Speaker Bios

October 29, 2009

Laura Ramos

Laura Ramos, Vice President, Forrester

As a Vice President and Principal Analyst in Forrester’s technology marketing research team, Laura writes research for Forrester’s clients who are business-to-business (B2B) marketers. Her coverage includes B2B marketing effectiveness, integrating B2B marketing tactics, digital and social demand generation, B2B marketing measurement, and the use of technology to enrich the online B2B customer experience. Laura’s work focuses on building lead management maturity, sales and marketing integration, setting social media and Web 2.0 marketing strategy, and creating customer engagement. Laura regularly contributes to Forrester’s Marketing Blog and authors the B2B Marketing POSTs blog (www.b2bmarketingpost.com).

Laura has been a keynote speaker at the Direct Marketing Association, Forrester’s Marketing and IT Forums among numerous other events. She was named to B-to-B magazine’s “Who’s Who” list for three consecutive years: 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Laura holds an M.B.A. from the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University, where she graduated Beta Gamma Sigma, and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University.

(Update: Laura was kind enough to allow us to share her presentation)

June 25, 2009

Chris Kenton

Chris Kenton, Founder and CEO, SocialRep

Christopher Kenton is founder and CEO of the enterprise social media SaaS startup SocialRep, and cofounder and consulting partner at MotiveLab a social media marketing agency. Chris was formerly Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy at the Chief Marketing Officer’s (CMO) Council, and its corporate parent, the international PR firm GlobalFluency, where he managed global business development, client consulting services and program
development for business communities including the CMO Council, the Business Performance Management (BPM) Forum and the Forum to Advance the Mobile Experience (FAME).

With an extensive background in strategic marketing and software development, Chris specializes in market development, competitive positioning, marketing effectivness and measurement, with a special emphasis on marketing technology and social media.

Prior to GlobalFluency and the CMO Council, Chris was president and co-founder of the San Francisco marketing agency Cymbic. His clients have included Motorola, Intel, Yahoo!, Nokia, Charter Communications and Manugistics, as well a number of venture backed startups and small businesses. Prior to Cymbic Chris was founder of CBT publisher Scribe Software, managed development of DevX.com, a commercial network for software developers, and served on the board of Touchpoint Metrics.

A frequent author and speaker on marketing and technology issues, Chris has been a columnist for BusinessWeek Online and Executive Decision, and an analyst covering Business Intelligence for TechnologyEvaluation.com. He has been quoted on marketing and technology issues in BusinessWeek, Investor’s Business Daily, Forbes, Network Computing, and a wide range of industry journals. He has written for B2B Magazine, MarketingProfs.com, WebBuilder Magazine, JavaPro Magazine, Visual Basic Programmer’s Journal, and was co-author of Web Programming for IE 5.0 Unleashed. In 2003, Chris was invited to testify before the U.S. Congress on trends in overseas outsourcing, based on his writings about online technical daylabor.

Chris earned his B.A. in Literature and Creative Writing at UC Santa Cruz and Berkeley, and is married to a children’s librarian. His interests include writing, mountain bike racing, snowboarding, backpacking and telling highly unlikely stories to his 7-year-old son.

May 28, 2009

Amy Lauer

Amy Lauer, VP/GM of Marketing at BananaRepublic.com

Amy began her 15-year career with Gap as a merchant for Old Navy. While rising through the ranks in merchandising she took a several year detour in to strategy where she helped reposition GapBody, babyGap and GapKids by leveraging consumer insights to identify brand equities and create and execute product, marketing and in-store strategies. Today Amy is the Vice President and General Manager of BananaRepublic.com where she leads a 55-person team responsible for the online channel as well as supporting the store channel online. Amy began her retail career at Abraham & Straus and also worked for the May Department Stores Company.

Christopher Miller

Christopher Miller, Restaurant and Toy Industry Consultant and MENG Member

Christopher Miller is currently consulting for the toy and restaurant industries. He was most recently Vice President Marketing for LeapFrog Enterprises, responsible for leading brand marketing, advertising, offline & online media, PR, packaging, and market research. He began his marketing career at Young & Rubicam Advertising where he headed up major consumer brand accounts such as Clorox and Xerox. Prior to LeapFrog he served as vice president of brand marketing for Taco Bell Corporation, overseeing the national marketing plan, product portfolio strategy, and new product and program pipeline development. He graduated Cum Laude from Harvard University.

April 30, 2009

William Sarni

William Sarni, CEO, Domani

Mr. Sarni is founder and Chief Executive Officer of DOMANI with 30 years of experience in providing sustainability and environmental consulting services to global private sector companies. Over the past 10 years he has successfully built a consulting firm focused on providing innovative yet practical sustainability technical and business solutions to multinational firms committed to increasing revenue, mitigating risk and improving operating efficiency through the implementation of sustainability programs.

Mr. Sarni is personally focused on providing strategic services to global companies in the areas of climate/carbon, sustainability strategy development and implementation and sustainable development (land use and green building/LEED). He has worked closely with companies such as Alcoa, BASF, Cisco, The Coca-Cola Company, Dean Foods, DIAGEO, Cherokee Investment, Enterprise Community Partners, Forest City Enterprises, Invensys, NTT DATA, Pfizer, TNK-BP, Vivendi and Wrigley in developing and implementing sustainability strategies that provide the greatest tangible and intangible (brand) value to organizations. He has a practical yet creative approach in implementing sustainability programs and
integrating diverse business and technical issues related to energy, climate change, sustainable land use,
and strategy/ reporting/branding.

Mr. Sarni is a member of the Environmental Compliance Committee of the Chicago Climate Exchange, is active with The Conference Board, and is a member of the board of directors for CORE Colorado. He frequently speaks on a range of sustainability issues and authors an editorial column on sustainable business practices in Venture Magazine and the Sustainable Life Media “Climate Management Weekly.” He is a contributor on sustainable development for the book “Environmental Regulation of Colorado Real Property” and is the author of the forthcoming McGraw Hill book titled, “Greening Brownfields: Remediation through Sustainable Development.”

Clint Wilder

Clint Wilder, Co-Author of The Clean Tech Revolution and Contributing Editor, Clean Edge

Clint Wilder is contributing editor at Clean Edge, a leading research, consulting, and publishing firm covering the clean energy and clean technology industry. Wilder co-authored The Clean Tech Revolution, the widely praised book translated into six languages, with an updated paperback edition released in September 2008. USA Today calls the book “one of the few instances in this genre that shows the green movement not in heartstring terms, but as economically profitable.” The Clean Tech Revolution has been translated into Japanese, Spanish, German, Korean, Hebrew, and Serbian.
Wilder has covered the high-tech and clean-tech industries as a business journalist for more than two decades and is a frequent speaker and panelist at industry events. He is also a blogger for the Green section of The Huffington Post, a facilitator in the Energy and Climate Change track of the Clinton Global Initiative, and serves on the advisory board of the Green MBA clean tech investment fund at Dominican University. He lives in Sausalito, California.

Jeff Anderson

Jeff Anderson, National Co-Chair and Campaign Manager, Cleantech and Green Business for Obama

Jeff is a co-founder of Clean Tech for Obama and CleanTech Bay. His full bio is coming soon.

March 26, 2009

John Hegstrom

John Hegstrom, Vice President Client Services, PopularMedia

John is responsible for ensuring that PopularMedia customers successfully reach their consumers, promote their products, and build brand awareness through word of mouth marketing campaigns. John is an industry veteran with experience in product management, marketing, e-commerce, CRM and client services. Prior to joining PopularMedia he led a global consulting practice at Salesforce.com, launched Informatica’s on-demand family of products, and led global services at Unisfair. John also served as VP/Associate Director at Digitas where he specialized in leveraging Internet technologies to implement marketing programs.

Anneke Seley

Anneke Seley , CEO and founder, Phone Works LLC and author of Sales 2.0

Anneke was the twelfth employee at Oracle and the designer of OracleDirect, the company’s revolutionary inside sales operation. She is currently the CEO and founder of Phone Works, a sales strategy and implementation consultancy that helps large and small businesses build and restructure sales teams to achieve predictable, measurable, and sustainable sales growth, using Sales 2.0 principles. Anneke is the coauthor of a new book, Sales 2.0: Improve Business Results Using Innovative Sales Practices and Technology, published by John Wiley & Sons.

David J. Schneider, International Communications Consultant

David Schneider is an international marketing, communications and management consultant helping companies create globally recognized brands. He is expert in the conceptualization, development and execution of full-scale, highly targeted global and domestic communications, public relations and marketing programs that raise awareness, increase sales and enhance reputation. He has held senior management roles at leading communications consultancies in North America, Europe and Asia and his experience includes first-hand knowledge of over 30 countries, where he has honed specialized expertise in creating and executing multinational communications programs that create a bridge between the U.S. business centers and international markets, establishing consistent messaging and brand image across diverse markets.

February 26, 2009

Eunice Azzani

Eunice Azzani
Senior Client Partner, Korn/Ferry International

Ms. Azzani is a Senior Client Partner in the San Francisco office of Korn/Ferry International. She is a lead member of the firm’s diversity program, whose purpose is to identify and track key women and minority executives. A seasoned consultant with more than 25 years’ experience in professional service organizations, she has conducted and managed searches for “out-of-the-box” executives in both corporate and nonprofit organizations. In 1997, she was awarded the Eleanor Reynolds Award from the Association for Executive Search Consultants, for combining excellence in search with commitment to volunteerism.

Ms. Azzani serves on the boards of City College Foundation, SFWorks, and YMCA of San Francisco. Formerly, she served on the boards of the City Club of San Francisco, Commonwealth Club of California, Lifeprint, Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, the Needle Exchange Board for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and the Women’s Forum West, then Women’s Foundation. She was the 1999 Chair of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce.

Ms. Azzani earned an MLS from Texas Woman’s University and a BA from Texas Tech University

Rebecca Chekouras

Rebecca Chekouras
Interim Development Director, Northern California Cancer Center

Rebecca Chekouras has researched and written about business topics for 25 years. Prior to working in the nonprofit world, she was a specialist in primary consumer behavior research, and she has been an invited speaker at forums discussing the impact of the Baby Boomer generation on business, government, health care, and education. She has been quoted in leading publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The Los Angeles Times, Workforce, and American Demographics. Early in her career, Chekouras held senior management positions in international consulting organizations serving Fortune 500 and other major clients. Her organizational expertise is in the redirection of strategy and resources to maximize under-productive business units. Her marketing expertise is in designing brand building communications strategies. She began applying these skills to fundraising In 1998.

Ms. Chekouras managed the corporate research centers for Booz•Allen & Hamilton, starting with the Chicago office and eventually handling their U.S. capability. From there, she joined Age Wave, Inc. where she was Vice President, Research Services for Age Wave Communications. In her consulting, Chekouras wrote detailed reviews of the marketing communications programs of major health care, insurance, and medical device companies, devising improvements and making strategy recommendations; developed new communications guidelines and programs for Fortune 500 and start-up companies to strengthen brand recognition. Her private sector client list included General Motors, Kemper Distributors, NatWest Bank (United Kingdom), GTE, PacifiCare, and many others. Her nonprofit client list includes The Bar Association of San Francisco, Dominican University of California, the University of California Berkeley, and The Women’s Building in San Francisco.

Ms. Chekouras is currently developing a fundraising program for the Northern California Cancer Center (Fremont). She attended The University of Wisconsin, where she was a graduate Fellow, and holds graduate and undergraduate degrees in the fine arts, as well as a graduate degree in Information Science.

Annie Ellicott

Annie Ellicott
President, LeapUp Marketing Solutions
Board Member, Larkin Street Youth Services
MENG Member

Ms. Ellicott is President of LeapUp Marketing Solutions, a marketing strategy and services consultancy she founded in 2002. She develops customer acquisition, relationship engagement, conversion, and loyalty strategies – offline and online – for consumer businesses in the travel, retail and consumer service categories. Her background includes more than 25 years of experience in consumer marketing and business strategy directing brand launches and turnarounds across entertainment, media, apparel and health services while at the Walt Disney Company, Levi Strauss & Company, Women.com (now part of iVillage/NBC.com), and American Medical International. Ms. Ellicott has been a MENG member since 2001.

Ms. Ellicott has been an active volunteer with many nonprofits. She has served in leadership roles on the Boards of the Saban Free Clinic in Los Angeles, Under One Roof in San Francisco, and Global Service Corps. She is currently an active Board member of Larkin Street Youth Services where she is Chair of the Marketing Committee and Co-Chair of the “Paving the Way” fundraising benefit.

Ms. Ellicott holds a BA degree in Economics from Princeton University and a Masters of Science degree in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Elizabeth Macken

Elizabeth Macken
Panel Moderator

Ms. Macken has more than 15 years experience in consumer products strategy, marketing, and analytics. She has helped companies develop and monetize consumer insight impacting new product development, portfolio optimization, quantitative and qualitative market research, and advertising and promotion planning and effectiveness. She’s held both professional services and operating roles in diverse consumer products and services industries including more than ten years in consumer packaged goods.

Ms. Macken began her consumer products career in brand management at Nabisco. Moving online, she then joined Internet professional services firm USWeb/CKS as Director of Marketing Strategy and Analysis and later, to PriceRadar.com/iMiner as VP Marketing. Next she moved to CPG market research consultancy, Information Resources where she advised ConAgra, Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, and E. & J. Gallo Winery, among others. Most recently she lead consulting engagements in Accenture’s Management Consulting group as part of its Strategy practice.

Ms. Macken holds an AB degree in Political Science and an MBA in Marketing Management and Policy Studies both from The University of Chicago.

January 29, 2009

Steve Pinetti

Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Kimpton Hotels and restaurants

Steve Pinetti, as the Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, oversees all sales, marketing, advertising, public relations, CRM and eCommerce activities for the hotel and restaurant management company. Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, based in San Francisco, currently manages 44 boutique hotels and 45 fine dining chef-driven restaurants in the U.S. and Canada.

Prior to joining the Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants in 1982, Pinetti began his hospitality career with Hilton and Hyatt where he held a number of positions in hotel sales and marketing. He was recognized as a “Top Producer” for both organizations. He helped develop corporate incentive travel programs as well as breakthrough industry software that provided the foundation for PMS systems today. Throughout his career, Pinetti has been responsible for the strategic planning and openings of more than 50 + hotels and 50 + restaurants throughout the country and has worked as an independent consultant in hotel management and marketing.

Pinetti has taught various classes in sales, marketing, operations and management in the hospitality programs at University of San Francisco, San Francisco State University, San Francisco City College and Golden Gate University. He also participated in branding classes through the executive management programs at Stanford University and U.C. Berkeley. Pinetti lives in San Francisco, California.