DMA Global Advisory Board (GAB)

The DMA Global Advisory Board (GAB) comprises international direct marketing experts from around the globe. The GAB assists and advises the DMA on global development and partnership opportunities that benefit DMA members and direct marketers worldwide.

Mission Statement

The mission of the GAB is to provide an enhanced global perspective to DMA and to shepherd initiatives that can extend DMA's service to direct marketers worldwide.

To further this mission, the GAB will provide advice and assistance to the management and staff of the DMA in:

alignment of effort in each of the five centers of excellence of the DMA’s mission with their perception of market needs and opportunities in markets outside the United States;
expanding the mission and role of the DMA in the 21st Century, a century of global brands and enterprises, global/digital/interactive marketing, and a consuming public that is younger, more media-conscious and more numerous than ever in history;
adapting or developing education, conference, advocacy and research programs that will be attractive to DMA’s members in markets outside the United States;
developing education, conference, advocacy and research programs regarding non-US markets that will be of interest to DMA’s US members;
developing education, conference, advocacy and research programs around Global/ Regional issues and trends that will be of interest to the DMA’s non-US members and expand the relevance of the DMA for those members (with the objective of expanding that member base) and provide a foundation for cooperation with Global / Regional marketing organizations;
seeing over the horizon to continue to lead the worldwide direct marketing community in thought leadership, skill development and ethical behavior.

The Global Advisory Board Members include:

Robert Howells
Group Managing Director, International, Harte-Hanks Direct Marketing

Chairman, DMA Global Advisory Board

Robert Howells is Group Managing Director, International, at Harte-Hanks. He is responsible for all Harte-Hanks activities outside the United States and his group includes operations in 10 countries. He has been chair of the GAB since March 2009 and has previously served as the chair of the DMA's International Council. He has extensive experience in supporting global marketing for Fortune 500 companies, particularly in the technology sector.

Before joining Harte-Hanks in 1997, Robert was President of IBIS in New York from 1991 to 1994, and a director and partner of IBIS Information Services in the U.K. where he began his career. Following the sale of IBIS to Reed Elsevier he was Sales Director of Mardev in New York.

Brian Fetherstonhaugh
Chairman & CEO, OgilvyOne Worldwide

DMA Board Advisor to the DMA Global Advisory Board

Brian began his career in brand management with Proctor & Gamble Canada. He then joined the advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather and rose up through the ranks to become President of its Canadian operations.

In 1997, Brian moved to New York and to the worldwide stage. His first assignment was to lead Ogilvy & Mather’s flagship global account, IBM, through its dramatic repositioning as an “e-business”. He later founded and became the first Chairman of Ogilvy’s Global Brand Community, representing
the company’s top 20 international clients.

Today, Brian leads OgilvyOne Worldwide, the interactive marketing and consulting arm of the Ogilvy Group. With more than 5,000 staff in 50 countries, OgilvyOne is at the forefront of the digital revolution. In December, 2007, the Forrester Report ranked Ogilvy as the #1 interactive agency.

For over 15 years, Brian has been a Board Member for Goodwill Industries, a non-for-profit organization, for the Toronto, New York and Worldwide Boards. He was appointed to the Board of the Direct Marketing Association in October, 2008.

Abaete de Azevedo
President & CEO, Rapp Brazil & LatAm

Rapp Brazil is the leading CRM agency in Brazil with 270 passionate team players. He also is the CEO of Rapp LatAm Region that has 9 Rapp agencies and he is part of the RC Global board. Abaete, also has been teaching for more than 20 years at ESPM - the top Brazilian Marketing University. He also authored and published 2 Direct Marketing books - Marketing de Resultados - which has become one Brazil's marketing bestsellers during last 5 years. More recently he has launched during DMA 2008 in Las Vegas a new book by McGraw Hill, “Customer Obsession”. He has been enjoying these 30 years married with Juçara with whom he has 3 kids. He likes to sail, to collect old cars and to travel to European medieval cities.

Abhijit Bhandari
Director, Accentiv India (Division of Accor Services)

Founder Royal Images Direct – India’s largest loyalty marketing solutions provider reaching over 20 million customers. Clients include Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Standard Life, Prudential Financial, Metlife, Indian Oil etc. Sold Royal Images Direct to Accentiv in 2007. Previously, Director, Royal Images Catalogue Company. Catalogue/Mail order company that offers products on installment payments to Indian customers. Reaches over 1 million customers every month.

Member: Internet and Mobile Association of India

Sandi Cesko
Cofounder, ORIA and Studio Moderna

As the co-founder of one of the first Slovenian computer company, ORIA and the co-founder of Studio Moderna, the leading direct marketing company in CEE, Sandi ranks amongst the most successful business entrepreneurs in Slovenia and is undoubtedly a proven business innovator. So much so that his consultancy talents are much sought after and utilized by many large enterprises throughout the CEE region. He was a member of the Supervisory boards in numerous companies (Telekom Slovenia, etc.), member of the first Slovenian Senate. He is a member of the Clinton Global initiative and member of the board of Balkan Children and Youth Foundation and member of the Business Advisory Council of faculty of Economics in Ljubljana.

Dave Higgins
Vice President, Worldwide Database Marketing
IBM Demand Programs

Dave serves as the Worldwide Database Marketing Executive for IBM. He leads a global team of marketing professionals responsible for managing IBM’s customer database/client information, and the predictive analytic capability for marketing program execution. Dave has more than 25 years of marketing experience that has involved systems architecture, strategy and planning, market intelligence, and analytics & measurement.

Prior to joining IBM, Dave was Vice President Account Management for the Ross Roy Group, a full service direct marketing agency. His professional experience also includes a position as Vice President Sales Manager for the Polk Company, a leading information services firm. Dave is a trustee with the Marketing Science Institute, a frequent speaker at marketing forums, and active with charitable fundraising organizations.

Winnifred Knight
Managing Director and Owner, CUBE [ON THE SQUARE] and TheMarketingSite.com

Winnifred is a widely recognized expert in the field of Marketing Direct. She has worked in the direct marketing industry for over 40 years in both client and agency roles, and for the past 12 years has run her own consultancy business, CUBE [ON THE SQUARE].

She has always been committed to sharing the knowledge and expertise gained over her many years in Direct Marketing in order to advance the industry as a whole. She has done this through two mediums: she is the publisher and author of email newsletter DirectTalk, and owns the industry portal, www.TheMarketingSite.com . These two channels provide a unique value-added offering to marketers and business people from all over the world.

Winnifred has been a lecturer and trainer in Direct Marketing for over 20 years. She has developed and delivers various custom programs and workshops through educational institutions and presents various tailored in-house training programs for organizations. Winnifred also acts as a mentor in her field of expertise – for all levels of staff, from newcomers to the industry to ‘C’ suite executive.

Ramnath A. Lakshmi-Ratan, Ph.D.
President, Pitney Bowes Document Messaging Technologies

Ramnath A. Lakshmi-Ratan, Ph.D., (Ramesh Ratan) is President of Pitney Bowes Document Messaging Technologies the $600 million global line of business focused on the Production Print and Mail segment. DMT is a key business unit of Pitney Bowes a $6.3 billion global technology leader whose products, services and solutions deliver value within the mailstream and beyond.

Dr. Ratan brings to Pitney Bowes more than 25 years’ experience managing major operations in Fortune 100 companies, as well as small public and private companies, employing a combination of marketing, technology and business strategies.

He was previously Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), the leading global trade association nearly 3,400 companies from dozens of vertical industries in the US and 50 other nations, including a majority of the Fortune 100 companies employing direct, database and interactive marketing technologies.

Suresh Mathai
CEO, ContinuumGlobal, Inc.

Suresh Mathai is a senior management executive with a deep and extensive background and expertise in direct marketing/digital marketing as well as software/ technology. His broad experience ranges from start-ups to multinational corporations in the US and the Asia Pacific region. He co-founded, built and sold two software/technology companies, and has worked as President/CEO of JWT Dialog and Rapp Collins in the Asia Pacific region.

In 2003, Suresh founded ContinuumGlobal – an investment, strategy & marketing solutions company based in San Francisco that works with early/mid-stage companies as well as private equity firms. He is also Chairman & Co-founder of ThinkDimensions, Inc.

Gerry Pike
Managing Director, DMSA, Inc.

Gerry Pike is Managing Director of DMSA, Inc., an investment entity with holdings in a diverse group of companies providing strategic marketing services and direct-to-consumer marketing. DMSA companies specialize in creating new revenue opportunities for companies worldwide in the retail and recreational, financial and pharmaceutical, health, communications, energy and technology sectors.

A DM entrepreneur for over a quarter century, prior to the DMSA family of companies, he was EVP/principal of catalogue merchant Royal Silk, where he co-directed catalogue marketing, direct mail advertising and East Asia sourcing operations. During his management tenure, annual sales grew from $1.3 million to $50 million and the company garnered Echo, American Catalogue, Inc 500, Meade and ATT awards.

His industry-specific service has included sitting on the board of directors of the select Direct Marketing Idea Exchange (DMIX), member of the Global Advisory Board of the DMA, being a founding member and membership chair of Directo: The DMA Council for Hispanic Marketing and serving on DMA’s Committee on Social Responsibility and its Subcommittee on eCommerce Integrity.

Carlos Alfredo (Freddy) Rosales
Vice President and Partner, di Paola | WPP

An Industrial Engineer (ITBA, Argentina) with a Business Administration Diploma (Diplom-Wirtschafts-Ingenieur, Technische Universität München, Germany) by education, for the last 13 years he has been Vice President and Partner of di Paola | WPP, a leading multichannel marketing communications agency with operations in Argentina, Chile and Mexico, and currently developing Colombia and Brazil, as well as an affiliate operation in California directed at US Hispanics, after a hitherto 32-year career in direct marketing that began in 1977 with 11 years at Bertelsmann (Germany, Spain and Argentina).

He teaches Relational Marketing at the Postgraduate School of ITBA (Buenos Aires Institute of Technology, Argentina) as well as Integrated Marketing Communications both at the Universidad del CEMA and at the Universidad Austral, all of them among the most prestigious universities in Argentina. He also teaches on-line courses in direct marketing strategy and execution for the ICEMD (Direct Marketing and E-Commerce Institute, Spain). A present Member and 10-year past-President of the Educational Board of the Argentine Direct and Interactive Marketing Association (AMDIA), founder of the AMDIA Award to excellence in Direct Marketing and former Editor of the Marketing Directo magazine, he is a frequently invited speaker at Argentine Universities as well as at national and international events. He created the Direct Marketing Academic Community in Argentina, dedicated to promote excellence in DM education by university professors of Marketing, and coordinates its Virtual Campus. He is a Member of the International Advisory Board of the DMA and collaborates with the international group presently developing a worldwide standard for training of DM professionals. Freddy, as he prefers to be addressed, also is a member of the Editorial Review Board of the recently launched International Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications, and coauthored the first Direct and Interactive Marketing Manual published by AMDIA, in Spanish.

Lisa Watson
Chairman, Direct Marketing Association of Singapore
Founder & Managing Director, Ibis Intelligence Services

In Asia for almost two decades, Lisa Watson is an expert business strategist, innovative thinker and marketing specialist with agency, technology and consulting experience behind her. She is an active advocate of the Direct Marketing industry and has served as Chairman of the Direct Marketing Association of Singapore since 2002. She also sits on the Global Advisory Board of the U.S. Direct Marketing Association and is a regular trainer and conference speaker on four continents.

With over 20 years of marketing, consulting and advertising experience, Ms Watson founded Ibis Intelligence Services in 2001 to help clients increase their return on marketing investment through improved strategies, skills and technology. One of her key assignments was as a Senior Director at Oracle Corporation, Asia Pacific Division where she developed a strategic framework for successful implementation of technology and applications as part of the CRM Applications team. Her advertising and CRM agency experience includes Leo Burnett, Young & Rubicam, Wunderman and OgilvyOne.

Ms Watson is a regular columnist for international trade publications, and she lectures for Cornell Nanyang Institute of Hospitality Management, Singapore Management University and Helsinki School of Economics Executive Education program. She graduated from Lawrence University with an honors degree in Mathematics.

David Charles Whittaker
Managing Director, Marketdata Direct & Digital, WPP

Starting his career at Electrolux UK, David spent 2 years on a fast track management programme working in each area of the company before being appointed regional sales manager, trade distribution manager and finally Group Marketing Coordinator for the constructor division. During this last period he was responsible for the entire marketing mix including international trade shows, PR, advertising and DM and had the opportunity to implement the first database and contact control system in the organization.

Moving to Brasil in the mid 90’s to Ogilvy Direct, David assumed control of the Amex and IBM business as well as operationally running of the São Paulo office before moving to Rapp Collins worldwide.
During the 6 years with Rapp Collins he was promoted from VP of the Brasil operation where he contributed to market leadership in 2 years to become President of the Argentine Rapp Collins group and finally assume general management of the UK Rapp Digital operation, integrating digital strategies with the largest DM agency operation in Europe, WWAV Rapp Collins.

Returning to Brasil in 2001 he founded and was partner and CEO of Nextdirect, a national agency working with companies including HSBC, Vivo, GVT, Unimed and Volvo among other. After the second year of operation Nextdirect was voted “below the line” agency of the year in the South of Brasil and later integrated with the hot shop AG_407 where he stayed until moving to Marketdata at the start of 2008.