Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
With over 25 years of experience in technology, product, and people management, I am a visionary and customer-centric digital leader and consultant. I founded Wilderness Media, a company that builds digital platforms for the tourism industry, with a purpose-driven mission to create lasting connections between nature enthusiasts and local communities, while supporting environmental non-profit organizations. As the Chief Digital Officer, I lead the digital product portfolio for Wilderness Media, including Safari Story, a technology start-up that offers immersive and interactive e-commerce experiences for game reserves, lodges, field guides, and tour operators. I leverage my expertise in marketing technology to optimize the product development lifecycle and utilize Agile methodologies across diverse teams and projects. I am also an inspirational and collaborative leader, with a track record of steering digital transformation initiatives, re-architecting systems and technologies, and mitigating risks in large-scale corporate environments. I hold an MBA from Heriot-Watt University, a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Administration and Management, and a certificate in Executive Leadership from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.
Chris Summers, founder of Willing & Maple, brings over 20 years of experience managing large-scale projects in the corporate world — overseeing complex operations, coordinating teams, and ensuring excellence at every stage.
Wilderness Media builds digital platforms that enable game reserves, lodges, field guides and tour operators to create lasting connections with their guests and nature enthusiasts while supporting local communities and environmental non-profit organizations.
Leading the digital product portfolio for a technology start-up in the tourism industry.
Built and ran a consumer first e-commerce experiences for Reebok.com and adidas.com as a member of IT leadership team and collaborated closely with global business stakeholders, product marketing and UX/UI counterparts. Managed three hundred percent growth of engineering team focused on software development, solution architecture, program management, business analysis and agile practice.
Played a pivotal product management role in the digital team developing platforms that provided product data, brand content, and social media capabilities. Collaborated with IT, analytics and content creation counterparts to deliver exceptional support to all adidas’s digital channels.
UrbanCherry LLC is an enterprise content management consultancy, focused on the implementation of SDL's Tridion platform.
Advised Yale School of Medicine, while serving as digital lead for web based products. Established a custom content creation platform for Yale School of Medicine newsroom. Designed and managed the transition from fully hosted IT infrastructure to a Microsoft Azure based cloud architecture.
Served as Principal CMS Architect and mentor for team, while integrating WebSphere Commerce Server for Mattel’s multi-brand ecommerce project.
Led a global team of consultants in the creation and delivery of training and certification materials.
Served on the US Management Team and built company’s profitable North American consulting practice that generated over 500% growth in 2 years.