BRANDTAXI - Key Persons
Jeff Parkhurst has an established expertise in business strategy, marketing analytics and the valuation of brands. He has led brand valuation practices in the U.S. for Interbrand and globally for Vivaldi Partners, as well as analytics on key media accounts at Mindshare. Prior to that he spent 17 years with The Procter & Gamble Company, Kraft Foods, and AT Kearney in marketing, sales, technology, and strategy.
Jeff has worked in a brand capacity across 19 industries including: Apparel (Levi Strauss, O'Neill), Beer (Anheuser-Busch, Coors), Chemicals (Dow), Consulting Services (A.T. Kearney, Accenture, BrightHouse), Financial Services (American Express, MasterCard, Oriental FG), Food & Beverage (Kraft Foods, Kellogg Company, Heinz, TreeTop, Hormel), Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals (BlueCrossBlueShield, Schering Plough, Janssen), Health & Personal Care (Procter & Gamble Company), Heavy Machinery (Caterpillar, Bombardier), Media (Mindshare, BBDO, Viacom, Saraiva - Brazil, Sanoma Uitgevers - Netherlands), Not for Profit (Habitat For Humanity, Easter Seals), Oil & Gas (Chevron), Other (World Economic Forum, National Association of Realtors), Paper (International Paper), Retail (Wal-Mart, Sears), Technology (IBM), Telecommunications (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Deutsche Telekom), Universities (Columbia University, NYU, Harvard, Berkeley, Emory, Cornell, Indiana), and Utilities (Duke Energy, Peoples).
His work has been cited in cover stories with Forbes and BusinessWeek as well as other regional and national periodicals. A Harvard Business Case Study and Harvard Business Review article has been written about his work with Habitat for Humanity International, as well as a book entitled "The New Global Brands". He contributed to a book entitled "From Ideas to Assets" and publishes on-going. He has an MBA with Honors from the University of Chicago in Finance, an MBA from Xavier University in Marketing, and a Bachelor of Computer Science from the University of Minnesota. He is based in Westport, CT and is the founder of Brand Options.
John Grace is the Founder and Managing Partner of BrandTaxi, a brand strategy consulting and design firm. BrandTaxi provides strategic advice and design services to corporations from global market leaders to smaller niche companies where brands are important to growth. The firm's mission is to provide powerful insights that optimize value and results in measurable business growth. His career focus has been on understanding the relationship of the brand asset to shareholder value, and how brand strategy drives effective marketing strategies.
Prior to founding BrandTaxi, John was the Executive Director of Interbrand, the largest global brand consulting firm with offices around the world. He was responsible for leading new strategic and marketing initiatives for the benefit of the firm's clients both domestically and globally.
Formerly, John was Executive Vice President of Lippincott & Margulies, serving on the Executive Managing Committee and the Board of Directors. There he worked for a wide range of the firm's domestic and international clients solving complex branding and identity issues. Over the years, he has worked with almost every type of organization and industry.
Mr. Grace is considered a pioneer behind the concept of Brand Architecture and Communications Architecture. He has led the thinking that there must be an easy-to-use yet flexible system behind large and complex brand arrays. These are made up of visual, verbal and structural elements, which must be organized to help large institutions and corporations to successfully communicate what they do in a way that supports and reinforces their brand image.
Among other industry initiatives, John created the annual Conference Board Corporate Image Conference that is today a bellwether gathering for professionals in learning more about brands and the value they create. He has been recognized for his contributions to branding by the Conference Board, as well as receiving the Mobius Award for Creative Excellence.
A popular speaker, John has addressed organizations and governments in Asia, Europe and South America about why brands are valuable and how to maximize that value. He has spoken in Washington about various topics related to branding, is a frequent speaker and panelist at the Conference Board, the American Marketing Association and other organizations interested in brands and the value they create.
A graduate of Tufts University, Mr. Grace received an MBA with distinction from New York University's Stern School of Business. He is a member of the Board of Overseers of Tufts University and a past Associate of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Kathy Kohler is a passionate leader and strategist who partners with the firm's domestic and global clients to convert corporate visions into powerful brands. Kathy has had a successful 30-year career in high-impact corporate and consulting positions where she has influenced major transformation initiatives, developed growth strategies, helped build brands and launched countless products. Throughout her career, she has worked with many of the world's leading companies, such as Lazard, Verizon, Bank of America, Cigna, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, BlueCross BlueShield and Prudential.
Prior to joining BrandTaxi, Kathy was the Managing Director and Financial Marketing practice lead at Addison, a creative agency, where she led the branding and marketing initiatives and cross-discipline teams in service to clients. Her expertise in the areas of corporate transformation, brand strategy, brand architecture, content strategy, identity systems and marketing communications and corporate communications, has served her clients well.
Kathy began her career as a metals trader specializing in copper and aluminum arbitrage and later moved into institutional investment advisory and marketing roles inside major firms. She has held all major FINRA licenses including a Series 24 Registered Principal.
A talented speaker she has addressed such organizations as PAICR, ICI and AIMSE on the value of building powerful brands. Kathy holds a BA from Iona College in New York and studied business management at The London School of Economics.
Kim Faulkner has over 25 years of branding, marketing and design experience in Asia and has lectured and written extensively on the subject of branding, strategy development, marketing and design across the region. She is founder of Activiste, a partner brand consultancy that brings extraordinary strengths in branding, marketing and design management combined with the reach and breadth of full service market research across Asia.
Kim was one of the founding partners, CEO and Chairman of Interbrand's office in Singapore. She served as Managing Director for 13 years before being appointed as its Chairman overseeing the Group's activities and strategic interests in SE Asia and Greater China. During her tenure she helped set up offices and affiliate relationships for the group in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and China.
Kim has extensive financial services branding experience, having worked with American Express, Aviva, BSI Bank, Credit Suisse Private Bank, Citibank, Danamon (Indonesia), Hong Leong Finance, Maybank (Malaysia), OCBC Bank, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Singapura Finance.
She was a board member (2007-2009) of Spring Singapore, the national enterprise agency of the Singapore government; a board member of the DesignSingapore Council, under the Ministry for Communication and the Arts; as well as a board director of International Enterprise Singapore from 2002-2003 during its transformation from the Singapore Trade Development Board to IE Singapore.
Having started her career at Burson-Marsteller from 1983-1987, Kim worked in Singapore and the UK; following which she joined Allied International Designers, a UK based design company. Kim was also Vice President of the Monitor Group, based in Singapore. She graduated with an Honours Degree from the University of Kent, UK.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder of Infinite Agent
Paul is an experienced interactive designer, developer and information architect. He uses his insights into the latest technologies and trends to provide guidance to clients looking to get the most out of their brand in the new media space. His background in design gives him a unique perspective when it comes to thinking through the customer experience.
Paul is a co-founder of Infinite Agent; a technology and marketing company that provides social media and content delivery solutions. His company has built applications and programs for Atlantic Records, Warner Brothers Pictures, USA Today, Career Builder, America Online, Centers for Disease Control, Disney, Dow Jones & Company, T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon and Madison Square Garden.
Prior to Infinite Agent, Paul worked in interactive advertising on campaigns for Continental Airlines, Con Edison, Folgers Coffee, Milky Way, General Motors, Crest Toothpaste, Scope and the Australian Tourist Commission. Paul holds a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree from Parsons School of Design in New York.
Job Titles:
- Brand Identity Specialist and Design Expert
- Founding Member of the AlGA
Roy Levitt is a brand identity specialist and design expert dedicated to building brands that define, inspire, support, and transform organizations. A founder of Van Deusen & Levitt, he has helped define some of the world's leading brands by combining solid strategic thinking with inspired creativity, technical expertise, and common sense to deliver superior results. He has extensive hands-on experience in a wide range of industries including Financial Services, Healthcare, Consumer Packaged Goods, and Industrial Products. He is a true "global citizen," holding citizenship in both the U.S. and U.K.
Throughout his career, in senior creative positions at global brand consultancies, his skills and leadership have benefited such clients as: American Express, Bank of America, Bank of Tokyo, BF Goodrich, Cardinal Health, Caterpillar, DuPont, First Data, Ford Motor Company, FLAG Capital Management, Fortis, GenSpring, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Morgan Stanley, Northwesten Mutual, Oppenheimer Funds, Pacnet, Stanley Works, Sun Microsystems, and Transitions Optical.
Roy is a founding member of the AlGA's branding chapter and currently serves as Vice President of the Executive Board. He has been quoted and has provided commentary in relation to branding in AdAge and other national and global news publications and has been featured on the FOX Business News segment "Battle of the Brands."
Russ Ackerman is a seasoned expert at building emerging markets and brands that drive global growth.
Russ's background is in High Growth Markets such as China, India, Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, ASEAN, Africa and Middle East. His experience comes from a specialized practice of a leading professional services firm, where he advises C-Level executives on investment to, and from, high growth emerging markets. In the global economy today, understanding the realities of emerging markets can make or break a global brand success. Previously, Russ pioneered entirely new consumer products markets and brands for Procter & Gamble and Mars in Eastern Europe; forged the first e-commerce markets for Bertelsmann worldwide; started up Internet markets for Prodigy across Africa; and led the growth of over 20 world class brands from M&Ms, Pantene and Mr. Clean to Kraft and Glade while at Grey and J Walter Thompson.
Russ is skilled at big-picture strategy and hands-on execution of solutions that drive results, and is passionate about building new uncharted markets and brands. He is credited for developing the presence marketing model to penetrate post-Communist economies and frontier markets, as well as guiding new high growth-based companies as they globalize and build brands outside home markets and in the U.S.
He is author of From Marx to Market; a speaker at professional organizations such as Corporate Directors Group and International Executives Resource Group; and a contributor to Cornell and University of Virginia MBA programs. Demonstrating his passion for the uncharted, early in his career Russ also traveled solo for one year to 20 emerging economies.
Job Titles:
- Expert in Professional Services
Tony Tiernan is a leading expert in Professional Services brands. He helps leaders and the organizations they steward to attract and retain the right clients and the right people. He is CEO of Authentic Identity Inc.
Tony's insights into the dynamic connection between brand, culture, behavior and communication have helped many professional services firms to stand out in their markets.
Tony was Global Director of Marketing with The Boston Consulting Group. While at BCG, he launched the firm's first corporate advertising campaign, which won the Gold Statuette for Creativity in the international Mobius Awards. He was previously Vice President of Marketing with another management consulting firm, CSC Index (the firm that launched the Reengineering concept that created a consulting boom during the 199Os). In both firms, Tony ran marketing across Europe before assuming the global role.
During his international career, Tony has been group director of a UK-based publishing, research and communications business; an award-winning business journalist; an advertising copywriter; a published writer and speaker on professional services brands; and an entrepreneur.