Michael Mendenhall

Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Hewlett-Packard

There’s no question that Michael Mendenhall was visible in 2009.  He tirelessly criss-crossed the globe to offer keynote perspectives at top marketing events ranging from the CMO Summit to the Cannes Ad Festival to the Carnegie Council’s Global Policy Innovation Program to IAB, ANA and 4As annual corporate meetings.  If true leaders are confident in sharing innovative ideas and visions of an industry’s future, then Michael Mendenhall is utterly fearless at a time when risk-taking is occurring far less frequently.

 
Not only is Mendenhall easily conversant on topics from sustainability to brand leadership to transparency & accountability to R&D innovation to new digital platforms, but in two and a half short years with HP, he has unquestionably transformed how the company markets its brands, spends its global media budget and thinks about ‘consumer ecosystems.’
 
HP is the world’s largest IT company and serves more than one billion customers in over 170 countries on six continents.  Yet, Mendenhall was able to wrap his arms around the sprawling tech giant to help make it a study in global best practices with its mission to “invent technologies and services that drive business value, create social benefit and improve the lives of customers – with a focus on affecting the greatest number of people possible.”
 
HP also simplified its customer segments to just three main groups – households, small to medium businesses and large enterprises.  The company’s core businesses also fall into three main areas: The Personal Systems Group (business and consumer PCs, mobile computing devices and workstations), The Imaging and Printing Group (inkjet, LaserJet and commercial printing, printing supplies) and Enterprise Business (servers, storage, enterprise services and software).
 
HP’s numbers are staggering.  The company ships more than 1 million printers per week and 48 million PCs per year.  One out of every three servers shipped worldwide is an HP.  The company manages over 200 data centers, 380,000 servers, 5.4 million desktops, and 17 million IP addresses. More than sixty percent of the company’s revenues originate outside of North America.
 
Its triumph, though, has much to do with how the company easily enables consumers to act differently in an information age where power is truly in the hands of the end user.  Under Mendenhall’s direction, HP is now a leader in using digital media as a primary means of interacting with its customers as it allows for greater engagement and co-creation.  Mendenhall often refers to this as “harnessing the talent of our customers to help to build our brand.”
 
The company has also made it easy to evaluate products and make smart tech decisions for individual needs by seamlessly linking to independent sources for product reviews.  Smart shoppers may now make this a regular part of their online behavior, but it also underscores the commitment of a manufacturer to making the best brands possible.
 

Two years ago some thought that Michael Mendenhall may be an unlikely candidate to head marketing at a technology company after a 17-year career with Walt Disney Company.  Perhaps he did bring some of the Disney magic to HP.  Yet, it didn’t come with a “wish upon a star.”  Mendenhall is well-grounded in understanding and driving today’s best marketing practices and is to be applauded for his energy and his results.

Contact: michael.mendenhall@hp.com

Nicolas Maurer

Vice President Marketing, Beiersdorf North America

 

Few marketing executives have held management positions for the same company in as many regions as Nicolas Maurer.  (He certainly disproves current estimates that the average tenure of a senior marketing officer is just 23 months!)  Maurer has worked for more than 13 years for Beiersdorf, the Hamburg-based global skin and beauty care giant, whose brand portfolio contains such leading names as NIVEA, Eucerin, Aquaphor, la prairie, Juvena, among others. Beiersdorf boasts a history that’s nearly 130 year old and its products are sold in roughly 150 countries.  There’s a good chance that Maurer may have visited each market.

 
A native of France, he started his career as part of the French Embassy’s Trade Agency in Stuttgart.  He then joined Beiersdorf in 1996 and has since held international marketing and general management positions in Germany, East Africa, the Nordic and Baltic regions, and now in the United States.
 
As Vice President of Marketing, Nicolas Maurer sets the strategic vision and marketing direction for the company’s brands in the U.S. market.  He has been the driving force behind award-winning communication platforms, such as NIVEA's “Touch and Be Touched” and “Kissed and Be Kissed,” which have grown marketshare and led to the expansion of Beiersdorf brands in the United States.  Much of his success can be attributed to an extraordinary understanding of the combined media / creative connection that is becoming increasingly essential in today’s complex marketing landscape.
 
Anyone who watched the televised New Year’s Eve countdown from New York’s Times Square is familiar with NIVEA’s official “Kiss and Be Kissed” sponsorship to promote its Lip Care line.  Pre-event publicity included sampling to 25,000 revelers, celebrity couples as spokespersons, online uploads of kissing couples to support the "NIVEA XOXO Chain” charity connection to Big Brothers and Big Sisters. Maurer described the program: "NIVEA is all about human connection by giving people ‘touchably’ smooth skin and ‘kissably’ beautiful lips, so that’s why we’re ringing in 2010 on the NIVEA Kiss Platform to encourage everyone in Times Square and around the world to get closer this New Year’s Eve!"
 
Making marketing headlines comes naturally to Nicolas Maurer. The NIVEA Bikini challenge in Malibu with celebrity swimsuit designer Shay Todd made news during Memorial Day Weekend, the unofficial start of U.S. summer.  Celebrities encouraged women to take the NIVEA “Good-bye Cellulite, Hello Bikini Challenge.” According to Maurer, “Our goal with the challenge has been to get women feeling better about their skin by helping to improve its appearance, so women can fully enjoy the summer and their bikinis.” The event now also takes place in Miami.
 

A consummate risk-taker, Maurer also took a well-calculated gamble with the music for NIVEA’s first national TV ad by choosing the work of a little known band called Parachute.  Their song, “She Is Love” was used to convey the sensuality of the cream.  Not only did NIVEA product sales increase, but the song has been downloaded and purchased enough to make Parachute a hot commodity.

Contact: nicolas.maurer@beiersdorf.com

Bettina Sherick

Vice President, International Digital Marketing, 20th Century Fox International

Bettina Sherick is a risk-taker.

As Vice President of International Digital Marketing for 20th Century Fox, she oversees the film giant’s Internet and mobile marketing strategies, as well as the digital marketing content development for the international theatrical businesses. Under her leadership, 20th Century Fox International has actively pursued the digital space as a marketing medium.
 
As she describes the development of international digital marketing campaigns for $100 million+ box office releases, she also outlines a litany of firsts: “We were the first studio to use MSN Messenger themepacks, for our film FANTASTIC FOUR. We were the first international film studio to do a multi-territory homepage masthead buy on YouTube for WOLVERINE. We were the first international film studio to buy a virtual gift package on FACEBOOK for ICE AGE 3. We were the first to do a three-screen buy on Microsoft for AVATAR.
 
Those are the risks that have worked for us. There have been those that haven't worked; however, if everything you try works, then you're not taking enough risks.” 

Bettina Sherick has been working at 20th Century Fox in International marketing for 9 years.  She likes to say, “Although most mornings I wake up in Los Angeles, I spend the rest of the day thinking about what people are doing outside of the US.”
 
She has often been described as passionate about her work. Her response is clear: “I think if you look what I do — using digital to market movies to an international audience-- I have much to be passionate about.  Digital is clearly changing the way the world communicates, works, lives, and I get to live and breathe these changes every day. And I love films. Films have entertained and shared powerful stories to audiences for over a century now. And movies like AVATAR show us that even the way we see films can be re-invented. Once one allows their world to open up for borders to blur, you're never the same person. I consider myself very lucky to be doing what I do everyday.” 

Lucky indeed.  Perhaps Bettina Sherick is simply inspired by the magic and international language of movies.  She tells a memorable story about a visit to ­China that certainly illustrates her enchantment with communicating—at the most human of levels.
 

“I decided to take an afternoon visit to the Temple of Heaven when in Beijing. Armed with an English automatic guide and map, I started to make my way through the beautiful gardens. But there was one pavilion that I could not find. I walked up to an old Chinese man, who had a Chinese automatic guide and a map. Through a series of bows, nods, pointing at the map, and smiles, we found ourselves walking and enjoying the sights of this beautiful park together for about 45 minutes. When we realized that we had come to a point where we would have to part ways, we both bowed, and I waved, and we went on. But those 45 minutes with this stranger, to whom I could say nothing in words, was absolutely wonderful, and I will never forget the experience.”

Contact: Bettina.Sherick@fox.com