Data-Driven Marketing Seminar:
Data Mining for Direct Marketers

Debbie Megee Senior Consultant, David Shepard Associates

Debbie Megee has over 25 years’ experience in direct marketing. Prior to joining David Shepard Associates, she was Vice President at AEGON Direct Marketing Services (ADMS) where she focused on statistical modeling, database marketing, and campaign management, while managing direct mail and telemarketing execution. Before being acquired by AEGON, ADMS, was known as JCPenney Direct Marketing Services.

While at JCPenney, Debbie developed a 7-terabyte database marketing system, which contains well over 100 million customers, supporting name selection processes for direct marketing insurance and membership products. She also started the Target Marketing department which provides statistical modeling and customer analytics utilizing the expansive data available on the marketing database. She was instrumental in developing advanced data-driven marketing applications, including customer lifetime value, offer optimization and strategic segmentation. In her roles at both JCPenney and AEGON, Debbie worked with clients such as Discover, Citibank, Chase, Capital One, and many other large financial and retail institutions in the United States, Canada, Asia, Europe, and Australia.

Debbie has been a speaker at industry conferences and serves on the Board of Trustees for the Direct Marketing Education Foundation.

Sunil Gupta Senior Consultant, David Shepard Associates

Sunil is a Senior Consultant with David Shepard Associates of Glen Cove, NY, and a Senior Advisor to Optimost, LLC, New York, NY. He provides consulting services on topics such as Internet Marketing Strategy and Customer Relationship Management to companies such as Ameritrade, AOL, Pepsico, Wellpoint, Doubleday, and Bertelsmann Music Group. Currently, he is also writing a book about customer analytics (to be published by SAS).

Prior to joining DSA, Sunil was Managing Director for Strategic Consulting and Customer Knowledge at Digital Lighthouse Inc., (DL) where his efforts were focused on launching interactive and analytical products for DL’s clients at DL, Sunil learned all about the joys of going public, including filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

After getting his doctorate, Sunil started out as a Professor of Marketing, first at Columbia University, Graduate School of Business and then at the University of Michigan. During this 15-year period he published numerous papers in leading academic journals and gained recognition as a leading researcher in the areas of interactive marketing, predictive models, and customer analysis.

Sunil has frequently presented the strategic implications of this research to corporate and academic audiences. Among the companies and organizations that Sunil has been invited to speak to or consult with are: CIGNA International, Helzberg Diamonds, Cutco, Swanson Vitamins, Wellpoint, Andersen Consulting, Agilent, Sony, H&R Block, Pitney-Bowes, the WPP Group, Bizrate, Institute for International Research, Direct Marketing Association, Institute for the Study of Business Markets, The Roundtable Group, Hewlett-Packard, Forrester Research, Owens-Corning, Southern California Edison, Microsoft Corporation, Core Industries, CMP Publications, CFI Group, Business Strategy Network, and the Industry Canada.

Sunil is a member of the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Interactive Marketing.