Board of Advisors
The board of advisors was established to provide relevant thought leadership from senior management & marketing professionals regarding branding issues and industry trends. The board also offers counsel for the direction of the company.
Susan Baisley
Managing Director, U.S. Marketing – The Citigroup
Susan Baisley is a Managing Director and Head of U.S. Marketing for The Citigroup Private Bank. She is responsible for providing strategic marketing planning as well as marketing execution for The Citigroup Private Bank. The U.S. Marketing team’s responsibilities include market research, public relations, marketing materials, client events and sponsorships, advertising, and direct marketing.
Ms. Baisley brings 17 years of experience in private banking and marketing to Citigroup. Previously, she headed Marketing for Goldman Sachs’ Private Wealth Management Group. Prior to that, she headed the Marketing Department for J.P. Morgan’s U.S. Private Bank. In addition, Ms. Baisley held a number of management positions in that organization, including heading Marketing for the European and Middle East Private Bank (based in Geneva) and developing the brand and marketing plan for a mutual fund company that J.P. Morgan created with Daichi-Kangyo Bank (based in Japan).
Ms. Baisley holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA in Natural Sciences (Biochemistry concentration) from Johns Hopkins University.
Keith Costello
Senior Vice President – SAP
Keith has built and led industry-leading professional service organizations both on the client and consulting side for nearly twenty years.
At Oracle, he architected the company’s first vertical applications product line, established their first-ever consulting applications center of excellence, and founded the company’s middle market a $150 million business with 1,500 consultants. Keith ultimately served as VP, Worldwide Marketing & Strategy for Oracle’s $2 billion consulting business.
He later was named Vice President, Professional Services at Siebel Systems where he was responsible for global services in the Americas, Latin America, and Asia Pacific regions. Keith consistently met or exceeded revenue and profit objectives, and led his peers in customer satisfaction as well as internal financial performance metrics for three years running.
Keith also led Intershop Communications, one of the world’s leading providers of e-commerce applications, as President, Americas. He also held sr. positions at Booz Allen Hamilton and Price Waterhouse.
Today, Keith leads SAP’s worldwide professional services organization, managing a business with revenues in excess of $250 million.
Keith received his BA in Economics from the University of California, is married with 5-year-old twins, and resides in Hillsborough, CA.
Robert Goldberg
Senior Vice President (Restaurant Division) – Tommy Bahama
Rob Goldberg has been on the leading edge of luxury lifestyle experiences for more than
20 years. A graduate of UCLA, Goldberg has been a force in the hospitality industry, successfully managing and operating a number of high-profile restaurants, hotels and retail stores throughout the United States. A San Francisco native and a fervent advocate of California food and wines Goldberg has made a career reinventing how consumers eat, drink and sleep.
Goldberg is currently Chief Operating Officer of Village Roadshow Gold Class Cinemas, an Australian powerhouse entertainment company that is poised to launch its luxury cinema concept in America. With reclining Moran leather chairs, gourmet food, extensive wine list and waiter service Village Roadshow plans on taking the movie experience to a new stratosphere.
Most recently Goldberg served as president of the Moana Hotel & Restaurant Group a sister company of the world famous Auberge Resorts, where he was responsible for developing and launching the celebrated Solage Resort and operating the company’s 20 acclaimed restaurants and hotels. With an impressive track record in the hospitality industry, a passion for food and wine, and a personal commitment to excellence, Goldberg was uniquely suited to launch and manage Moana’s multifaceted hospitality programs and steer a successful course for future developments.
Prior to Moana, Goldberg served as president and CEO of PlumpJack Group, where he was responsible for the overall management of the company’s fifteen businesses and new business development. PlumpJack’s critically acclaimed properties include The Carneros Inn, PlumpJack Squaw Valley Inn, PlumpJack Café, Balboa Café and PlumpJack Winery.
Goldberg is credited for taking the luxury lifestyle company from a local phenomenon to a national leader in hospitality and retail innovation. While at PlumpJack Goldberg was recognized by Ernst & Young as a finalist in the & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
Goldberg started his career managing the Hard Rock Cafe in Los Angeles, the first Hard Rock property in the U.S. He spent his twenties traveling throughout North America opening and operating Hard Rock Cafes
He went on to serve as general manager of L.A.’s Vertigo, named the most exclusive club in America by Esquire magazine, where he was responsible for pre-opening planning, the creation and maintenance of a 300-plus wine list, menu development, marketing and human resources. Vertigo was later acquired by Prince.
In 1992, Goldberg returned to the Hard Rock Cafe group, overseeing the company’s properties in Los Angeles, Maui, Honolulu and San Francisco. Goldberg was soon promoted to corporate director of operations, moving to the worldwide headquarters of Hard Rock International and overseeing the operations of all of the restaurants and retail stores in the Western U.S. and Hawaii.
He was responsible for $80 million in annual sales and more than $30 million dollars in retail merchandise, and was involved in the site selection and negotiation of new locations, as well as supervising the plans and build-out of these properties.
Goldberg lives in Kentfield, California with his wife Frances and two daughters Georgie and Charlotte. He is an accomplished Ironman triathlete and enjoys spending time outdoors with his family.
Rich LeFurgy
Partner – Walden Media and Information Technology Fund
Rich LeFurgy is a partner with the Walden Media and Information Technology Fund, a San Francisco venture capital fund that focuses on internet advertising, ecommerce, entertainment and education.
LeFurgy is also the Chairman of the Internet Advertising Bureau, and was a founder in the spring of 1996. The group, with over 300 member companies, is dedicated to promoting the use and marketing effectiveness of Internet media. The organization is the largest of its kind in the internet and funds industry research, education, and advocacy.
One of a handful of online industry leaders, he also helped organize the Procter & Gamble FAST Summit initiative in the summer of 1998 to help accelerate the use of digital advertising.
LeFurgy is Chairman of the FAST Steering Committee, the successor FAST organization that is helping oversee the development of a broad range of voluntary guidelines for the industry.
Among his other industry interests, LeFurgy also serves as a Director of: interactive ad agency Lot21, Snowball, an online media company for the Internet Generation, and AllAdvantage, a media company that rewards consumers for their economic value while they’re online. He is also on the Board of the Advertising Educational Foundation and the Advertising Research Foundation.
Prior to joining Walden, LeFurgy was a 20-year advertising industry veteran, and was one of the early evangelists of the Internet’s integrated advertising and marketing value.
Most recently he was SVP of the Buena Vista Internet Group, where he oversaw advertising sales for ESPN.com, ABCNews.com, Disney Online, NBA.com, NFL.com, NASCAR and Mr. Showbiz. LeFurgy started online advertising sales at Starwave, where he helped launch ESPN.com in 1995.
In the traditional advertising world, LeFurgy was EVP, Senior Partner and on the Board of Directors at NW Ayer & Partners in New York (17 years).
Beyond traditional advertising, he led both event marketing and direct marketing start-ups to create integrated marketing solutions for clients. His experience base is diverse, including AT&T (8 years), Procter & Gamble, Gillette, Burger King, Marriott, Avon, Ralston Purina, Nestle, 7UP and DuPont. He holds a 1978 B.S. in Advertising from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, graduating first in his Newhouse class.
Kathleen Onieal
Vice President, Global Leader Marketing – Merck & Company
Kathleen Onieal currently serves as Vice President, Global Leader of Marketing Innovations at Merck & Company where she is responsible for leveraging new technologies and developing new marketing models to drive brand growth and build Customer Relationship Management Capabilities.
Prior to joining Merck, Kathleen built and led the first New Marketing Channels Group at Novartis. In her role, she also developed internal capabilities to execute relationship-marketing programs for the company, which included major customer touch-point channels including the Internet and Call Centers.
In 2000, Kathleen pioneered the first eMarketing Group at Pharmacia/Pfizer where she transformed eMarketing to become an integrated and measurable discipline as part of the marketing mix on major brands such as Celebrex and DetrolLA.
Prior to Novartis, Kathleen spent many years in brand management at Merck and Johnson & Johnson. Among her accomplishments as Director of Consumer Marketing at J&J was the launch of the first DTC TV advertising for Ortho Tri-Cyclen brand.
Kathleen received her undergraduate degree in Pre-Medicine from the University of Washington and attended the Executive MBA Program at the Stern School of Business at NYU.
Russell Winer
Vice Dean – NYU Stern School of Business
Russell S. Winer is the Deputy Dean and William Joyce Professor of Marketing at the Stern School of Business, New York University. He received a B.A. in Economics from Union College (N.Y.) and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial Administration from Carnegie Mellon University.
He has been on the faculties of Columbia and Vanderbilt universities and, most recently, the University of California at Berkeley. He has been a visiting faculty member at M.I.T., Stanford University, New York University, Cranfield School of Management (U.K.), the Helsinki School of Economics, the University of Tokyo, and École Nationale Ponts et Chausées.
He has written three books, Marketing Management, Analysis for Marketing Planning and Product Management, and has authored over 60 papers in marketing on a variety of topics including consumer choice, marketing research methodology, marketing planning, advertising, and pricing. He is a past editor of the Journal of Marketing Research, the current co-editor of the Journal of Interactive Marketing, and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Research, and Marketing Science.
He has participated in executive education programs around the world, and is currently an advisor to a number of startup companies.
Robert Wong
Creative Director – Google
Robert was born Chinese, grew up Dutch, was Canadian for a while, and is now American. About to finish a degree in Accounting, Robert woke up one morning, flew to New York, and became a designer instead.
Since then, He has won virtually every creative award there is and has had the privilege of working on some of the world’s most loved brands — Apple, Harley-Davidson, Jack Daniel’s, Timberland, ESPN, NPR, MTV and other acronyms. Before Google, Robert was Executive Creative Director at Arnold Worldwide.
And before that, he was Vice President of Creative at Starbucks where he lead the design of the brand’s experience globally. AdWeek recently referred to him as one of the foremost leaders in design. Robert has no plans of ever going back to accounting.