An Extension of Your Marketing Team

• Financial Services Marketing
• Acquisition Marketing
• Customer Marketing
• Multi-Channel and Cross-Sell Marketing
• Project Management

• Lead Generation
• Strategy
• Team Leadership
• Analytics
• Direct Marketing

Artful Insights, Proven Impact

Karen Paluska prides herself on thinking about “the big picture” of marketing strategy without sacrificing the critical attention to detail that can make or break a project. Brand strategy and messaging are two of Karen’s particular areas of expertise, but she has a wide range of marketing skills and can always pull out the right tool for the job. With her extensive art background, combined with strong writing skills and an aptitude for project management, she is a one-stop-shop when it comes to executing large projects. Whether it’s a product launch or a website rebrand, if Karen is involved, the strategy will be on point, the deadline will be met, and the deliverable will be a work of art.

A Bay Area Native with a Wealth of High-Tech Experience

Karen grew up in San Mateo and earned a degree in Communication from Stanford before heading off to Budapest, Hungary, to teach English and travel. Once she moved back to the Bay Area, she worked for WebTV Networks where she fell in love with the adrenaline-rush of the startup world. She went on to complete a Master’s degree in Communication, Culture, and Technology from Georgetown, but after two years of living on the East Coast, she was ready to make her way back to the tech world. At the consumer electronics startup Moxi, she helped launch the company at CES and win Best of Show for the product. At Intuit, she created a welcome guide and worked on positioning and messaging of the QuickBooks Payroll family of products. Karen recently spent three years living in Paris before returning to the Bay Area where she’s now consulting for a variety of tech-focused companies.

Getting to the Heart of the Matter

Karen looks at every job through the lens of a designer. What is the personality of the brand in question? How should that personality look and feel, and how can it stand out from the competition? She prides herself on being able to identify the heart of a company’s mission and creating deliverables that establish a strong, consistent brand.

Time Off: Next Stop the Prado

Karen enjoys painting and creative writing in her free time. When visiting museums, she loves modern art but can also spend hours admiring the incredible detail of medieval illuminated manuscripts. These days, Karen’s biggest marketing challenge is convincing her two school-aged children that museums can be fun places to visit – but watch out, kids, Karen is nothing if not persistent.

• Brand Strategy
• Product Innovation
• Trend Identification and Strategy
• Customer Insight
• Consumer Products

• Marketing Strategy
• Product Marketing
• Product Management
• Web Marketing
• Channel Marketing

• Project Management
• Video Production
• Event Marketing
• Marketing Communications
• Integrated Marketing

• Product Management
• Customer Acquisition
• Product Marketing
• Social Media
• Online Marketing

• Content Strategy
• Writing and Developmental Editing
• Search Engine Optimization
• Email Marketing
• Google Analytics

• Data Science
• Analytics
• Database Engineering
• Machine Learning

A Marketing Generalist with a Global Perspective

Nancy is a creative thinker, adventurer, and team builder. She’s also an expert in both business development as well as marketing & communications strategy, making her an ideal fit for a wide variety of marketing programs. She is currently working with the Intuit Developer Group to bring apps developed with strategic partners to market. She explains what the apps do, describes the benefits to customers, and her work has produced exactly the results the company hoped it would. Intuit didn’t need an app for that. They had Nancy.

A Successful Launch of Her Own

It’s a great big world out there, and Nancy is working hard to discover every square inch of it. A California native with a liberal arts background, Nancy was considering a career in law but landed instead at Apple, where she was part of the team that helped to launch the company’s operations in Japan and China. As a result of her experiences living in Hong Kong and Singapore, Nancy has set a goal for herself to visit 100+ countries. She crosses destinations off the same way she crosses off projects, one unforgettable adventure at a time.

A Global Leader, A Can-Do Attitude

Nancy prides herself on being a citizen of the world. She knows from firsthand experience that what works in the U.S. market may not work abroad. Her expertise has benefited more than a few companies that understand that as great as the U.S. market is, overseas markets are where the real action is. She’s also a people person who believes in the importance of getting to know your teammates, letting them know what you do, and that you’re eager to help them. Happy to set strategy or carry it out, she wears the title “working director” with pride.

Time Off: Meaningful Friendships, Epic Adventures

Nancy’s spirit of adventure simply knows no bounds. She’s photographed polar bears in Northern Canada, just under the arctic circle. She’s scaled Mt. Rainier and Mt. Kilimanjaro. Living and working in Asia gave her chance to explore parts of China, Thailand, and Cambodia most people don’t see. She’s an outdoors enthusiast who loves spending time with friends and hanging out with horses. Nancy isn’t somebody that likes to sit still. The world is waiting, and Nancy is on her way.

• Lead Generation
• SEM
• Digital Marketing Strategy
• SEO
• Data Analytics

Your Marketing Mission’s Missing Link

Rachel Plasse has worn many marketing hats in her career, from product manager to communications specialist to marketing analytics team leader. Some people might say this makes her a true integrated marketing professional. Her clients would say it makes her truly indispensable. You never really know what the challenge will be: Whether it’s targeting strategy, demand generation, message or content development, Rachel enjoys rolling up her sleeves, figuring out exactly what needs to be done, and doing it.

Building Her Skill Set, Finding Her Way West

Rachel grew up in Maryland and attended Ithaca College in Upstate New York, where she studied media management and business. After moving back to the DC Area, she studied for her Masters while working in Consumer Marketing for Bell Atlantic (Verizon). Following a two-year stint abroad to help develop MCI Worldcom’s Asia-Pacific business, she returned to the East Coast and joined Harte-Hanks to assist automotive, pharmaceutical and high-tech clients in leveraging and learning from their marketing data. She came to the San Francisco area eight years ago, where she put on her consulting hat. Rachel’s passion for marketing grew out of her twin interests in design and analytics. Compelling, strategically smart ideas specifically targeted to generate results: That’s what drives Rachel.

A Full-Spectrum Marketer Passionate about Getting Results

Rachel is very exacting about what it takes to achieve a client’s marketing objectives. She begins with two questions: What are the client’s goals? What marketing components will enable these goals to be achieved? Defining answers to these two critical queries is the best way to ensure the client maximizes their marketing investment. Rachel prides herself on being able to work with people, collaborating with designers, developers, and the client’s sales force. Above all, she strongly believes in taking the time to find the right target audience, getting to know that audience’s needs, and reaching it in a meaningful, memorable way. Accomplish that, and everything else falls into place. Rachel will see to it that it does.

Off Time: Getting Outdoors Is Always In Season

Rachel and her husband fell in love with the Bay Area’s active lifestyle, and they try to take full advantage of it when they’re not working. Hiking. Camping. Skiing. Scuba Diving. Bungee Jumping. (Okay, she only went bungee jumping once and swears she’ll never do that again.) The mother of two girls, ages 10 and 8, who she insists are “quickly becoming tougher than their mom,” Rachel is no stranger to the outdoors. From lengthy treks to hidden swimming holes to black diamond skiing at Lake Tahoe, Rachel and her family like to take full advantage of everything the region has to offer. Rachel and her family have recently moved to Portland, OR, where they’re looking forward to tackling a whole new set of adventures.

Recent Blog Posts

• From Julia Child to Joy of Cooking: A More Approachable Salesforce for Smaller Organizations
• 4 Things That Inspired One of 150,000 at Dreamforce 2015
• Plan Before You Shop: A CRM System for Your B2B, Part 2
• Plan Before You Shop: A CRM System for Your B2B, Part 1
• Stop, Think, Analyze: Improve the Payoff of Your Targeted Marketing Investment

• Leadership Coaching
• Product Marketing
• Brand Strategy
• Personal Branding
• Marketing Strategy

• Big Data Exploration
• Customer Segmentation, Profiling, Modeling
• Insight/Trend/Campaign/Cohort Analysis
• Web Tracking & Analytics
• Acquisition, Engagement, & Retention
• Metrics Visualization / Dashboards
• Business Intelligence
• End-to-End Marketing Campaign Management

• Program Management
• Marketing Strategy
• Analytics
• Financial Services
• Project Management

• Digital Strategy
• Strategic Partnerships
• Social Media
• Sales Development
• Content Development

• Direct Marketing
• Branding
• Customer Acquisition
• Customer Relationship Management
• Financial Services Marketing

• Inbound Marketing and Content Strategy
• Product Marketing
• Community Management
• Product Launch
• Partner Marketing

MEET TARA, MARKETING MAVEN, PUZZLE MASTER

As a wide-ranging marketing generalist, Tara Verner truly loves synthesizing information and determining how each piece of the puzzle fits together. She’s a firm believer in examining issues through a variety of lenses, and knows that even small tweaks can yield big results. Tara leaves no stone unturned, and her love of data gives her an added edge in helping to stretch the client’s dollars. A proficient problem solver, she’s constantly looking for ways to optimize every situation and enjoys the challenge of overcoming creative constraints.

BAY AREA BORN, DRIVEN FROM THE START

A San Francisco native, Tara studied journalism and Spanish at Southern Methodist University before working in corporate communications at a small brokerage firm. Wanting to be closer to the front end of product creation, she received her MBA from Boston University and then became a brand and product manager. Drawn in by the first dot-com boom, she returned home to the Bay Area with her husband and has been excelling ever since. After starting out in direct mail, Tara has gained a wealth of experience in the highly measurable fields of email, online, lead generation marketing, website optimization and loves utilizing metrics to improve a project’s performance.

NO CHALLENGE TOO BIG, NO COMPANY TOO SMALL

Professionally, Tara believes a career should be “like a jungle gym and not a ladder.” Not limited by a company’s size, her depth and breadth of skills can help any organization be a better, more efficient marketer, especially in an industry like technology that features such rapidly changing mediums. In addition to the ability to merge various skillsets, connecting talented people keeps Tara engaged and invigorated by her work. This is true internally, working across teams, but also externally, making discoveries about customers’ desires and helping them achieve their goals. Getting to know her customers and building products for their needs is at the heart of Tara’s work.

TIME OFF: DEVOTED MOM, WITH A KILLER FIRST SERVE

Outside of consulting, Tara adores her three young girls, and enjoys cheering them on at plays, basketball games, swim meets and more. They surely get athletic inspiration from their mom, who stays active herself with both a weekly tennis and weightlifting group. Tara is a doer by nature, and takes pride in doing things efficiently. She finds particular joy in discovering new tools to help her better manage projects and initiatives, even household ones, and is consistently reading and staying up to date on the latest marketing ideas, philosophies, and platforms. She’s always striving to learn and to be a better marketer.

Recent Blog Posts

• Marketing for Good: Give Back. Get Better.
• Rohit Bhargava’s Tips on How to Think Different, Curate Ideas and Predict the Future

• Product Marketing
• Go-to-market Strategy
• Messaging & Positioning
• Marketing Communications
• Product Management

• Product Marketing
• Strategic Partnerships
• Competitive Analysis
• Pricing
• Go-to-market Strategy

• Marketing Orchestration
• Operations and Program Management
• Product Marketing
• Cross-functional Communication
• Market Research

• CFO Services
• FP&A
• Financial Modeling
• Business Plans

AN IDEALIST & CREATIVE MIND

Born in Southern California and raised in nearby Menlo Park, Colan graduated with a degree in Art History from Stanford University. Colan’s professional career began with teaching and museum work, including a stint at The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy. He then worked as a teacher’s assistant and participated in the Visa Volunteer Program.

SMALL BUSINESS & MARKETING IN HIS BLOOD

In 1995, Colan went to work with his dad to run a small promotional products and recognition awards business. Previously, business had seemed anathema to Colan, but he found the experience to be rewarding and educational; he especially gravitated towards marketing, which he finds to be an ideal fusion of creative arts, analytics, and psychology. He spent 5 years working with his father and has a unique, intimate understanding of small business owners.

THE INTUIT YEARS

He joined Intuit in 2000 and has worked as both an employee and a consultant for over a decade in Brand Marketing, Process Excellence, Search Marketing, and Direct Marketing roles. He’s a trained Six Sigma Black Belt in marketing process improvement and along the way, he received an MBA from San Jose State University.

ONLINE MARKETING CONSULTANT BY DAY, OUTDOOR ADVENTURER BY NIGHT

Colan has been consulting for 5 years, working for companies like Invisalign, Autodesk, Seagate, Credit Sesame, and Intuit. He loves building campaigns from scratch and delivering something a client has never had before, which gives him an affinity for startups. When he’s not busy helping his clients, Colan loves to be hiking outdoors. His favorite local trails are found at Almaden Quicksilver County Park, but he’s explored much of the Southwestern United States, including Zion National Park and the Sonoran Desert.

• Online Marketing
• Brand Management
• Product Marketing
• Customer Insights
• Competitive Analysis

• SEM
• Lead Generation
• Analytics
• eCommerce
• Customer Acquisition

• Project Management
• Integrated Marketing
• Packaging Specialist
• Brand Management

• SEO
• Social Media
• Content Marketing
• Marketing Strategy
• Copywriting

• Product Management
• User Experience
• Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
• Digital Strategy
• Information Architecture

• Digital Marketing
• Search Engine Optimization
• Content Strategy
• Social Media Marketing

• Go-to-Market Strategy
• Branding & Messaging
• Lead Generation
• Product Marketing
• Program Management

• Marketing Strategy
• PR
• Project Management
• Product Marketing
• Online Marketing

Turning Complex Projects Into Compelling Success Stories

Learning on the fly, juggling multiple needs simultaneously, making sense from ambiguity: These aren’t just tricks of the project management trade. They’re the reasons companies ranging from Intel to Intuit to Hewlett-Packard have turned to Lisa Ramirez to implement large projects on their behalves. “Know what you don’t know” is how Lisa Ramirez describes the key to implementing projects both large and small. Clients describe Lisa as their own personal secret weapon.

Mastering the Art of Problem Solving

Born in beautiful Pacific Grove, CA, raised just outside of San Jose, Lisa studied information systems at San Jose State but was attracted to marketing early on in her career. After earning her MBA at Notre Dame, Lisa’s own marketing career was off and running. Hardware. Software. There was no product or service Lisa couldn’t master, and the tech world embraced her with open arms. It didn’t take long for her to realize that too many companies underestimate the value of an effective marketing strategy. When they eventually realized their mistake, Lisa was there to help save the day.

The Bigger the Project, The Greater the Satisfaction

You know that big, messy project with all of those complex moving parts that nobody else wants to tackle? That’s Lisa’s specialty. A quick study with a knack for working well with a variety of people, Lisa’s ability to stay on top of evolving, unpredictable jobs has rescued more than a few projects from the brink. It might be a product launch. It might be a price change, it could be rolling out a new website. Lisa makes sure the job gets done. Being a consultant has enabled her to steer clear of many of the challenges that can slow a project down. Lisa’s sole focus is solving her client’s problems, and that’s exactly what she does.

Time Off: A Pet Cause with a Giant Heart

Lisa isn’t just a dog person. For countless Bay Area dogs searching for a home, she’s a hero. Lisa spends much of her free time fostering dogs for the Humane Society of Silicon Valley, providing a caring home for animals that have struggled with the shelter environment. They may have medical needs. They may have anxiety issues. Luckily for them, they also have Lisa. She nurtures their needs and provides them with a temporary place to live while helping them find to a permanent home. It’s one more project to manage, but it’s one that’s especially close to her heart.

• Demand Generation
• SEM
• Integrated Marketing
• Project Management
• Lead Generation

• Product Management
• eCommerce
• Product Development
• Online Marketing
• Social Media

• Branding
• Customer Acquisition
• Online Marketing
• Social Marketing
• Project Management

• Investor Relations
• Financial Modeling
• Financial Analysis

• Product Marketing
• Direct Marketing
• Strategic Planning
• Search Engine Marketing
• Marketing Communications

• Direct Marketing
• Product Marketing
• Lead Generation & Acquisition
• E-commerce & SEO
• CRM & Retention

• Program Coordination
• Customer Research
• Event Planning
• Non-profits
• Recruiting

• FP&A
• Financial Modeling
• Acquisition Integrations
• Systems (ERP) Implementation
• Business Planning

• Lead Generation
• Product Marketing
• Marketing Communications
• Integrated Marketing
• Social Media Marketing

• CFO Services
• Controllership
• Accounting