Santa Clara University (MBA)

Mount Holyoke College

UC San Diego

EdTech Marketing Consultant  -  Strategic Marketing  -  Branding  -  Growth Marketing  -  Business Development  -  Partnerships  -  Programs (Apple Distinguished Educators)  -  Project Management  -  SEL  -  MBA

San Jose, California, United States

Get results, make your vision a reality, and grow your business!

Whatever your business needs, I'll jump in ecstatically, roll up my sleeves, and make things happen. I have a strong track record for developing meaningful brands, building strong partnerships, creating innovative strategies, and executing marketing plans efficiently. While my specialties are EdTech, STEM, and K-12 education, I also consult non-tech clients.

-  Built industry partnerships to drive awareness, maximize product visibility, and increase profitability.

-  Developed strong brands, messaging, and marketing materials for K-12 EdTech B2B/B2C companies.

-  Drove growth by strengthening channel marketing and aligning to partners’ objectives.

<a href="http://www.KTSresults.com">www.KTSresults.com</a>

KTS Results Consulting

Marketing Consultant

- Parenting—Let’s Make a Game of It" is an entertaining and easy to read book showing playful ways to stop struggling with your toddlers and school-age kids. It's an Amazon #1 New Release in 7 parenting categories with glowing 5-star reviews.

Written for busy parents, the how-to messages are shared through amusing, short, standalone chapters. And the down-to-earth tone leaves you feeling encouraged.

By creating games to deal with everyday challenging moments, you make parenting more fun, you empower your children, and your family spends quality time connecting. As a result, you’ll avoid confrontations, end arguments, encourage cooperation, and even get kids to help around the house. Goodbye nagging, yelling, and getting into power struggles.

-  Determined the kids' content and self-published this innovative parenting book in only 18 months with highly organized, efficient, and detail-oriented project management skills.

-  Achieved recognition as an Amazon #1 New Release in 7 parenting and kids categories.

-  Received glowing 5-star reviews on Amazon and testimonials from prominent leaders.

-  Invited to speak as a playful parenting expert on podcasts and Facebook Live.

-  Sold books using digital marketing, social media marketing (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and GoodReads), and content marketing.

-  Incorporated Mindfulness, teaching how to calmly parent even during everyday struggles with kids.

<a href="https://parentingletsmakeagameofit.com/">https://parentingletsmakeagameofit.com/</a>

Parenting—Let’s Make a Game of It: Playful Ways to Stop Struggling with Your Child

Published Author of an Entertaining, Easy to Read Parenting Book

- Designed and implemented the organization's strategies, plans, and programs targeting girls and underprivileged students in STEM learning.

-  Oversaw and improved the efficiency of daily operations and marketing.

-  Developed marketing and community outreach programs including Girls' Specific Weeks and scholarship programs.

-  Established and developed strategic partnerships to widen exposure and establish credibility.

-  Represented the foundation at speaking engagements.

-  Researched and wrote grants.

iD Tech Summer K-12 EdTech STEM Programs

Executive Director of the iD Foundation

- Grew startup to over $50M, providing strategic leadership to the marketing department and working with cross-organizational teams.

-  Increased student enrollment 3,000% with an average 20% annual growth rate.

-  Reduced expenses by $60M from developing and negotiating with 50+ strategic partnerships that provided products for innovative content. (Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Autodesk, Bosch, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Unity, NASA, SparkFun, and others).

-  Generated millions of dollars annually by identifying and building strategic relationships with 75+ prestigious universities that hosted the programs.

-  Surpassed yearly goals by leading high-performance teams with solid go-to-market strategies.

-  Built and led the marketing department, measuring marketing campaigns and activities against Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).

-  Led a cross-organizational team to quickly launch an all-girls STEM program with compelling content.

-  Developed a prestigious partnership with SWE (Society of Women Engineers) who endorsed the all-girls STEM program.

-  Established and advocated the Girls’ Scholarship Program, exciting thousands of underprivileged girls in STEM opportunities.

-  Increased girls' participation 350% in all 5 iD Tech programs.

-  Developed marketing content and executed brand campaigns with a data-driven KPIs approach.

-  Created, implemented, and oversaw the operations for an annual school flyer campaign, reaching over 5,000 schools nationwide with over half a million marketing brochures.

-  Achieved 250+ local, national, and international PR coverage with print, online, radio, and TV (New York Times, Fortune, PBS NewsHour, CNN Headline News, and other publications, radio stations, and multiple TV outlets).

VP of Marketing & Business Development (2001-2015) and VP of Strategic Partnerships (2016)

- Restructured, managed, and grew the Apple Distinguished Educators (ADE) Program to 240 educators as one worldwide K-12 and Higher Ed program. Today there are 2,000+ educators.

-  Aligned the Apple Distinguished Educators program with corporate objectives, improved efficient operations, and established KPIs resulting in 4x visibility of shared K-12 best practices.

-   Advocated the Apple Distinguished Educators program and implemented initiatives cross-organizationally with 7 departments (PR, Worldwide Developer Relations, Marketing Communications, Research, Executive Briefing Center, Product Development, and Sales).

-  Oversaw content and production for an engaging K-12 Apple interactive space science resource, including developing strategic relationships with NASA and JPL.

-  Recruited and submitted 34 Apple Distinguished Educators success stories nominated for the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards, the most of any company.

-  Positioned and promoted the Apple Education Series and AppleWorks to K-12 educators.

Apple

Senior Marketing Manager, K-12 Education Markeing

- Directed and executed product launches, brand campaigns, customer loyalty programs, marketing communications plans, and product launches for a developer of easy-to-use, professional 3D graphics and multimedia content.

-  Developed marketing campaigns that resulted in the highest revenue-producing quarter.

-  Negotiated the firm’s largest OEM bundle deal.

-  Negotiated premium visibility on Microsoft’s FrontPage Home Page and in their e-mail to 850K potential customers.

CrystalGraphics

Director of Marketing

- Responsible for brand campaigns, marketing programs, product launches, and marketing communications for a game developer and producer of sports and action games consumer packaged goods (B2B/B2C).

-  Developed and managed a marketing budget of $4.5M+ for packaging, pricing, channel marketing, trade shows, media planning (TV, radio, print, and online), and promotions.

-  Increased game sales 300% due to TV campaign managed.

-  Reached 450M consumers in 11 top markets with a national radio campaign.

-  Created 5.5M+ impressions by developing co-marketing partnership programs.

Karen Thurm Safran