Kristen Luke,  Consultant - Wealth Management Marketing

Kristen Luke is the Principal of Wealth Management Marketing, a Revenue Architects affiliate dedicated to providing marketing strategies and support for financial advisors. Based in San Diego, Kristen works with independent financial planners and investment advisors to develop effective marketing plans and provides the back office support required to implement the strategies.

Prior to becoming an independent consultant, Kristen served for three years as the Director of Marketing for a boutique wealth management firm specializing in coordinated planning for high
net worth clients. In this role, she was responsible for the development and implementation of the firm’s strategic marketing plan.

Kristen is the author of the Financial Marketing Wire, a weekly blog dedicated to providing practical marketing tips and advice to financial advisors. She is a frequent contributor to Advisor Perspectives and Horsesmouth, regularly hosts webinars for Advisor Nation and will be published in the Financial Planning Association’s Practice Management Solutions magazine in November 2009. 

Kristen frequently speaks to professional associations and groups on the topic of social media marketing for advisors. She has also been quoted in InvestmentNews for her expertise in social media marketing.

Education

• B.A. Business Economics, University of California Santa Barbara (2000)
• MBA with an emphasis in Marketing, San Diego State University (2005)

Memberships & Assocations

• Member, Financial Planning Association, San Diego Chapter
• Toastmasters International, Club #54 Pacific Beach Chapter; Past President, Competent Communicator Designation, Competent Leader Designation
• Tariq Khamisa Foundation; Member, Board of Trustees, Chair, Marketing & PR Committee, Member, Development Committee
• Member, Vistage International, San Diego
• Member, University Club AtopSpecialties

Kristen's Profile on LinkedIn

Jim Schwantner, Consulting Partner

Jim is designer of integrated communications architecture and content. For over 25 years he has helped Fortune 500,start-up, and new concept companies find the best routes to their customers and consumers across a diverse and rapidly evolving media landscape. He has founded and led independent organizations that pioneered the use of analytics, channel blending, rapid prototyping and marketing organizational consulting in service of best of breed, high performance marketing communications.

The list of client success stories has an impressive profile; IBM, Royal Dutch Shell, Medco, AT&T, NCR, Bose Corp, Media One (Comcast), JPMorgan / Chase and Digital Equipment.

Jim has managed marketing organizations at companies such as Clearway Technologies, Doubleday Publishing and Blau Marketing. He has led agency brands such as Foote Cone Belding Integrated in New York, Wickershan Hunt Schwantner in Boston and Grey Global in New York. He co-founded an analytical marketing company called Skunkworks Marketing Labs an early adapter of hybrid analysis for planning and implementing integrated campaigns.

Jim lives in Cohasset MA with his wife and a revolving door of pets and college age children.

Jim's Profile on LinkedIn:

Elisabetta Ghisini,  NotaBene Persuasive Communications

Elisabetta is a communications professional with over 15 years of experience in the U.S. and in Europe. She works with global executives on keynote speeches, corporate presentations, and media interviews.

Elisabetta specializes in business communications in an international context; her expertise lies in defining core messages and in coaching top management for a clear and structured delivery. Her background as a management consultant allows her to understand a client’s business in depth and use communication as a way to achieve business objectives.

Elisabetta was a Consultant and Manager of Communications for the international consulting firm McKinsey & Co. for over ten years (Milan and San Francisco offices). While at McKinsey, Elisabetta taught business communications skills in executive training programs around the world. She delivered workshops in the Pyramid Principle, Logic in Writing, and Presentation Skills to Fortune 500 clients worldwide, and coached executives on structured thinking and delivery on an individual basis. After leaving McKinsey, Elisabetta worked as a Director in the Technology Practice of the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, where she orchestrated the worldwide media launch of Agilent Technologies, HP’s successful spin-off.  
Elisabetta is currently an instructor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, where she teaches media skills, interviewing skills, and public speaking workshops.

A native of Italy, Elisabetta holds a post-graduate degree in German Literature from the Universita’ degli Studi di Milano (Dottore in Letteratura Tedesca).  She is the author of Communicating the American Way, a guide to U.S. business communication for international executives (Happy About Press), and is a faculty member at the Continuing Studies Program at Stanford University, where she teaches classes on business and cross-cultural communication.

Elisabetta's Profile on LinkedIn:

Jonathan Pite, Creative Director

Jonathan Pite is the President & Creative Director of Pite Creative and a Revenue Architects affiliate. He has designed and produced well over 100 Annual Reports and developed as many web sites. He's been honored as one of the top 50 designers in the nation by Graphic Design/USA magazine; served as president of the Art Directors Club of Denver; board member of Design Coalition/USA and has been a lecturer, advisor and judge at universities, conventions, conferences and competitions.

He has won awards for his work in the Potlatch Annual Report Show, Strathmore Annual Report Show, Financial World Annual Report Show, Nicholson Annual Report Show, Art Directors Club, American Graphic Design, Creativity, Public Relations Society of America, Business Marketing Association, International Association of Business Communicators, American Marketing Association, and Creativity In Public Relations Association.

His New York agency experience involved implementing advertising campaigns for Fortune 500 clients including IBM, Motorola, Pfizer, Merck, Microsoft and Citibank.

Photography assignments around the world have included work for The New York Times, Forbes Magazine, General Motors Company, ATT, Manufacturers Hanover Trust Bank, the Jamaican Tourist Board, The Depository Trust Company and Connoisseur Magazine.

Jonathan's Profile on LinkedIn:

Karen Salama, Consultant - Digital Strategy

Karen brings more than 10 years experience in the online/digital industry. Clients include: The Dreamalings (a children's education start-up), HealthiNation, an art advisory firm and a virtual museum start (working name: Museum Without Walls).

Karen was previously a Vice President at Weber Shandwick public relations. As a leader of the digital division, Karen helped develop and create screengrab, the global social, interactive and emerging media practice. Karen helped shape the division and its operations, helped expand the group’s capabilities and offerings and built partnerships with several key social media experts and companies. Through a joint venture, she was also responsible for increasing the overall functionality of the digital tools used in the industry.

Throughout her ten years in digital, Karen managed a variety of clients including BET.com (Black Entertainment Television), Saks Fifth Avenue, Estee Lauder, American Express, International Center of Photography, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi-Aventis, Unilever, Siemens, Colombian Coffee Federation, Intercontinental Hotel Group, General Motors and a New York favorite, Gracious Home, to name just a few.

Karen graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Western Ontario and received a post graduate degree in the history of art from Sotheby’s-London.

See Karen's profile on LinkedIn