Hershey, Pennsylvania, United States
Senior level Digital Marketing, Social Media, Content Marketing, Lead Gen and eCommerce, Integrated Marketing & Digital Media executive with a successful track record of driving Digital Transformation, building Digital capabilities, driving significant Sales Growth, audience engagement and building strong, healthy brands. Category expertise in CPG, FMCG, Health & Wellness, Hard Goods, Food Service, QSR and Restaurant, Automotive, Travel/Tourism, Pharma, Healthcare and multiple B2B verticals. 15+ years in-house experience at The Hershey Company, Aramark and Medifast Inc., leading Digital Marketing, Social Media, Community Management and Social Listening, Digital Innovation and Capability building, Content Marketing, Media Planning, User Experience, Website Design & User Experience, Emerging Technology, AI Integration, SEO, SEM, eCommerce, Shopper Marketing, Consumer Promotions and Data, Analytics & Insights disciplines 10+ years Agency experience, including both all digital and full service agencies, including as Senior Vice President of Client Services for 4 years at Grey Worldwide on brands including Campbell’s Soup Company, Merck, Sungard, Dean Foods, Unified Grocers, Caron Treatment Centers and other D2C & B2B clients. Founder of independent Consulting Practice focused on Digital Marketing, Executive Presence Coaching Career Consulting and Business Etiquette Skills training. Strategic thought leader with a digital transformation and growth mindset that knows how to build capability through innovation and rapid-pace experimentation, then implement and flawlessly execute at scale with speed, agility, effectiveness and efficiency in order to drive positive business outcomes. Specific strengths in solving complex business challenges with results-oriented digital marketing solutions that deliver strong ROI, Sales Growth, Engagement, Lead Generation and Brand Health performance, and providing thought leadership and multi-disciplinary collaboration across matrixed orgs and stakeholders. Significant experience in managing external partners including agencies, consultants, technology partners and platforms, and driving mutually-beneficial working relationships and value added outputs. Fully responsible for managing department budgets Strong ability to demystify digital marketing, social media and emerging technology to its fundamental roots and educate marketers and other colleagues on how to apply to their businesses through strong communication, speaking at industry events and training.
Global Social Media Lead at Kidde Residential Fire & Safety, the Market Leader in Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Detectors, Fire Extinguishers and other home safety products. * Lead development of Social Media Strategy for portfolio of Kidde Residential and Firex Professional brands and execution of all social programs across all leading social platforms including YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Reddit and more. * Develop branded and ownable organic and paid Social Media Content across all platforms, with a focus on Education-oriented storytelling and differentiated technology, features and functions * Lead Community Management, Social Listening and related analytics and insights generation to drive actionable business decisioning using the Sprout Social platform * Lead Ratings & Reviews and Product Seeding programs through BazaarVoice and retail partners The Home Depot, Wal*Mart, Amazon and more * Develop Paid Social Strategy to extend reach and engagement with content * Manage 3 specialized Agency Partners to ensure strategies are aligned and deliver programs with operational excellence
* Founder of Consulting practice focused on Digital and traditional Marketing Strategy, ECommerce, Media Strategy, Social Media Strategy and tactical execution, Content Marketing and Creative Asset Production and Lead Generation to clients in the Food, Consumer Packaged Goods, Hard Goods, Healthcare, Healthy Living and Wellness, B2B, SaaS, Media and Publishing, Retail, Travel, Restaurant, Youth Sports and Education sectors. * Specific disciplines include marketing, advertising and lead generation strategy development; brand building; Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) planning and execution; turnkey social media management including creative execution, content creation, tone of voice development, social media community management, social listening and reporting; website design, user experience and usability testing, creative production and program management; SEO and SEM strategy & program management; MarTech capabilities assessment / evaluation; data analysis; Executive Coaching, Career Coaching and more * Cox Digital Consulting LLC's style of working mirrors leading professional services firms at a fraction of the cost and delivers a highly collaborative working style, quick turnarounds with a focus on speed to market and critical end-to-end services from strategic thought leadership through turnkey tactical execution, implementation and project management, as well as Analytics evaluation and insight derivation of all qualitative and quantitative measurement. * Founded the company in April 2018. Operated independently on 3 occasions between full time roles: - April 2018 to March 2019 - January to November 2023 - November 2024 - Nov 2025 * While consulting with Medifast, took over role of Head of Digital Marketing for the company in March 2020, as the COVID-19 Pandemic quarantine was beginning. Lead efforts in this role for 6+ months from March to Sept 2020, when I was brought on board as a full-time employee as the Senior Director of Digital Marketing
Leader of Digital Experience, Digital Marketing, Digital Media, SEM, SEO, Content Marketing and Ecommerce Strategy for $1.8B Workplace Experience Group business unit that is part of $13B Food Service market leader (NYSE:ARMK) focused on generating awareness, elevating user experience, driving greater sales, engagement and client satisfaction • Developed Strategic Integrated Marketing & Ecommerce Plan and delivered digital programs that drove +42% sales increase in FY24 with +29% increase in total Ecomm users and +14% increase website sessions • Led the transformation of business unit’s Ecommerce program including new website strategy, elevated visual design, simplified UX, new Akeneo PIM and AI recommendation engine integration while migrating from SAP Hybris to Adobe Commerce Engine. Delivered project on time and on budget, collaborating with multiple internal teams and 4 external agencies including IBM, Infosys, Arvato Systems & HGS. • Created 150+ pages of lead generation marketing content and new promotional calendar strategy for use on Ecomm site and Organic Social Media efforts on LinkedIn, Facebook & Instagram • Developed first Paid Search Campaign to support Ecommerce program and piloted 6-month SEM test driving +14% increase in site visits, +6% CTR (2X better than industry avg) and +7% lift in AOV on a $40K PPC budget * Leveraged leading platforms Google Ads Manager, Google Analytics, Semrush, Adobe Commerce Engine, Adobe Experience Manager and Salesforce to implement programs and track key performance indicators and results. * Implemented new Content Management / Creation processes and DAM solutions in Workplace Dining team, driving greater upsell/cross-sell of menu items and greater end consumer satisfaction in B2B2C workplace dining. Partnered with leading POS providers Nextep, Micros & Mashgin to deliver enhanced visual digital design on digital kiosks, mobile ordering apps and websites. Increased percent of menu items with images from 40% to 90%
Head of Digital Marketing at Medifast (NYSE: MED), parent company of OPTAVIA Health & Wellness system. Led the development of first Digital Marketing Strategy and IMC programs to generate awareness of the brand and support community of 60K+ Health Coaches. Led execution of all Digital Marketing, Media, Advertising and Social Media efforts. Managed multi-million dollar marketing budget and people leader of team of 4 SMEs. New efforts helped grow sales +200% from $650M in 2019 to over $1.6B in 2021 Social Media Strategy & Execution – developed and implemented new Social strategy to drive greater reach and engagement with OPTAVIA consumer-facing content. Managed external creative agency and in-house content creators and measured KPIs to generate key insights. Grew Facebook followers +260% and Instagram followers +440% over 3 FY Social Listening Services – implemented Sprinklr platform to measure social content performance (quant + qual), derive insights, fuel strategic optimization an generate monthly dashboards which led to multiple cost-saving outcomes Paid Digital Media – developed 1st ever paid digital advertising guiding principles to support the Coach-driven model, create awareness and drive lead generation efforts for the Ecommerce site * SEM: led 6-7 monthly Paid Search campaigns that consistently delivered double digit increases MoM & YoY for Clicks, Conversions, Revenue, Absolute Top of Page Rate and Impression Share * Paid Social: boosted organic posts and targeted dark posts that drove double-digit increases in reach and engagement, while lowering CPM for 3 years straight * OTT/Online Video: launched multi-channel Paid Digital Media-driven Acquisition program that drove +12% higher average order values vs traditionally-acquired Clients Content Strategy & Creation - developed new content strategy focused on creating authentic and ownable content to showcase core equities and strategic pillars of the OPTAVIA brand. Created 2,000+ new content assets
• Led the holistic management of all paid, owned and earned Social Media efforts for 15 U.S. brands including Hershey’s Chocolate Franchise, Kisses, KitKat, Icebreakers, Jolly Rancher, Twizzlers and more, a critical element of the brands’ multichannel, integrated marketing communications plans. • Led all Paid Social Media Planning, Buying and Optimization efforts of $50MM+ media budget, leading both Media and Creative agencies to develop plans and content that drove maximum reach at greatest efficiency, impact and engagement. Drove an average of +6% sales growth for core brands and achieved double-digit ROIs for several of those brands from 3Q17-1Q18 • Developed Social Media Guiding Principles Toolkit including standards for tone of voice, visual identity standards, monthly content calendars, paid media plans, influencer activations and earned media efforts. • Developed company’s first comprehensive Influencer Marketing Strategy to maximize reach and engagement potential of influencers for brands’ key audience segments • Utilized leading social listening and insights platforms Sprinklr and Crimson Hexagon to identify consumer trends and audience segment hot buttons in order to drive content strategy, media targeting and buying efforts and product innovation ideation • Developed content pre-testing measurement protocols with Facebook and Instagram, and brands’ content consistently outperformed CPG category norms by 5-10% across 12 KPIs • Lead the social media launch of Hershey’s Gold, an award-winning innovation product in 4Q17, including integration with US Olympic Team in 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Korea. Program drove record-setting engagement through consumer promotion with NBC Sports, couponing and sampling programs, influencer/celebrity endorsements and digital media advertising. Fastest-growing Tier 1 innovation launch in company history, including doubling of sales forecast from $50MM to over $100MM in Year 1.
• Represented Marketing Excellence COE and led joint taskforce with Hershey IS team to develop company’s first Marketing Technology Framework and Roadmap to identify MarTech platforms, tools & partners needed to achieve company’s growth goals • Key initiatives born out of the Roadmap included creation and deployment of company’s first DMP, Data Lake, Digital Asset Management System and new Content Management System • Personally lead the first initiative out of the Roadmap, a CMS audit and RFP which concluded in the selection of Adobe Experience Manager as company’s enterprise-level CMS and CRM platform, along with the subsequent deployment of AEM • Developed Self-Service Framework to optimize the features and functions of the Adobe platform on all company websites in less than 1 year using component and template-based user experience and design strategy focusing on mobile-first, ecommerce-enabled, multi-channel experiences along with all appropriate guiding principles, governance and security protocols. Trained all Brand Marketers and Creative Agency partners on how to utilize new Framework on AEM. • Redesigned 55+ global websites in less than 10 months. All were deployed in AEM, along with 500+ pieces of new content, with the project completed 4 months ahead of schedule and $3MM under budget
• Scaled digital video model to entire portfolio of advertised US brands that included video ad networks, endemic sites and first foray into programmatic planning and buying • Launched company’s first B2C & D2C ecommerce programs from brand websites and retail partner sites • Enhanced all US websites to responsive design to optimize mobile experience and grow site visits by 50% and engagements by nearly 100% • Created standardized Digital Marketing Analytics reporting practices including all KPIs, benchmarks and insights derived from consumer interactions • Launched first at-scale mobile campaigns for US brands’ equity advertising and customer-specific, Shopper Marketing programs • Authored comprehensive Digital Best Practices Training course and learning portal, presented content to 100+ Hershey marketers at Digital Immersion Day event