WAA Board of Directors Nominees and Returning Directors 2007

Review Nomination and Voting Processes

Nominees:

Vicky Brock
Co-Founder Highland Business Research

Vicky Brock is co-founder of Highland Business Research, a Scotland based market research agency and she is their Head of Web Analytics and Online Research. She is currently particularly involved in analytics and online research amongst complex multi-country audiences and works closely with clients in the Tourism, Public/Government and Technology sectors.

Vicky has been Co-Chair of the International Committee for the last 18 months, co-ordinates the WAA local activity in Scotland and is an active member of the international web analytics community. She was a contributor to the UBC Web Analytics Course and is currently writing Web Analytics and eMarketing Course Modules for Scotland's UHI Millennium Institute.

Vicky has worked in web-focused research and web analytics since 1999, with clients including HP.com, the Serious Fraud Office, the National Criminal Intelligence Service, MSN, BT, Yamaha and the DTI’s Constructing Excellence. She began her career in market research and direct marketing in 1993, working with clients like Tesco Clubcard, Legal & General, BAA and WorldVision.

Laurent Flores
Founder and CEO crmmetrix

Laurent Flores, PhD, is founder and CEO of crmmetrix, the customer-listening company that builds relationships and drives innovation. Laurent drives the crmmetrix vision while consulting with Fortune 500 clients worldwide from crmmetrix offices in New York, Paris, Singapore, and Mumbai. He is a frequent speaker and writer internationally on the topic of brand website effectiveness & attitudinal web analytics, relationship marketing, social media, innovation at conferences such as AdMap, AMA, ARF, IAB, Informs Marketing Science, ESOMAR, and IREP. He sits on the first elected Board of Directors of WOMMA, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (with a term coming to an end in April 07, he will not run for an other term), as well as the ESOMAR board, the global marketing research professionals association. For his expertise in marketing and social media, he appeared in leading international journals such as The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, Times of India, La Tribune, Les Echos, etc.

Laurent started his career in marketing before moving to the market research industry, living in the UK, Belgium, France and the US while working for companies such as Millward Brown and Ipsos. While, at Ipsos, back in 1997, he was one the first and early marketing researchers to test and demonstrate the branding effects of online advertising and brand websites. He left Ipsos as Vice-President, Director of Interactive, in 2000, to set up crmmetrix to focus on understanding online marketing and specifically the role and power of brand websites to build and expand brands. Since then, SiteCRM, the first of its kind attitudinal web analytical tool, is being used by leading Fortune 500 companies worldwide including among others P&G, L’Oréal, Unilever to help marketers drive their brands online. Today, with other 6 Millions data points, the SiteCRM normative database offers unrivalled benchmarks for brand websites in the CPG and Pharma industries.

After an initial computer analyst degree, Laurent studied business and marketing, receiving his PhD in Marketing from Grenoble University (France) and is a graduate from the Wharton Business School (e-metrics program). His penchant for “academic marketing” allows him to infuse more valid and reliable concepts and measurements of marketing effectiveness in his day-to-day practice. Impassioned about what he does, Laurent is sharing his enthusiasm by teaching at different business schools in Europe and North America and writes frequently in both business and academic journals. For example in 2001, for his work on CRM and relationship marketing he received the prestigious Fernanda Monti Award from the ESOMAR.

He shares his thoughts on his blog at www.CustomerListening.typepad.com.

Avinash Kaushik
Analytics Evangelist for Google

Avinash Kaushik is the author of the highly rated blog on Web Research & Analytics called Occam’s Razor. His professional career has been focused on Decision Support Systems at Fortune 500 companies such as Silicon Graphics, DirecTV Broadband, Intuit and DHL in Asia, Middle East and the US.

Most recently Avinash was the Director of Web Research & Analytics at Intuit where he is responsible for the business, technical and strategic elements of the web decision making platform supporting 60 plus Intuit websites.

Avinash has given presentations / keynotes at conferences in the US and Europe including the Emetrics Summits, Ad-Tech, Frost & Sullivan Internet Marketing Strategies, ATG Insight Live, E-Consultancy Online Marketing Masterclasses etc. Some of the topics of the presentations were: Optimal Web Decision Making, Testing & Experimentation, Maximizing Campaign ROI & Lowering Acquisition Costs, Customer Centricity, and Evolving from Web Analytics to Web Insights.

Avinash has a Bachelors of Mechanical Engineering and a MBA in Finance & Management Information Systems. He also holds the title of Associate Instructor University of British Columbia (having contributed teaching modules toe the UBC Award of Achievement in Web Analytics courses).

Avinash’s book, Web Analytics: An Hour a Day, will be published by Wiley in May 2007. On his latest assignment Avinash is the Analytics Evangelist for Google.

Vincent Keane
Vice President of Marketing Clinical Care Options, LLC

Mr. Keane is Vice President of Marketing for Clinical Care Options, LLC and is involved in all aspects of product development, promotion and reporting. He has been building and promoting online, print and live medical education programs for over 11 years.

Prior to Clinical Care Options, Mr. Keane worked for SCP Communications on the development team that created and launched Medscape.com in June of 1996. Following the development and launch of three Web site products, Mr. Keane became the Senior Director of Marketing and helped build a team that registered over a million members within 4 years and set the standard for Web products, customer retention and direct marketing in the healthcare education market.

Mr. Keane holds a B.A. in journalism and a B.A. in English from Lehigh University.

Neil Mason
Co-Founder Applied Insights

Neil Mason is the co-founder of Applied Insights, a consumer analytics consultancy that specialises in the online space. Neil has been involved in marketing analysis for more years than he cares to remember having started off his career at ACNielsen helping major FMCG brands understand the effectiveness of their marketing programmes.

At Applied Insights, Neil consults with major businesses on using web analytics to improve online business performance. He is also a frequent speaker at web analytics conferences and events.

Neil got involved in web analytics over 7 years ago when he moved from the agency side to the client side as Chief Knowledge Officer at QXL. He developed and led the implementation of the company's marketing information strategy, implementing a customer data warehouse and a web analytics solution across the business's 12 European markets. Neil became Chief Marketing Officer for QXL in 2001 and got the opportunity to practice what he preached by putting customer insights and analysis at the core of the marketing strategy. With this experience, Neil gained a deep understanding of the pan-European e-commerce landscape and online consumer behaviour.

Before joining QXL Neil had gained over 15 years experience working in multinational marketing services organisations working with some of the world’s leading brands in a variety of general management and specialist consultancy roles.

Laura Paxia
CTO ImetriX.biz

Laura Paxia is CTO and driving force behind ImetriX.biz, the first web analytics system to be released in Italy, which debuted back in 2000.

From the outset, Laura has endeavored to promote web analytics in Italy by holding seminars, conferences and meetings at Italy's leading universities. In 2002, her success in creating the first web analytics system in Italy was recognized by the Italian Ministry of Communications, and she was named as a “Microsoft success story”. Also in 2002, she edited a newsletter and a report on web intelligence for bCentral--Microsoft's business portal--in which she encouraged companies to take proper account of the importance of monitoring and analyzing the components of their web site traffic.

She has been involved in analyzing and consulting on a range of high-profile sites for clients including Microsoft, Unicredito Group and Janssens-Cilag (Johnson & Johnson). Laura has supervised numerous PhD papers on web analytics, providing her students with relevant material and case studies. She compiled a Web Analytics Glossary for one of the leading internet marketing publications in Italy, and has written numerous articles on web analytics and search-engine marketing. Moreover, she is also co-author of the first Italian book on web analytics, Web Analytics Strategies.

Dan Perry
SEO Producer Classified Ventures LLC

Dan Perry has been in the Internet Marketing space for over 8 years. His career began in 1999 when he founded an internet marketing consulting company focused on the golf industry. Although much tougher to sell then than it is now, he was able to work with such companies as Louisville Golf, Ron Garl, Players Pass, and Pinehurst Resort.

In 2003 he accepted a position at Career Education Corporation, where he was in charge of the strategic direction of 80+ college and university web sites. In addition to being responsible for organic traffic and lead flow, Dan also was the driving force behind the implementation and company-wide use of Omniture SiteCatalyst.

During his tenure at Career Education, Dan was a sought after speaker on a variety of online marketing topics. He's spoken at such conferences as Search Engine Strategies, ad:tech, the Internet Marketing Conference, and most recently, the Emetrics Summit. He's also a previous SEMPO Board of Director.

Dan is currently employed at Cars.com as an SEO Producer, assisting with an acquisition of theirs, NewCars.com. He remains active in the online space, recently being selected as a judge for the 2007 ad:tech Advertising and Interactive Marketing Awards.

Marshall Sponder
Web Metrics Analyst, Search Metrics and SEO/SEM IBM

Marshall Sponder is a Web Analyst and Artist who works for IBM; he maintains his own Search Engine Marketing Consultancy and has several B2B and B2C clients. Marshall's blog, www.WebMetricsGuru.com is one of the most influential and viewed blogs on Web Metrics. Marshall also writes ArtNewYorkCity.com which covers the New York Art world along with his own art; Marshall writes for Smartmobs.com and Biggreenblog.com as well.

Marshall is also a chat moderator for Search Engine Workshops and World Resource Center. Special Interests are: Art and Technology, Visitor and Audience Segmentation using Geo Demographics, Search Marketing and Optimization, Podcasting and RSS Feed Measurement and Metrics, Keyword Optimization, Content Analysis, Link Analysis, Competitive Analysis, SWOT Analysis to provide insight to site owners.

John Squire
Senior Vice President, Product Strategy & General Manager, Marketing Services Coremetrics

I strongly believe the digital marketing industry has many exciting challenges and opportunities ahead, and as a WAA Board member, I would be deeply committed to serving the membership and industry by providing and supporting best practices on how to turn rich online customer behavior data into rapid, accurate, and valuable decision-making processes in a dynamic, digital environment. Additionally, I will certainly seize the opportunity to work broadly with the analyst, venture capital, and media communities serving the analytics industry.

I am a strong advocate of pushing innovative concepts, with ideas and brainstorming being a regular feature of any meeting. In addition, I would bring perspective and experience from a wide range of industries, focusing on how best practices can be shared for the advancement of new ideas and innovation.

In my view, online marketing is the best marketing investment that a company can make, enabling marketers to maximize exposure, make adjustments and measure the results - instantly. The measurement and analytics element is absolutely vital as the digital media landscape continues to evolve and become more complex. My aim is to share with WAA members how they can spend more time on revenue-impacting strategy and less time on day-to-day tactics, through educational efforts based on the role of analytics and marketing automation.

Robbin Steif
CEO LunaMetrics

Dear WAA:

Will you marry me?

I know you think I am kidding, but I’m quite serious. You see, we’ve had a very fulfilling and mutually beneficial relationship over the past year and half, and I’m ready to take the next step.

I’ve been co-chair of your Marketing Committee for almost a year now. True, I still don’t bring you flowers on Valentine’s Day. But, I went out and created a whole program for your members to get discounts at non-WAA events. (And isn’t saving money better than getting chocolate?) The discount program also created a lot of visibility for the WAA, since all the other web organizations now feature you as a sponsor.

I also put in place a network of volunteers – Marketing Leads, we call them – who support the various committees. One of the marketing leads has been very successfully reshaping your monthly emailing into a newsletter that will be filled with web analytic content. Another one is working to re-brand the Web Analytic Forum as a WAA “property.” The Membership Marketing Lead did such an awesome job that we made him membership co-chair, “reporting” to Marketing for now, and Membership is creating a sophisticated renewal process.

I’ve pulled together volunteers who will create new exclusive content for your website. And speaking of that website, I’m now working with the Board to create significant technical and platform changes. After all, my love, you are a technology organization, and shouldn’t your technology be the best around?

Now, back to that marriage proposal. We’ve been seeing a lot of each other – way more than five hours per week. I’m ready to have a deeper relationship with you. I’d like to have a say in our finances. I want to be involved with our plans for the future, and not just implement our current projects. I want to talk to you more about what our mission will be in 18 months instead of just execute the one we have in place right now.

I know your parents will care more about my background (parents are always that way.) Remind them that I am CEO of LunaMetrics, an Internet marketing company that uses web analytics to increase conversion rates. We are a Google Analytic Approved Consulting company. Tell them that I was doing direct response marketing long before the Internet was around. They might be impressed to know that I am a frequent web analytic blogger. And if they think that all that matters in life is education (the way that my parents do), you can tell them that I graduated from Harvard College and the Harvard Business School. But don’t tell them that last part unless you have to; they should really care mostly about my commitment to you these past 18 months.

Robbin Steif, CEO
LunaMetrics