Dear Friends:

We continue to receive a lot of positive feedback and interest from clients related to our “Blended Solutions" program combining executive search consulting with transitional coaching support. Our main article this issue reviews several case studies of this program in action.

We are pleased to announce we are beginning the first of a number of speaking engagements, including panels of senior clients, to discuss this important issue of executive transition.

With CMO positions lasting an average of 23 months, senior marketing positions in many industry sectors have become “high risk" positions—subject to change or elimination within short periods if the CEO and Board cannot see specific, tangible results warranting the ongoing investment. Living in this type of environment, how do you manage your personal brand for maximum success? What are the key drivers to demonstrating your value in new executive assignments?

Come join me at La Costa Resort in San Diego, CA, on Wednesday, October 11, from 2-5 p.m., where I will be conducting the following workshop as part of Source Media’s 4th Annual Financial Services Marketing Symposium:

Personal Branding for Maximum Leverage: Managing Executive Transition Effectively and Demonstrating Your Value to Your Company

Financial services marketing executives need to put greater value on managing executive transition—it has a profound, lasting impact on your personal brand. Executives often do not start early enough—or do the right advanced planning—and this has contributed to the short tenure of CMO and other marketing positions. I will describe EC’s integrated executive search and transition support model, which is improving C-level transition. I will also moderate a panel of 4 SVP-level marketing executives, who will present case histories involving the transition challenges they faced in gaining successful traction in their new roles. Those panelists are:

Jim Brett, Senior Vice President, E-Business Development, Prudential

Deborah Wall, Senior Vice President, Marketing Information Management, Wells Fargo Consumer Credit Group

Chris Moloney, Chief Marketing Officer, Scottrade

Mark Shipley, Senior Vice President, MasterCard

For a discounted offer to attend this 4th annual Financial Services Marketing Symposium, at the La Costa Resort in San Diego, please access the following linkage for the conference agenda and registration information. EC clients and friends will receive a special discounted rate for the workshop and conference.

Jeff Gundersen, CEO
Executive Connections, LLC
jgundersen@executiveconnects.com
941-323-8300
Executive Search, Coaching & Consulting
http://www.executiveconnects.com

Last month, I described Executive Connections’ "Blended Solutions" program, in which we provide six months of transition support for every executive we place. The goal, of course, is to support the executive through the critical transition period to help ensure a successful placement.

In this installment, I am providing some anecdotal case studies of just how the program has worked at the individual executive level through conversations with some of the early participants since we first began piloting the program in 2003. Read the article here.

Now’s the time to sign up for our “CEO Connections Luncheon Series," an invitation-only event that we will host on Thursday, September 21, at the Yale Club in New York City, from noon to 3 pm. This year's featured speaker is Tom Harrison, Chairman and CEO of Diversified Agency Services (DAS), the world’s largest holding group of marketing services companies. He will be speaking on “Instinct: Tapping Your Entrepreneurial DNA to Achieve Your Business Goals," the title of his recently published book.

This month, we’d like to invite our readers the opportunity to write in with reviews of the books we list in this section. The book titles below are listed by John A. Greco, Jr., DMA president & CEO, as some of the best books for learning about successful marketing.

What do you think?

Being Direct, by Lester Wunderman
Purple Cow, by Seth Godin
Waiting for Your Cat to Bark, by Bryan Eisenberg, Jeffrey Eisenberg and Lisa T. Davis
Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results, by Bryan Eisenberg and Jeffery Eisenberg
Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell
Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell
Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Art of the Start, by Guy Kawasaki
10 Rules for Strategic Innovators, by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble

“There is nothing noble in being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self."
—Hindu proverb