Brad VanAuken, president and founder of BrandForward, Inc., has over 20 years experience as a marketing manager. Previously, Mr. VanAuken was vice president of marketing at Element K (one of the world’s leading e-learning companies). He built Element K’s marketing function and brand, propelling the brand from relative obscurity in a highly fragmented market to industry leadership in less than 18 months. Prior to that, he was the director of brand management & marketing at Hallmark Cards where he was responsible for the marketplace positioning of all North American brands. During his tenure, Hallmark market share increased by four points, Hallmark rose in the EquiTrend national quality brand ranking from 7th to 4th and Hallmark received the Brand Management of the Year award from Sales and Marketing Executives International. Prior to joining Hallmark, he worked for Arthur Andersen & Co. consulting to the advertising industry.
Brad graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a BS in Management and Harvard Business School with an MBA. He received the (Kansas City) Top 25 UP AND COMERS award in 1997 and is listed in Who’s Who in the World.
Brad is a well-known and sought after expert on brand management and marketing. He is often quoted and has been published in numerous periodicals including the Journal of Brand Management. He has spoken to groups such as The Conference Board, American Marketing Association, Institute for International Research (IIR), Stanford University, Vanderbilt University, The Buffalo Ad Club, and Southwestern Bell Yellow Pages. He has been the American Management Association’s featured speaker on measuring corporate brand value. He was a member of The Conference Board’s working group on Managing the Corporate Brand and APQC’s Brand Building & Communication Benchmarking Study sponsor group. He chaired the IIR Brand Masters conference and the IQPC conference on Internal Brand Building. He is a founding member of the World Class Branding Association and is on The Advertising Council of Rochester’s board of directors.
His books, The Brand Management Checklist and Brand Aid will be published outside of North America in the summer of 2002 and in North America in February of 2003 respectively.