Susan D. Goodman is a recognized leader in strategic marketing and has been instrumental in guiding marketing transformation and innovation at Global 2000 corporations leveraging brand, direct, and interactive marketing. An expert in BtoB and BtoC purchase process dynamics and their implications on business strategy and customer experience, Susan helps companies identify and execute profitable, customer-focused marketing programs to achieve aggressive business goals. Her unique mix of experience, both as a marketing executive and consultant, inspires Goodman’s results-oriented approach.
In her role as Chief Corporate Development Officer for Answerthink (NASDAQ:ANSR), a leading global marketing and technology consulting firm, Susan was responsible for overseeing global expansion, developing marketing products and services, and serving as executive sponsor for key clients including IBM, Procter & Gamble, Gillette, Samsung, Siemens, AOL, Time Inc. and ABN Amro. She left the company in December 2002 when it exited the marketing space and founded Goodman&Company, a strategic marketing consultancy focused on helping clients optimize customer-facing channels.
Prior to her leadership role at Answerthink, Susan co-founded THINK New Ideas in 1996, which went public and rapidly ascended to a top-ten interactive marketing agency globally. Susan’s previous consulting practice (The Goodman Group) anchored THINK’s strategic services offering, making THINK the first interactive agency to integrate direct marketing strategy and customer research. Her team’s innovative approach created customer-centric interactive experiences that met customer purchase process needs and expectations while achieving lead generation, revenue and LTV goals. She also managed company-wide business development efforts and launched THINK’s CRM / relationship marketing and eBusiness strategy practices. In 1999, THINK merged with Answerthink.
Susan has extensive international client-side (General Mills, Bank of America, Oxford Industries) and agency experience, including SVP, Director of Client Services at Chiat/Day Direct where she learned the consumer insights discipline of Account Planning from Jane Newman, widely recognized as the “mother of Account Planning” in the US. Prior to her move to marketing, she spent a decade in the apparel industry in sales and supply chain management, including design, merchandising, sourcing, production and import / export, which took her frequently to Europe, Asia and South America.
A passionate collector of contemporary art, her collection’s mission “to support a young artist” was inspired by the 2002 death of her long-time friend and mentor, Jay Chiat. In 2008, Susan established the Goodman Grant which provides grants to young artists to help them work in an international art center. She also serves on the Board of the Byrd Hoffman Watermill foundation. The Foundation seeks to develop new approaches to the arts; to provide young people with opportunities for artistic growth; and to document the work of its Artistic Director, Robert Wilson, and his contemporaries.
Susan is a dynamic, sought-after speaker on marketing, Internet and technology-enabled business strategy issues in the US and abroad. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the Direct Marketing Association, the Board of global leadership organization L3, and is a past director of TESSCO Technologies, Inc., (NASDAQ:TESS), ad:tech and the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, from whom Goodman&Company won the 2009 Corporate Leadership Award. She received her MBA in Marketing, Finance and Strategic Planning from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School and graduated magna cum laude with a BA in History from Tufts University.
