GROWTH ENGINE - Key Persons

He is Cofounder and "Chief Idea Guy" of the Growth Engine Company, a sixteen-year old innovation agency based in Norwalk, Connecticut. Prior to cofounding Growth Engine, he was president of the Mattimore Group, a twenty-year-old ideation facilitation and creativity consulting company. In his business consulting career, Mr. Mattimore has facilitated over a thousand brainstorming sessions, moderated over five hundred creative focus groups and consumer ethnographies, and managed over two hundred successful innovation projects, leading to over $3 billion in new sales annually for a wide variety of Fortune 500 clients. Companies that Mr. Mattimore has worked with include: Accenture, AstraZeneca, ATT, Black & Decker, BNY Mellon, City of New York, ConEdison, Danaher, Dun & Bradstreet, Eaton, Esselte, Essilor, Ford, Grumman Data Systems, IBM, ITT, Johnson and Johnson, Lexis-Nexis, Lockheed Martin, Lucent, LVMH, Microsoft, Pepsi, Philips, Pitney-Bowes, Procter and Gamble, Sony, State Farm, Time-Warner, United Technologies, and Unilever. He speaks frequently to organizations and associations on innovation processes best practices. He has addressed or co-chaired conferences for the Industrial Research Institute (IRI), Product Development Managers Association (PDMA), American Marketing Association (AMA), American Society of Training and Development (ASTD), Vistage, Young President's Association (YPA), and the World Innovation Forum. Mr. Mattimore has authored dozens of published articles and webinars, and three books on business creativity and innovation process: 21 Days to a Big Idea, Creating Breakthrough Business Concepts (Diversion Books, Fall 2015), Idea Stormers, How to Lead and Inspire Creative Breakthroughs (Wiley Jossey-Bass, 2012), and 99% Inspiration, A Real World Guide to Business Creativity (Amacom, 1993), selected as the American Management Association's membership offering/book of the year.) A cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College, with a major in psychology, he is also the inventor of the creativity training game, Bright Ideas.

Job Titles:

• President
• Expert
• Marketing and Innovation Specialist

Gary R. Fraser is a marketing and innovation specialist and a well-known expert in brand strategy, innovation and consumer understanding. Mr. Fraser is the President and "Chief Strategist" of the Growth Engine Company, an innovation agency he co-founded in 1999. Growth Engine's mission is to apply creative approaches to marketing & strategic issues to drive top-line revenue growth. Clients include Armored AutoGroup, AT&T, Danaher, Dun and Bradstreet, Energizer, Essilor, Honeywell, IBM, Kraft, LVMH, Merck, Pfizer, and Unilever. Mr. Fraser is a thirty-year veteran of Brand Management, starting his marketing career at General Foods and then moving into personal products at Chesebrough-Pond's (later acquired by Unilever) where he spent 14 years marketing skin care and oral care brands. As Category Director of Oral Care, he was responsible for the development and launch of Mentadent toothpaste and the ancillary products of mouthwash and toothbrushes. In three years, he built Mentadent into a quarter billion dollar business. He also led the Marketing Services group for the combined $4 billion Unilever Home and Personal Care business in the US. His responsibilities included Market Research, Creative Services, Promotion, PR, media planning, marketing training, as well as interactive/relationship marketing for the enterprise. Mr. Fraser has received two Golden Effie Awards for effectiveness in advertising and was named "Marketer of the Year" by Brandweek Magazine. He is also a board member for Phoenix Brands, owned by Lincolnshire Management, a private equity company. He is a graduate of Middlebury College and the Wharton Business School.

Robert Taraschi is the former Founder and President of Milestone Ideas, a strategic innovation and facilitation company. In the past 20 years, Bob has led innovation consulting assignments for more than two-hundred fifty Fortune 500 clients.