Insights Studio: Brand Authenticity — It’s More Than a Buzzword
MAY 18 @ 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM EDT
Speaker Bios
Jesse Epstein
Partner
HawkPartners
Jesse Epstein works closely with clients to answer your most pressing questions and develop marketing strategies using research-based insights to understand the landscape. His experience ranges across industries, geographies, company size and methodology, including qualitative and quantitative research, corporate marketing, business development and workshops and presentations on various topics.
Jesse has worked with exciting global brands, including helping independent vodka brands understand how to build cult followings, assisting online travel agencies to design loyalty programs, aiding one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies to better spend their advertising dollars and helping a global pharmaceutical firm to realize how tomorrow’s doctors will use mobile devices. He is truly passionate about understanding what builds strong bonds between brands and consumers, transcending the relations from customer to partner.
Prior to HawkPartners, Jesse worked at global research firm Incite where he was integral to the firm’s expansion into the US. Before Incite, Jesse worked at digital research firm Kantar Millward Brown supporting custom research and digital ad effectiveness, healthcare consultancy SmartAnalyst and global communications firm Ruder Finn. Across his career, he has partnered with clients in travel and hospitality, financial services, technology, healthcare and consumer goods and spirits.
Outside of work, Jesse is an avid traveler, hiker and biker, obsessed sports fan and aspiring amateur chef. As a native Granite Stater, he’s also proud of New Hampshire’s “first-in-the-nation” status and somehow still loves following politics.
Jesse received a BS from American University in International Business and Justice, Law & Society. He is a frequent writer and speaker on how brands create emotional connections with customers and the power of storytelling with data.
Caroline Mayhew Gardner
Global Lead, Brand Strategy & Guest Experience
The Ritz-Carlton, Ritz-Carlton Reserve & Bulgari Hotels and Resorts
Leading Global Brand Management for The Ritz-Carlton, Ritz-Carlton Reserve and Bvlgari Hotels & Resorts, Caroline guides executives across the enterprise in the strategic evolution of the brand’s global hotel and residential portfolio. Caroline is accountable for building brand loyalty by carefully architecting the guest experience, while also driving new ventures such as The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection. With her thoughtful approach, the brand has sustained its strong guest satisfaction and employee engagement scores while achieving its highest ever RevPAR Index. Known internally and externally for her innovation, Caroline was named one of Luxury Daily’s coveted Luxury Women to Watch in 2019.
Caroline joined The Ritz-Carlton with extensive experience working alongside senior marketing and strategy executives to build stronger brands, strengthen customer experience, optimize marketing effectiveness and leverage big data to create strategic advantage. She previously served as an Executive Advisor and Product Director for the Corporate Executive Board (CEB, now Gartner) Marketing Leadership Council, where she worked closely with senior marketing executives and their teams to apply best practice solutions to marketing’s most pressing challenges. In that role, she co-led the Marketing Leadership Council MarTech initiative, which convened global leaders in digital marketing to discuss shared challenges and solutions to marketing in the digital age. Prior to joining CEB, Caroline worked with Booz Allen Hamilton’s corporate consulting practice, where she supported senior leadership teams in calculating the return on customer engagement, developing methods for aggregating and analyzing big data to deepen customer understanding, and evolving market entry strategy.
Caroline holds a Master’s in Business Administration from Georgetown University, and a Bachelor’s in International Economic Policy from American University in Washington, D.C. A native New Yorker, she currently resides with her husband and daughter in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C. and routinely guest lectures on a variety of topics including strategy, marketing and luxury hospitality.
Maddy Halyard
Senior Manager, Product Marketing
Peloton Interactive
Maddy Halyard is currently a Senior Product Marketing Manager at Peloton, where she is responsible for building go-to-market and product launch strategies for emerging product areas. Working with teams ranging from Creative to User Experience, she creates strategic plans to bring new products to market and manages those plans through to launch. Prior to joining the Product Marketing team, Maddy worked on Peloton’s Consumer Strategy & Insights team, where she led Brand Health tracking and developed the Company’s first ever Brand Health insights solution. Her experiences working across the marketing organization at Peloton have given her unique insight into the Company’s growth.
Maddy launched her career in Marketing at Google, where she focused on efforts to expand internet access to users both international and domestic. She also contributed to marketing efforts on Google’s moonshot project Loon, delivering internet access to remote areas via high-altitude balloons.
Maddy holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in International Relations from Stanford University. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, where she enjoys exploring the city through food and running. She also volunteers with the New York mentorship nonprofit iMentor and with Stanford undergraduate students on the Stanford Basic Needs Coalition, a mutual aid organization.
Jillian O’Neill
Senior Director of Business Operations, Emerging Markets
Pfizer
Jillian O’Neill is currently the Senior Director of Business Operations for the Emerging Markets (EM) Business Unit at Pfizer. In this role she oversees and enables the business operational readiness and is a key partner for the Global President of Emerging Market. She is responsible for maximizing the performance of the business on a global scale, covering Latin America, Asia Pacific, China and Africa and the Middle East regions. Her responsibilities range from day-to-day operations to long-term strategic projects to further Pfizer’s Emerging Markets business. During her tenure in this role, she has supported the global separation of Pfizer from the established products Upjohn business to allow a continued focus on Pfizer’s innovative portfolio. She also helped the EM President build and scale the Pfizer Global COVID Task Force as it expanded from China to the rest of the globe and continues to help ensure pandemic preparedness across the enterprise. Currently, she is focused on rolling out the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine across Emerging Markets, including coordination with COVAX, the facility that combines the power of WHO, GAVI, CEPI, PAHO and UNICEF with a goal to procure and deliver vaccines for fair distribution around the world.
Jillian has been with Pfizer since 2010 and has held a variety of strategy, commercial, and marketing roles supporting several therapeutic areas and product lifecycle phases, across local, regional, and global geographies. Jillian started her career as a life sciences strategy consultant at Navigant Consulting where she gained strategic and tactical experience across various pharma and healthcare companies, therapeutic areas, and functional roles.
Jillian has a BS in Biopsychology and Cognitive Sciences from the University of Michigan, and an MBA and MPH from the University of Illinois focusing specifically on Health Policy and Administration and Entrepreneurial Studies. She lives in New York City with her husband David, her three children Hannah, Declan, Maeve, and Lucy the cat.
Paul Donato
Chief Research Officer
ARF
Paul Donato joined the ARF as Chief Research Officer in October 2017. Paul is a highly-regarded leader in media and advertising research with more than two decades of industry experience. Earlier in his career he co-founded WPP’s Media Research Business Unit, served as CEO of Kantar Media, and Technical Director of IBOPE Latin America. He was the EVP and CRO for The Nielsen Company for more than a decade, overseeing Nielsen retail, consumer, mobile, and media measurement methodologies. Upon leaving Nielsen, Paul founded Jatopond, a media and market research firm. He also has led business units at Simmons, and at Audits and Surveys Worldwide. He currently sits on the Future State Committee of the National Air and Space Museum. In addition to leading the research team, Paul will also play an active role in overall ARF leadership, helping to guide our future direction.