Our team is
We hire only
‘A players’ who are
highly collaborative
and results-oriented.
We believe in servant-leadership. As leaders, our focus is to serve our clients. And our main goal to add immediate impact to their businesses.
Unlike most consulting firms which have junior consultants doing most of the work, all AspireUp consultants have deep experience, averaging 20 years each. Most have spent many years as practitioners directly responsible for a P&L prior to becoming consultants.
The expertise of our team ranges from strategy and research through marketing implementation and creative, including deep skills in growth planning, branding, new product development, market research, brand creative development, customer experience design, and marketing execution.
AspireUp Leadership
Roland Jacobs
President & CEO
Roland founded AspireUp in 2002 and personally oversees all client engagements and AspireUp’s team of 25 consultants. His specialties include branding, growth strategy, new products, marketing management.
Roland previously ran the marketing functions for several well-known brands. He has also served as a guest lecturer at Kellogg School of Management and University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business.
Previous experience:
- Orbitz – Chief Marketing Officer, responsible for launch and creation of the Orbitz brand
- DigitalWork – SVP Marketing & Business Development
- Petopia.com – VP Marketing
- The Clorox Company – Global Category Director, oversaw the Clorox brand across 33 countries
- MBA from Harvard Business School
Michelle Sanchez
Principal/Engagement Lead
Michelle is a branding and innovation consultant with over 20 years’ experience leading strategic marketing engagements and running marketing programs. Her specialties include brand strategy, new product development, marketing strategy, and consumer research.
Previous Experience:
- Prophet Brand Strategy – consultant
- Kuczmarski & Associates – Engagement Manager
- SC Johnson – Brand Management Roles
- MBA from Kellogg School of Management
Gannon Jones
Senior Advisor
Gannon is a C-level leader with 25+ years of experience in branding, growth strategy and general management at Fortune 100 companies including PepsiCo, CVS Health, Allstate, MolsonCoors and Kraft Foods. Specialties include growth strategy, branding, CRM, marketing management, innovation and sales & commercialization strategy.
Previous Experience:
- Safelite – EVP, Chief Commercial & Customer Officer
- CVS Health – Chief Marketing Officer (Aetna)
- PepsiCo – Global CMO, Nutrition
- Allstate – SVP Marketing
- Molson Coors – Head of Brand Marketing
- Kraft Foods – Director CRM, plus multiple brand management roles
- BComm from Smith School of Business @ Queen’s University (Canada)
Woody Smith
Research Lead
Woody brings 20 years of consulting experience using consumer insights and marketing research to inform marketing strategy. His specialties include quantitative marketing research, product/service development, pricing, predictive analytics, and brand assessments. Past clients have included Wells Fargo Bank, Patagonia, Merrill Lynch, Johnson Outdoors, GHX, Rust-Oleum, Coyote Logistics, Staples, The Teaching Company, ITW, Wausau Homes, and DePaul University.
Previous Experience:
- Avenue ISR and The Intelligence Agency – President, Director of Research
- Frontier Natural Brands – Category Manager
- MBA from Kellogg Graduate School of Management
Tim Calkins
Board of Advisors
Tim is Clinical Professor of Marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management where he teaches Marketing Strategy and Biomedical Marketing. Tim is a two-time recipient of the Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year Award, the top teaching award at Kellogg. He is also co-academic director of the Kellogg on Branding executive education program. A prominent expert in branding & marketing strategy, Tim has authored or co-edited five books.
Previous Experience:
- Kraft Foods, 11 years in marketing leadership roles
- Booz Allen Hamilton, strategy consultant
- MBA from Harvard Business School
Art Middlebrooks
Board of Advisors
Art is Adjunct Professor of Marketing, University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business where he teaches New Product Development. Art is also Executive Director of the Kiltz Center for Marketing Excellence at Booth. His specialties include new product and service development, services marketing, and branding. He is also co-author of two books: Innovating the Corporation (2000) and Market Leadership Strategies for Service Companies (1999).
Previous Experience:
- DigitalWork – Senior Director, Marketing and Product Development
- Kuczmarski & Associates – Partner; 12 years consulting with companies in new product development and services marketing
- Anderson Consulting (now Accenture) – Consultant
- MBA from University of Chicago
Senior Consultants
Eric Britton
Creative Director
As Creative Director at AspireUp, Eric brings more than 20 years of design and advertising experience leading rebranding and transformational design initiatives for well-known corporations. Eric’s past clients include Discover Card, Ameritech, Grainger, ITW, Schwab, GHX, Medline and Nova Scotia Organics Vitamins, among others.
Previous Experience:
- Medline – Senior Creative Director
- Digitas – VP Creative Director
- Townsend Agency (now part of Aspen Marketing) – Creative Director
- BFA from Ohio Wesleyan
Becky Charles
Senior Consultant
Becky is a marketing consultant specializing in utilizing consumer and customer insights to drive strategy. She has extensive experience leading voice-of-customer research engagements for B2B and B2C clients, including Rust Oleum, Blue Diamond Almonds, Peet’s Coffee, McKesson Medical-Surgical, Glossier, Midas, Dairy Farmers of America and DermTech, among others. She specializes in uncovering insights using quantitative research, including segmentation, positioning, innovation, brand equity, path-to-purchase, and pricing work.
Previous Experience:
- The Cambridge Group (Nielsen) – strategy consultant
- Leo Burnett – senior planner
- MS Advertising from the University of Illinois
Tina Chatalas
Senior Consultant
Tina is a marketing strategy and innovation consultant with over 20 years’ experience in brand management, strategic planning, innovation development, and global marketing across a range of industries and companies. Some of her clients have included Target Brands, Kraft Heinz, Kellogg’s, P&G, CUNA Mutual, Abbott, Crate & Barrel, Cadence Health (now Northwestern Medicine), Bell Flavors & Fragrances, Rheem, Kimberly Clark and Edgewell Personal Care.
Previous Experience:
- GfK – SVP Consulting in the Market Opportunities and Innovation Practice area
- Prophet Brand Strategy – contract consultant
- Unilever and International Flavors and Fragrances – brand and marketing management roles
- MBA from The Wharton School and BA from Yale University
Chris Crisman
Senior Consultant
Chris Crisman is a qualitative research specialist with over a decade of experience in cutting-edge qualitative research techniques, helping companies link customer insights with brand strategy, innovation, and communications…
Previous Experience:
- Prophet Brand Strategy – Senior Associate
- GfK – Senior Analyst
- BBA from the University of Michigan, Ross School of Business
Annette Franz
Senior Consultant
Annette is a customer experience consultant with over 25 years of experience helping clients design and execute customer experience strategies. Her expertise is helping clients understand what drives retention, satisfaction engagement, and the overall experience. She is a frequent speaker and the author of Customer Understanding: Three Ways to Put the “Customer” in Customer Experience (and at the Heart of the Business). She is also 2020 Board Chair for Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA).
Previous Experience:
- Led consulting services organizations at CustomerSat, Medallia, Allegiance (MaritzCX), and Confirmit
- Past clients include: 21st Century Insurance, Fidelity Investments, Gold’s Gym, Honeywell, CORT, John Deere, Harley-Davidson Financial Services, jetBlue, CareFusion, AIG, GSK, and XSport Fitness
- BS from California State University
Martha Gordon
Senior Consultant
Martha is a brand strategist and qualitative research consultant with over 20 years of experience leading engagements with prominent B-to-C and B-to-B clients. Past clients include GlaxoSmithKline, Samsung, Johnson Outdoors, Frito Lay, Dole, Colgate-Palmolive, Optum Health, and Hill’s Pet Nutrition, among others. Martha is a highly experienced moderator using a breadth of methodologies from focus groups to online qualitative to in-depth ethnography.
Previous Experience:
- GfK – VP in the Market Opportunities and Innovation practice area
- Arbor Strategy Group, a brand innovation consultancy
- Client-side management experience in marketing at Campbell Soup Company
- MBA from Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan
Kristen Hemingway
Senior Consultant
Kristen has over 25 years of experience leading large, complex marketing engagements with Fortune 500 companies, privately-owned businesses and national non-profits. Her specialties include integrated planning, brand management, strategic communications, career and executive coaching, innovation, moderation and facilitation, research design, customer segmentation, and digital marketing.
Previous experience:
- Deloitte – Senior Manager, Healthcare
- Northwestern Memorial Hospital – Director, Brand Management & Marketing Operations
- Prophet Brand Strategy – Senior Engagement Manager
- Kuczmarski & Associates – Branding and New Products Consultant
- Teaches branding and marketing with American Marketing Association and American Management Association
- MBA from Kellogg Graduate School of Management
Jody Kirchner
Senior Consultant
Jody is a marketing strategy and innovation consultant with extensive experience leading consulting engagements for prominent B-to-B and B-to-C clients, including Reynolds Consumer Products, Farmer’s, Century 21, General Motors Generac, McDonald’s, Kraft, Coca-Cola, and Unilever, among others. Her areas of expertise are using research to understand customer demand, developing new products, creating segmentation, brand and portfolio strategies, and building marketing plans.
Previous Experience:
- The Cambridge Group (Nielsen) – marketing and growth strategy consultant
- Mission Measurement – social impact strategy consultant
- Sara Lee (marketing management) and Pratt & Whitney (marketing lead and senior engineer)
- MBA with High Honors from Chicago Booth; MS in Aeronautics & Astronautics from MIT
Amit Singla
Senior Consultant
Amit has nearly 20 years of marketing and consulting experience for Fortune 500 companies. He has worked in a variety of B2C and B2B industries, including food & beverage, consumables, grocery retail, big box retail, household durables, technology, apparel, home improvement, health care and financial services.
Amit’s expertise is in strategic planning, new product innovation, brand strategy, merchandising & category management, channel strategy, pricing & promotion analysis.
Previous experience:
- The Cambridge Group (Nielsen) – marketing strategy, branding and innovation consultant
- Griffin Strategic Advisors and AMG Strategic Advisors – insights and strategy consultant
- Prior client-side experience with The Home Depot and Johnson & Johnson
- MBA from The Kellogg Graduate School of Management
Get In Touch
info@AspireUp.com
Phone: (312) 804-9100
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