Analytics & Insights Forum - May 10

Description

Generating insights from raw data

Moderator:  Rich Herbst, CEO, Ascend Marketing
Panelists:  Sachin Shroff, senior director, CRM & marketing analytics, The Container Store
                   Cory Jones, VP, head of marketing, Fujitsu North America
                   Brigid Koch, senior manager, CRM, Hilton Worldwide
                   Venkatesh Kalluru, CTO, Sertics

Many organizations are striving to deliver better product and customer experiences by harnessing data and technology in more advanced ways.  Their goal:  to respond intelligently to customers' needs and preferences.  Data is often the toughest challenge, based on all the disparate data signals streaming from various channels, platforms, and systems.  How does one transform all these data signals into actionable intelligence?  And what sorts of data/automation tools and methods enable customer response and personalization in manageable, scaleable and timely ways?  In this session, we will explore emerging methods, tools and best practices in the following areas:

• Data access and data flow management
• Harnessing data for customer perspective & insights
• Data modeling and machine learning to drive insights
• Data activation to fuel brand action
• Dashboarding your data insights

Moderator:
Founding Ascend in 2004, managing partner Rich Herbst provides the visionary leadership behind Ascend's unique approach to marketing services, based on more than 30 years of experience in marketing and sales support.  The core of his background is in business-to-business services marketing and consumer packaged goods with firms such as Verizon Communications, ConAgra Frozen Foods, and James River Corp.  He has solid expertise in the software, retail, restaurant, and real estate industries, where he has worked with small start-ups as well as large firms.  Rich served as a strategic leader in Verizon, leading a team that launched high speed internet and other onlines services for small and medium businesses. 

Sachin Shroff is a visionary marketing leader who is passionate about driving business goals using data and analytics, with a proven track record of driving multi-million-dollar growth through CRM and advanced analytics.  He has expertise in leading data, analytics and technology teams, CRM strategy and execution, customer acquisition strategies, media mix modeling, sales forecasting and research.  He is currently senior director for CRM and marketing analytics at The Container Store.





Cory Jones is head of marketing for Fujitsu America, where he is responsible for executing the global marketing strategy, regionalizing global programs, and delivering marketing programs focused on generating demand for the Fujitsu portfolio.  This includes the full marketing lifecycle including go-to-market strategy, launch plans for key offerings, sales enablement tools and demand generation campaigns, all of which are underpinned by demand center marketing capabilities and analytics to optimize social, web and digital marketing programs and offerings.  With more than 20 years of traditional, digital marketing and demand generation experience, Cory has led large, global teams primarily in ICT and has been responsible for customer acquisition, win-back and retention, and brand marketing.  He is also experienced at marketing automation, building commercial demand centers and integrating web and CRM platforms.

Brigid Koch is senior manager, Customer Activation at Hilton with a passion for customer lifecycle marketing.  She has over 19 years of extensive customer marketing program development experience across a broad spectrum of industries, including leaders in hospitality, travel, telecommunications and entertainment.  Driven by opportunities to creatively problem-solve, she relishes any new technology and capabilities that allow for continuous learning and excellent customer experience.



Venkatesh Kalluru is an experienced technologist with hands-on experience in automating multi-million dollar enterprises and a strong record of success in creating robust information technology architectures and infrasturctures.  His expertise includes technology architecture, the creation and mangament of enterprise-level data centers, as well as predictivie analytics implementation.  He spearheaded process initiatives involving CMMI, agile development, and automation at firms including ReThink IT, GCE, AT&T, SevenTablets and his own company, WiWeeki.  With more than 15 years of expertise in a diverse range of technologies, he provides strategic technological direction for SevenTablet's predictive analytics platform, Sertics.