CHRISTOPHER E. ECK
Proven track record identifying business opportunities, conceiving and launching successful startups, and creating new revenue streams using disruptive strategies that drive revenue, market share, and EBITDA growth
GENERAL MANAGEMENT EXECUTIVE
SALES & MARKETING • OPERATIONS • PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
STRATEGIC PLANNING • BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Full P&L Management, Profit Enhancement, & Go-to-Market Execution for Established Businesses, Startups, & Turnarounds
Expertise spans full spectrum of business operations, including:
Multichannel Sales • Marketing Plans • Reseller Strategy • Market Assessment/Penetration • Lead
Generation • Sales Force Management • Revenue & Profit Growth • Workflow Process Development • Cost
Reduction/Containment • Vendor Selection & Relations • Financial Management & Planning • Risk Management • Shareholder Relations & Reporting • Business Process & Sales Force Automation • Metrics & Forecasting • Compensation Programs • Corporate Culture Enhancement • HR/Recruitment • Team Building & Training
Recognized Expert in Digital Media / Digital Marketing / Display Advertising / SEO / SEM / E-Commerce / Social Media
Visionary general management executive with extensive sales/marketing expertise and stellar success in diverse startup, turnaround, and established business settings including P&L responsibility exceeding $15MM. Consistently conceive leading edge products and disruptive or nontraditional solutions to business problems, communicate them to diverse audiences, develop implementation plans, and execute. Emphasis on leveraging technology to fullest to optimize business processes and provide competitive advantage. Exceptional ability to identify and hire top talent and build/scale world-class teams and operations.
• Conceived, made business case to key stakeholders, established, and grew new standalone business venture from plan to 150-person operation with 8,000+ customers delivering in excess of $10MM in new revenues, in 1.5 years.
• Created/executed disruptive online news content strategy and infrastructure yielding high adoption 100+ website network for new $10MM media company interactive arm, and exceeded EBITDA targets by double-digit percentages for 3 years.
• Developed innovative sales and marketing strategies that consistently grew business in successive sales leadership roles at rate far outpacing peers, despite ongoing industry-wide declines in newspaper revenue, readership, and circulation.
• Identified and tapped opportunity to penetrate high-demand, underserved market with creation of new highly profitable product-robust proprietary application provided website design solutions to SMB's.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
DIGITAL MARKETING CONSULTANCY, Scituate, MA September 2013 - Present
PRINCIPAL
Launched independent consulting practice specializing in assisting organizations in optimizing their digital marketing and e-commerce strategy as well as improving business processes. Current engagements include:
• E-Commerce Merchant: Evaluation and recommendations for improvement of current workflow for all aspects of maturing business that has experienced signs of decline. Focus is on process automation to free time for other profit-generating functions. Current and potential customer market segmentation.
• High-End Retailer: Plan development for scaling regional business nationally and online. Service provider evaluation to replace current online CMS and introduce e-commerce options. Go-to-market strategy development as related to marketing. Customer market segmentation.
PROPEL MARKETING, Quincy, MA 2011 - September 2013
$10MM full-service digital marketing agency providing 20+ products and services to SMBs (B2C & B2B) and 3rd party resellers nationwide.
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT & GENERAL MANAGER
Conceived/pitched business idea first to Division President and then to CEO/COO and private equity investors, secured approval and startup capital, and accepted charter to develop standalone full-service digital marketing company from scratch without access to legacy business resources. Reported to President with workforce of 150 and full P&L accountability for $14MM operating/$1MM capital budgets and $18MM revenue target. Scope included developing and leading full spectrum of strategic planning, legal registry/corporate identity creation, infrastructure development (office space), product development, finance, distribution channel/reseller network development, multichannel sales/marketing, CRM, information technology, and HR functions.
Created/executed business plan from concept, building and scaling 150-person operation that developed and launched high-margin product line to yield $18MM in contract value/$10MM recognized revenue and 8,000+ customers in first year and continues to grow:
• Established empowered corporate culture committed to outstanding service from start, with comprehensive training program that rapidly trained 900+ staff and resellers and resulted in 77% customer retention in highly competitive industry.
• Designed and implemented end-to-end business workflow that ensured operational excellence through full support of all business activities from pre-sale, sale, implementation/development, billing/accounting, to ongoing customer management, leveraging highly customized and integrated systems utilizing Salesforce.com, Financialforce.com, and Eloqua.
• Built Product Development team that produced 80% margin (+40% vs. vendor solutions) product offerings spanning SEO, SEM, Display, Retargeting, Mobile/Desktop/Responsive Websites, Reputation Monitoring, E-Commerce, Data Cleansing, Social Media Creation/Management, Copywriting, and Email Marketing. Notable examples include:
Scalable mobile website application now in beta with national office supply company in white label configuration.
-- Responsive design application allowing design, creation, hosting, and ongoing management for customers at affordable price point on all tablets, mobile, and desktops with full CMS (internal/external), currently supporting 2,000+ sites.
• Recruited IT team that supported rapidly scaling business with robust application suite handling broad functions including ERP, finance, CRM, content management, and data warehousing. Among these applications are:
-- Centralized application that reduced lead time for creation of products/profiles by 40%.
-- Customer-facing and 3rd party reseller intake form application that streamlined processes and minimized setup time for upsold customers.
• Assembled top-notch sales and marketing teams, created multichannel sales strategy (direct/reseller/strategic partner), and guided development of lead generation programs that yielded monthly average of 1,000 qualified leads, with results including $1.9MM in national marketing contract commitments.
GATEHOUSE MEDIA, INC. Randolph, MA and Needham, MA 2005 - 2011
$525MM revenue/$365M advertising volume preeminent provider of local content and advertising in small to midsize markets. Products for readers include 404 community publications, 350+ related websites and 6 yellow page directories; 128,000+ business advertising accounts.
VICE PRESIDENT, DIGITAL
(2009 - 2011)
Chartered to provide overall leadership in pure play digital space, spanning operations, sales, product development, UI/UX design engineering, content, and editorial strategy for network of 170+ hyperlocal community, regional, and vertical websites serving New England. Coordinated across multiple departments over organization of 1,000+ in execution of all digital products and initiatives. Held P&L accountability for $4.5MM operating budget and $12MM revenue target, reporting directly to President & CEO.
Led organization to exceed EBITDA targets for 2009 by 23%, 2010 by 19%, and 2011 by 21% through initiatives spanning team rebuilding and training, organizational restructuring, launch of new products, and technology enablement:
• Achieved substantial editorial time savings and operating efficiency by recruiting, training, and leading top sales and management teams in revamping of outdated business model, streamlining processes, and eliminating redundancies.
• Realized $1.2MM+ in behaviorally targeted display revenue in one year and Top 10 partner market rank in Yahoo! newspaper consortium, capitalizing on extensive open inventory and positioning company as diversified marketing solutions provider.
• Reduced annual expenses by 26% through work process redesign and automation via implementation of new technology.
• Delivered 20% lift in unique visitors and traffic through multi-media marketing campaigns and leveraging of UI/UX improvements network-wide that enhanced audience engagement.
• Drove $1MM in high margin revenues through launch of new rich media ad formats leveraging new page positioning technology and comprehensive strategic sales plan.
DIRECTOR OF ONLINE SALES
(2006 - 2009)
In recognition of success driving overall sales growth, accepted expanded responsibility post-acquisition for all 100+ community oriented websites encompassing roll-out of digital sales and go-to-market strategies. Taking legacy staff on print side and building out/training pure play digital team in evolving space, led business development and all ad sales and national campaign activities. Managed key regional and major digital account relationships. Included sales and support team hiring/training, sales planning/forecasting. Played cross-functional leadership role among print side management team.
Built $10MM interactive arm for newly formed media company, including business plan development, organization, technology, sales/marketing and promotional infrastructure required to support 100+ websites and all verticals:
• Grew revenues 180%+ through market research, promotional programs, print and digital packaging, and presentation delivery.
• Designed pricing model and sales approach yielding 90% sell thru for all standard advertising positions in 170-site network.
• Delivered $500K in new sales in just 2 months through introduction of sports contest site and sponsorship opportunities.
• Created 2006-09's Best Overall News Site ("WickedLocal.com") per Suburban Newspaper Association/Local Media Association.
• Generated $600K in new major account sales within 90 days by initiating new network audience measurement approach.
ONLINE SALES MANAGER
(2005 - 2006)
Promoted to new Digital Department with acquisition of South of Boston Media Group, with charter to change sales approach and diversify business. Co-managed sales force of 30, with responsibility for $2.8MM revenue target attainment, creation/presentation of multi-media presentations to strategic accounts, and project management for new product launches.
Drove culture and mindset change to nearly triple digital revenues through territory realignment, training, new sales and compensation plans, and product offering diversification:
• Exceeded budgeted revenue by 15%+ across entire online product portfolio during both 2005 and 2006.
• Achieved 50% increase in active online advertisers with development and implementation of new sales compensation plan.
SOUTH OF BOSTON MEDIA GROUP, Quincy, MA 2003 - 2005
$25MM regional provider of newspaper, specialty magazine, and online display advertising to SMB's and selected major accounts.
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
Managed advertising sales for two daily newspapers, 16 weekly community newspapers, specialty magazines, and 8 websites.
• Drove overall territory sales increase exceeding 40% by developing new strategies.
• Earned company's highest sales achievement award for 3 consecutive years, "South of Boston Media Award of Excellence."
• Increased sales by 20% in single year by implementing new business platform
EDUCATION & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
QUINNIPIAC UNIVERSITY, Hamden, Connecticut
Bachelor of Science in Marketing, May 2002
International Studies, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
Laredo Group - Intelligent Selling of Interactive Media
Laredo Group - Intelligent Planning and Buying of Interactive Media
Yahoo! Certified SME
___________________________________________________________________________________PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
___________________________________________________________________________________
MITX/BIMA, NAA, API, Boston Ad Club, Nancy Williams Memorial Foundation (Board Member)
PUBLIC SPEAKING
BIA/Kelsey, American Press Institute, New England Newspaper & Press Association
TECHNOLOGY ENVIRONMENTS
Salesforce.com, FinancialForce, Eloqua, Google Analytics, Dart for Publishers, Dart for Advertisers, 24/7 Real Media Open Ad Stream, DataXu, Yahoo! APT, Kenshoo, Sprout Social