions or perhaps your company is an acquisition target by a larger, strategic buyer that can accelerate your growth rate? What are your “Blue Ocean” strategies? Accenture Digital, one of our clients, has successfully pursued and closed several “bolt-on” acquisitions to accelerate their growth into the creative side of digital marketing and media. This has been a complementary and successful strategy to accelerating their growth and positioning Accenture Digital as a formidable competitor to the marketing services holding companies (i.e., Havas, IPG, Publicis, WPP).

In addition to strategic acquisitions, several of our clients are hiring GMs and CMOs to build new businesses through new products and new distribution channels. The majority of our placements in Q4 and early in 2016 are positions responsible for finding new adjacencies and developing new products/positioning in new sectors and/or new distribution channels.

Another area of growth being pursued is long-term infrastructure investments to transform antiquated, legacy processes and systems into modern-age, omni-channel, digital-first customer engagement, experience, and acquisition processes. In this new “Customer Age” we have entered, the consumer is at the controls, and mobile and digital shopping increasingly are the new “first screens.” This rapid change in consumer behavior is causing companies in every sector to redesign legacy systems to enable seamless online and omni-channel customer engagement and marketing in a new real-time, geo-targeting world. Just look at Amazon Prime, Uber, Priceline.com, Jet.com, and other innovative digital-first services to see the future of marketing and e-commerce. The Millennial generation has overtaken the Boomer generation as the largest segment of the workforce and this is a “tech savvy” generation that has already demonstrated they have no fear about buying things online.

So in many ways, 2016 will be a year of Innovation, with smart companies answering the Growth question in pro-active fashion.

If you haven’t already addressed this issue, start asking where’s your growth coming from?

As always, we welcome you comments and input. Pls. write to us and tell us about your 2016 strategies.

Best,

Jeff Gundersen & Lola White

Nancy Fessatidis Joins Mercer

We are pleased to announce Nancy Fessatidis has joined our client Mercer, a division of Marsh McLennan, as Global Leader of Analytics and CRM “Center of Excellence” based in NYC.

Sustainable competitive advantage starts with data analytics, and with the power of big data available to large global clients like Mercer, Nancy is the type of “Analytics Genius” to help build these capabilities to the next level.

In her new global role, Nancy will oversee simplifying sales & marketing analysis/reporting, developing predictive tools and processes to improve sales, client management and marketing effectiveness, overseeing lead qualification and nurturing, cultivating client insights and satisfaction, and fully leveraging available marketing technologies.

Nancy was formerly Global VP, Big Analytics at SAP prior to joining Mercer. EC will be providing Nancy our unique career transition support services as she begins this important new career opportunity. EC is delighted to have initiated this transaction and recruited Nancy Fessatidis to Mercer.

Career Opportunities

We have career opportunities at a variety of companies.

Take a moment to click on these links (below) for the complete position description:

• Head of Corporate Branding & Communications – Life Insurance/Annuities – NEW
• Sr. Mgr., Digital Strategy
• Director, Advanced Analytics – FILLED
• VP, Marketing – Collections- FILLED

Learn more about our Career Opportunities…

In this issue:

• What’s On Your Christmas List?
• Career Management
• Career Opportunities:
  • Director, Advanced Analytics – Influent 50, an AARP company
  • VP, Marketing – B2B Financial Services / Collections
  • Sr. Mgr., Digital Strategy
  • Marketing Leader – Northeast Region – FILLED
  • Director, Analytics & Insights Strategy – FILLED

What’s On Your Christmas List?

What’s on your Christmas talent list? This is a question we have been asking all of our clients as the Christmas season approaches. Without exception, digital strategy, data analytics, and mobile/social media talent are at the top of our client’s Christmas lists.

With digital advertising (including mobile) forecasted (by PWC) to surpass broadcast media by 2018, VPs of Digital Strategy & Customer Experience are the top position on most client’s list. Over 25% of Fortune 100 firms have added a Chief Digital Officer (“CDO”) position, and CDOs and CMOs are building out global teams including multiple new VPs and Directors of Digital Strategy & Customer Experience to engage with LOB leaders to transform digital and omni-channel customer (and prospect) engagement.

Chief Analytics Officers are next on our client’s talent wish lists. With marketing moving to real-time, geo-targeting campaigns, marketers need to tailor customer engagement to deliver relevant and timely offers based upon predictive analytics and real-time behavioral targeting. Top CAOs are one of the keys to substantially increasing marketing ROI, as well as improving enterprise-wide business decision making, and accordingly, CEOs and CMOs are hiring “Analytics Geniuses” at a record pace. We recently delivered 2 CAOs in our clients Christmas stockings and we recently received 2 Santa letters requesting Directors of Analytics & Insights.

VPs of Social Media & Mobile Marketing complete the top 3 on our client’s talent wish list. As digital/mobile advertising/media moves to the majority of total marketing spending within the next 2 years, and a majority of consumers are shopping on smart phones as the new “first screen” (smart phone mobile commerce exceeded 65%+ this Black Friday), it is critical for all clients to be taking maximum advantage of social media and mobile commerce channels. Especially for smaller and mid-sized marketers, without the mega-marketing budgets of a Coke or AT&T,   social media channels can be leveraged for brand building, prospect/lead generation, and m-commerce at a fraction of other marketing and media channel costs.

What’s on your company’s Christmas list? Have you requested digital, analytics, and social/mobile talent from Santa in your Christmas stocking? If not, what are you waiting for?

We wish all of our clients and friends our best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy, Safe, and Prosperous New Year!

Happy holidays!

Jeff Gundersen & Lola White

Career Management – by Lola White

In last month’s November Executive Connections e-Zine, we highlighted the importance of Career Management and emphasized how building your personal brand, managing your career path and proactively preparing yourself for career transitions are critical to controlling your career future.

Repeat after me – “I Will Be In Control of my Career.”

We Know…
It’s the holiday season, you have a lot on your calendars, you have end-of-year client deliverables and we know you don’t need one more thing to do. However, we also know your career is equally important and needs to take center stage.
As Talent and Career experts, we understand the importance of on-going Career Management. Moving forward, our objective is to support you by sharing our proven formula for how to build and manage a successful career. We will be your guide as you progress through creating and maintaining your own career plan.

We Will Show You How
Below is the first of our Career Management Best Practices. Our monthly E-Zine column will continue to provide you with regular updates and career management insights so you can manage your next career move.

Proactive Career Management is Essential to Your Success
As you wrap up this year and move into 2016, stop and reflect on where your career presently is at and where you want it to be. Take the time to make career reflection an on-going priority and ask yourself, “If I had a process as outlined below and was guided through this process, would I be better prepared to take control of any and all career wins, disappointments and emergencies?”

• Understand and own what is unique about ME and discover my most important personal brand assets, skills and competencies
• Build a comprehensive Career Plan that is a match for my brand
• Communicate my Career Plan strategically across all digital, business and personal channels
• Connect powerfully with people who can help me bring my Career Plan to life

There is no “One-size Fits All” Career Path
It’s well known that today’s career challenges are more complex than ever before. There is no clear path for everyone to follow. You must powerfully create your ideal.
The “lifetime tenure” model is a thing of the past. The norm is more a winding, unpredictable progression of positions, often in distinct fields and industries. To be successful, you not only need a compass but a detailed road map to help you navigate your desired course.

What’s Next for You?
Leverage our “Best-in-Class” Career Management advice we have given thousands of successful CEO’s and C-Level leaders around the globe. Our January 2016 Career Management column will start to provide a few foundational tools, ideas, support and guidance we believe you will need to jump start your Career Management plan no matter what stage your career is in.  Throughout 2016, we’ll continue to help you shape your career future.

Need Your Own Personal Career Manager or have a Career Transition or Personal Branding challenge? You can always e-mail me at lwhite@executiveconnectionsllc.com.

Career Opportunities

We have career opportunities at a variety of companies including a Global Data/Direct Marketing Services Company, a Global HR Professional Services firm, one of the largest Global Digital Agencies, a Privately-Owned Direct/Digital Agency, Travel/Hospitality and a Non-Profit Student Loan Collection.

Take a moment to click on these links (below) for the complete position description:

• Director, Advanced Analytics – Influent 50, an AARP company
• VP, Marketing – B2B Financial Services / Collections
• Sr. Mgr., Digital Strategy
• Marketing Leader – Northeast Region – FILLED
• Director, Analytics & Insights Strategy – FILLED

Learn more about our Career Opportunities…