Vocation>Professional Bio

Leslie Howard has more than fifteen years experience developing and marketing technology-based products and services for businesses selling to businesses (B2B).

Her breadth of experience includes executive roles leading brand, product management, and corporate communications within start-ups...to providing strategic and tactical execution leadership to Fortune 1000 clients.

Currently, Ms. Howard is a marketing strategy director in ad agency Ogilvy's consulting practice. In this capacity, she works with DHL, Lenovo, SAP, and Ogilvy's other B2B clients to develop and execute demand generation and customer relationship marketing strategies. Recently, Leslie's global client assignments have focused on two themes: marketing to small and midsized businesses, and wringing cost efficiencies and effectiveness out of sub-performing global marketing organizations.

Prior to joining Ogilvy, Ms. Howard was the principal behind B2B Strategy providing pinch-hitter expertise and leadership for organizations at growth inflection points:

Neteller when their customer base grew to the point of warranting differential communications based on potential value
SAP Global Marketing when they needed to start-up an outbound telemarketing center for Europe
Great-West Healthcare when they needed to re-brand and re-position themselves
MSN when they needed to revamp their advertising revenue strategy

From the mid '90s to the early '00s, Ms. Howard was a sought-after marketing and communications leader for start-up companies. Her results-driven approach gained customers, revenue, and financing for start-ups that leveraged evolving Internet-centric technology to provide new media and service delivery models: online media and advertising, automotive ecommerce, and indirect goods and services supply chain solution. She was the marketing and communications executive through two IPOs, a buy-out, and a bust.

Prior to joining the Internet revolution in 1996, Ms. Howard held marketing, account management, and project management roles with CellularOne, A.C. Nielsen Marketing Research, and Andersen Consulting, respectively.

Ms. Howard holds an MBA degree in Marketing from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management and a BS degree in Computer Science from Lehigh University.

Marketing is optimizing investors' dollars to achieve long- and short-term profit-generating business goals.

It is neither a science nor an art.

Marketing is a profession outlined by business acumen, anchored by analytics and creativity, and driven by vision.