OUR TEAM

Before moving to the consulting side, all of our professionals spent large portions of their careers building and running businesses on the client side. As a result, we can work with you to take advantage of opportunities on the back end as well as the front end.

We draw on the strengths of 20 senior consultants, with project teams tailored to each specific assignment.

Karen Hochman
Specialist in business growth

Karen is an acknowledged expert in business growth and profitability in general, with more specific credentials in customer retention and loyalty programs. She has developed scores of marketing programs that have generated impressive sales results (plus won EFFIE and Caples Awards). She is the author of the chapter on loyalty programs in the Direct Marketing Handbook (McGraw-Hill); and is in the process of writing a definitive volume on loyalty and frequency marketing, Customer Loyalty: Turning Customer Churn into Maximum Lifetime Profits.

Karen began her marketing career in packaged goods, at International Playtex Company and American Home Products Corporation. She then moved to Citibank as a marketing director where, among other achievements, she turned a floundering $3MM business in the credit card division into a $2 billion portfolio in just 18 months.

Always with a good eye for a business opportunity, Karen founded Ad Hoc Marketing Resources in 1983 with the late Philip Carlson--a Citibank colleague from the fee-based programs area. In 1991 Ad Hoc was acquired by Jordan, McGrath, Case & Taylor, one of America's leading advertising agencies. She served as president of Jordan, McGrath, Case & Taylor/Direct for two years, gaining new skills in product positioning and integrated marketing. Following her transition commitment, she returned to consulting under the Ad Hoc banner.

Karen is a director of the Association of Direct Marketing Agencies (ADMA), executive vice president of the Direct Marketing Creative Guild, and is on the board of advisors of Database Marketing and Management magazine. She is a regular speaker at industry conferences. Her marketing articles have been published in DM News, What's Working In Direct Marketing, Advertising Age, Bank Marketing, and The Journal of Consumer Lending. She also writes for publications of her alma mater, Columbia Business School.

Claudia Clayton
Specialist in retention and frequency marketing

Claudia not only conceives, develops, and manages customer retention programs: she forges strategic alliances between Ad Hoc's clients and prospective partners, all the way through to negotiations and contracts. Prior to joining Ad Hoc/The Loyalty Partnership, Claudia was in charge of customer retention at General Electric's GE Capital division, and generated incremental sales volume of $250MM in her first year--also achieving record response rates for all direct marketing programs under her jurisdiction. Subsequently, she was responsible for the acquisitions strategy of Monogram Bank's private label credit cards. During her tenure at GE Capital, she also created GECC's first marketing development group at the corporate level.

Prior to GE, Claudia was vice president in charge of the development and management of customer loyalty and frequency programs at Citicorp Credit Services Inc., where she created CitiTravel (with assistance from Ad Hoc and Karen Hochman.) She also created and managed a group to design non-traditional insurance products, generating $25MM in revenues in year 1 of her first product launch.

Claudia began her direct marketing career in the catalog area, with a stint in the direct marketing of seminars at American Management Association. She also was part of the team that developed the acclaimed and widely-copied CitiDollar$ customer loyalty program. Claudia attended Vassar College and has a business degree from New York University.

Doug Milles
Specialist in promotion and partnership marketing

People tend to describe Doug as a creative thinker for his skill in identifying added-value promotional opportunities and generating new partnership ideas. But he likes to remind us that he's also the person who closes the deal. Doug spent 6 years at NBC, rising to the position of manager of television network promotion. He was responsible for all promotion and sales marketing of the '92 Barcelona Olympics and created the famed NBA Stay in School Program that continues to be a hit with local market tie-ins--and that led to a 250% increase in sponsorship dollars from McDonald's alone.

Doug has identified and executed partner tie-ins for a score of leading companies, including Apple Computers, Barnes and Noble, Marriott, Citicorp, Agfa Film, Pepsico, Toys 'R' Us, and the PGA. His experience spans POP, cross-media tie-ins, sports marketing, sampling, and direct marketing. Doug is an alumnus of the University of Miami.

Marcia Longman
Specialist in strategic and marketing planning

Marcia's favorite part of the business is strategic and marketing planning. Her 19-year career in marketing spans product, service, and agency marketing, both domestically and internationally. She began her career at Grey Advertising on Calgon and Sucrets; then spent five years (and earned four promotions) building established brands and developing new products for Avon's domestic business. Moving to the international division as director of new product marketing for the Far East, she applied her expertise in cultural analysis to what was (and continues to be) the fastest-growing division of the company. Her participation as marketing representative on Avon's Presidential Task Force culminated in Avon's entry into China. She also served as marketing director for Ralph Lauren's women's brands at Warner Lauren cosmetics.

Proving that if you can market a lipstick, you can market investments, Marcia entered the financial services industry in 1984 as a regional marketing director at Citibank. Forming a strong alliance between marketing and branch sales, she helped to increase balances by 15% in less than 18 months. A "born strategic planner," Marcia has worked extensively with not-for-profit groups on both a retained and volunteer basis. She is an alumna of Vassar College.

Joel Perelmuth
Specialist in service quality and operations to support service delivery

An expert in customer satisfaction and quality management, Joel develops and manages service quality programs. A former Citibank branch manager, he was a founder of Citibank's internal Service Quality group in the late 1970s, and brings 15 years of service quality experience to the team.

Joel has been involved in all aspects of an organization's total quality management approach, including the development of internal indicators of client satisfaction; external research to evaluate customers' needs and expectations; as well as the implementation of training, communications, systems, and operational programs to support employees in the service delivery process. In addition to Citibank, Joel has developed programs to maintain and enhance customer satisfaction for Beneficial Finance, American Express, Kidder Peabody, AT&T Universal Card, Chemical Bank, Manufacturers Hanover, and Aetna Health Plans; as well as for non-financial marketers like Dow Chemical and Barnes & Noble.

Joel holds a B.A. from City College of New York and a Master of Public Administration from New York University.

Ellen Sills-Levy
Specialist in market research

Ellen brings to the team 20+ years of experience in market research. She served as vice president, associate research director of BBDO, one of America's leading advertising agencies, where she helped to develop the in-house creative research function techniques. Citibank was one of her clients. She then was recruited by Citibank to be vice president, director of communications for the retail banking division, where she handled all aspects of advertising, public relations, promotion, and research.

Ellen is a past president of the Financial Women's Association and former board member of the Advertising Research Foundation. She received an M.B.A. in marketing from Columbia Business School, where she also served on the alumni board.

Mike Buoncristiano
Specialist in database development and management

Mike has almost twenty years of experience in direct marketing and data processing. His experience encompasses both consumer and business-to-business products and services, spanning a broad range of applications. He has built and managed marketing databases for retailers, catalog companies, consumer product companies, fund-raisers, financial companies, and publishers; and has compiled national consumer databases enhanced with demographic, behavioral, and survey data. His experience includes the management of analytical services to develop and use multivariate scoring systems which maximize sales and profits. He also assists clients in developing the strategic plans to build their businesses through direct marketing.

Prior to becoming a consultant, Mike spent 13 years at Wiland Services, rising to the position of executive vice president of marketing. He is a frequent speaker at direct marketing conferences and seminars. He is a past president of the Direct Marketing Club of New York, and has served as committee chair for Direct Marketing Day in New York. Mike is a graduate of Rutgers University.

Ruth Katz
Specialist in public relations

In certain situations, media placements can be even more important than awareness advertising or direct marketing in reaching and motivating your target market.

A public relations strategist and consumer expert, Ruth is responsible for identifying PR opportunities for our clients and integrating public relations programs with direct response, sales promotion, and general advertising programs.

In addition, Ruth is a nationally known media personality and product spokesperson who appears regularly on television in all major markets. She has placed segments and/or promoted products on the Today Show, the CBS Morning News, and hundreds of local talk shows and news shows for clients such as MobilLink, AT&T, Nynex, Gillette, Procter & Gamble, Warner Lambert, Lever Brothers, DuPont, Norelco, Rubbermaid, Kinney Shoes, Ocean Spray, Krups, plus many other companies and trade groups.

In addition to working directly for client companies, Ruth has consulted for leading public relations firms such as Burson Marsteller, Hill and Knowlton, The Rowland Company, Ketchum Communications, and Creamer Dickson Basford.

Ruth's consumer service articles appear regularly in New York Magazine and The New York Times. She is a former contributing editor to Redbook Magazine, and has written for Woman's Day, Playboy, Ladies' Home Journal, and House & Garden.

Ruth has a B.A. cum laude from Brandeis University.

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