Indiana University - Kelley School of Business

University of Kansas - School of Engineering

Parkway North High School

Marketing Week Mini MBA with Mark Ritson

Brand Architect, Disruptive Innovator, Campaign & Media Strategist, & Performance Marketer - Creator of Talenti Gelato Layers

starting from scratch and building it all with friends.

happy™

happy marketer

Lead cross functional team behind +25 launches per year. Create naming, artwork, marketing strategy, & activation for every launch, partnering with growth & lifecycle teams on content, influencer, & media.
Building out the full funnel marketing strategy, from consumer target to positioning to campaign creation in order to unify the teams around singular, single minded goals.

Daily Harvest

Brand Director, Portfolio, Strategy, & Innovation Marketing

Lead Omni, E-commerce, & Retailer growth marketing strategies & budgets across ice cream, condiments, savory, & tea categories inclusive of all retailer search, Instacart, etc.

Unilever

Head of Lower Funnel Marketing (Retailer/E-commerce/Omni) & Full Funnel Transformation for F&R

Led the cross-brand innovation, communication, & positioning strategy to strengthen the impact of the portfolio, maximize ROI, & drive total category while running the North America Magnum Ice Cream business.

Head of Ice Cream Portfolio & Brand Strategy Lead & Integrated Mktg Lead Magnum Ice Cream

Led all innovation & marketing asset development, including innovation roadmap (2017 – 2021) from concept through formulation, packaging, & proposition. Briefed & managed key agencies, to build annual media strategies & campaign ideas. Drove total brand awareness up by 32% & increased US HH Penetration by 20% to 8.8% of all US households
•	Creator of breakthrough Layers innovation, starting with concept testing, thru business case creation, formulation & production trials. Launched with a #SpoonEasy (speakeasy style) event with editors & fans 
•	Built Unilever NA’s performance & data driven marketing campaign pilot with Talenti, fully integrated into Adobe Cloud to optimize campaign for performance across audiences, creative assets, and all digital paid and owned channels, going beyond simple direct response marketing. Formulated precision targeted media strategy for 2017, improving ROI by 66% over the mass marketing plan. 
•	Achieved Unilever’s 1st USDA Organic Certified in-house factory to launch Talenti Organic thru detailed collaboration with the factory, R&D, & suppliers to submit all Organic System Plan documentation

Talenti Gelato

Head of Innovation & Marketing Strategy - Talenti Gelato

Led the integration strategy, developing the brand communication & innovation strategy in cooperation with Talenti founders. Built a structure utilizing the best of Unilever and the best of Talenti cultures to create the long-term vision of the brand all while growing the brand by over 70% post acquisition reaching over $270MM in retail sales in the US and 7.3% of all US households
•	Composed brand positioning, visual identity, & tone of voice through strong partnership with creative agency, R&D, Founders & consumer insights teams, resulting in a long term, differentiated brand identity
•	Collaborated with Talenti founder Josh, Unilever R&D, and supply chain to create product & innovation philosophy, including a unique production process, manufacturing a completely new mix plant & production line spanning several million dollars in capital expenditure
•	Crafted Talenti’s early communication strategy, building a growth strategy through influencers, brand advocates and a targeted approach to media channels
•	Developed the #Flavorize.Me campaign in 2015, driving sharing & delight with consumers as we created custom flavors based entirely on their social feeds on FB, IG, and Twitter.  We surprised 10 lucky winners by having Josh actually create their winning flavors.

Sr Brand Manager Integration & Brand Development- Talenti Gelato & Sorbettos

Championed the development of marketing campaigns, manage marketing spend, and act as the face of the brand to customer teams and retailers.  Collaborate entirely with Customer Marketing, Supply Chain, and Brand Development to forecast and manage the P&Ls of businesses worth over $330MM in retail sales across two brands and four categories.  
•	Developed “Social First” content marketing strategy to launch innovations across Face & Body Care with limited marketing investment, transforming the quality of the social & advertising content  
o	St Ives content made Tumblr’s 2014 year in review and had the #2 promoted post on Tumblr according to AdWeek engaging over 175,000 potential consumers.
o	Grew Masterbrand retail sales $7.3MM (+6.0%). Drove Body Care retail sales + 14.7% (+21bps Body Care $ Share) and Face Scrubs retail sales + 12.7% (+176bps Face Scrubs $ Share) in 2014.
•	Led the Q-tips re-positioning to the Ultimate Beauty Tool, driving $3.6MM in sales growth in 2013 and $5.7MM in 2014 increasing market share by 350 bps over two years sending US retail sales over $200M  
•	Achieved a rolling forecast accuracy of ±2.4% (beating target ±4.2%) while acting as BB S&OP Champion for Personal Care. Coached BB teams on proper forecasting approach & collaborated on a new forecasting tool.

Unilever - St Ives & Q-tip

Brand Building Manager - St. Ives Masterbrand and Q-Tips

Influenced & excited cross functional teams to deliver innovation & communication. Drove all aspects of product creation including insight & concept development, product & pack development, communication, and business case development.  
•	Drove 400 bps gross margin gains in less than a year by leading cross functional teams to overcome significant obstacles in formula development, formula production, and packaging while optimizing key variants to better fit with St. Ives core positioning & range architecture.
•	Leveraged revolutionary technology within Unilever portfolio to develop a differentiated, market development innovation; product concept scored 86/100 CVM in Snapshot and ended up being 50% incremental to the category, 92% incremental to Unilever and 98% incremental to St Ives. Worked closely with the R&D teams to launch 3 months early in order to guarantee a 2nd to market position.

Unilever - St Ives

Brand Development - Global St. Ives Hand & Body Lotion

Lead customer marketing communication & planning in close coordination with Brand Building, Field Sales, Finance, and Supply Chain to drive sales on Vaseline, Ponds, and Q-tips totaling retail sales of nearly $500 million annually.  Responsible for monthly volume forecasting & financial calls in addition to managing national trade rates & pricing. 
•	Designed launch plan of Vaseline restage, leveraging insights from CatMan and CMI to improve equity perceptions and drive consumer re-engagement, resulting in 1MM incremental trials 6 months after launch.
•	Collaborated with BD on new Vaseline Lip Therapy “Cuties” launch to ensure strong retailer support by co-creating retail ready packaging and working closely with CBMs to drive excitement within the field and launch nine months earlier than originally planned, adding an incremental $5MM retail sales in year one.

Customer Brand Planning Manager (Customer Marketing) - Skin Care & Face Care

Create, incubate and validate new concepts for Walgreen’s New Format Development team.  
•	Identified unmet consumer needs and led cross category, multi-vendor teams to improve product selection, category alignment, and planograms across all food/grocery categories.  Reduced capital investment, improved sales by 1.9% over preliminary concept increasing concept ROI from 15% to 56% and allows concept expansion to five times the store count.  
o	Store count has expanded from 7 to 218 and plan to reach 500 stores by 2016.

Walgreens

Business Innovation Manager

Pitched small format grocery concept strategy to President and directed project teams for store design, product selection, systems integration, supply chain facilitation and marketing planning opening in less than 10 months.

Supervalu/Jewel-Osco

Creator & Marketing Manager - Urban Fresh

Developed marketing strategy, product assortment, promotional programs, and in store execution for all Frozen Food categories totaling over $400M in retail sales.  Grew total sales & margin dollars by 1.8% & 1.4% while closing 2% of stores.
•	Identified potential differentiator within Super Premium Ice Cream and sought out key vendor partners to create unique variety and a new product flow at shelf.  Increased consumption and trial by communicating superior category equity in Ads generating unsolicited positive consumer feedback and word of mouth advertising.  Stole valuable consumers from Whole Foods and increased category sales by 10.8% over 52 weeks.  
•	Discovered Talenti Gelato & Sorbettos and worked with the founder to develop a successful launch strategy in Chicago...was the first major retailer to accept Talenti in full distribution.  
•	Created Frozen Food Month marketing campaign reaching 4 million Chicago consumers with in store activation growing retail sales by 6.2% over previous year’s Frozen Food Month program.
o	Drove traffic to the store with a 16-page advertisement that drove equity messaging for brands while communicating quality, variety, and strong promotional programs in Frozen Foods.
o	Executed in store event messaging and provided $150 in free VIP coupons to 5,000 consumers executed during a 3-week display program in all Jewel-Osco stores.  
o	Won 6 Golden Penguin awards from the National Frozen & Refrigerated Food Association (NFRA) for marketing campaign and store execution.

Sr Category Manager (aka Sr Buyer) - Frozen Foods

Created all product assortment, pricing, promotional programs and planograms design for Fluid Dairy, Cheese, Yogurt, Eggs, and Juice categories with sales of $500M annually.   
•	Redesigned weekly Dairy advertising to communicate product equity, drive basket size, and introduce new products to our stores and to our consumers.  
o	Successfully re-launched West Coast cheese brand driving product benefits and trial through display programs and cross category tie-ins.  Over took #1 branded chunk cheese brand in Chicago during promotional events.  
o	Utilized beauty shots & product benefit messaging to drive awareness & trial of Refrigerated Pasta category and won a sales challenge to out sell boxed pasta in the grocery aisle.  
•	Grew category volume, profit, and retail sales during massive category cost increases in Orange Juice by developing a counter intuitive category strategy.  Stole 500 basis points in AOC market share and grew sales by 10.5%.  
•	Identified key market development opportunity and composed integrated fluid dairy planogram to improve organic presentation and grew Organic and Soy Milk categories by 28% over previous year.

Category Manager (aka Buyer) - Dairy

Led all product assortment, pricing, promotional programs, and planogram design for Seasonal, Basic, and Front-End candy categories. Grew sales by 6.5% to reach $80 million annually; improved profitability by 14% over previous year through optimized assortment and by capitalizing on consumer insights.   
•	First retailer in the market to identify the benefits of dark chocolate; expanded category breadth and assortment, doubling market share within 6 months.  Advertised our extensive selection to differentiate ourselves long before the major candy manufacturers were ready to capitalize on the perceived health trends.

Assistant Category Manager (aka Buyer) - Candy

Designed targeted consumer marketing programs using loyalty card incentives.  Built shopper & growth marketing programs, direct mail campaigns, and basket building loyalty club programs.
•	Initiated Pharmacy Club program to generate $40 million in incremental sales and improved consumer cross shopping behavior between Grocery and Drug categories.
•	Identified category opportunity gaps and grew customer sales by 15.1% by creating a Top Shopper Direct Mail program. Collaborated with national manufacturers to improve category penetration through targeted monthly consumer mailings.

Loyalty, Incentive, & Direct to Consumer (DTC) Marketing Manager

Imagine graduating with an MBA and bagging groceries the next week. This program was designed to ensure that anyone going through the program would be capable of managing a grocery store and all of its employees by the time you were finished.  This meant that you spent 18 months in a grocery store in every department.  I built flower bouquets, decorated cakes, baked cookies, prepared meat, stocked shelves overnight, build displays... and that was all in the 1st 3 months.  The next six months, you run the produce department.  There is then a stint back in the office to ensure you didn't forget how to do marketing.  The last stint is about 9 months where you spend around 6 as the Co-Manager of the store, managing the heads all of the departments.  This program provides some of the best management & leadership experience you can acquire.

MBA Leadership Retail Program

Designed & Consulted on over 100 projects in three years to light up skyscrapers, residential homes, office buildings, and monuments & cathedrals.  We were hired by Architects, Interior Designers, & Owners to design the lighting (where, what, how) for their project. We used 3D modeling, engineering calculations, drafting, & visual presentations to communicate our design.  Also helped with the graphics for two of Gary's books.

Damon Grimes