Michelle Sanchez joined AspireUp in 2011 as a consultant and now serves as principal and client engagement lead. She has 20 years of experience in strategic brand management, innovation strategy, and marketing management. Michelle has worked extensively with Fortune 1000 companies, performing comprehensive market and consumer insights analyses, and implementing recommendations that result in profitable growth.

Michelle leads global consulting engagements for companies engaged in both consumer and business-to-business products and services. Some of her clients include GE Healthcare, ITW, WernerCo, Staples, Reynolds Consumer Products, Univar, GHX, Alfa Corporativo (Mexico), South Beach Diet, ConAgra Foods, Verra Mobility, and Lake Forest Graduate School of Management.

Her expertise lies in guiding organizations to embrace a more customer-focused approach to brand and new product management. Michelle has experience designing thorough ethnographic, qualitative, and quantitative research plans to meet her clients’ objectives. Her recommendations have helped clients develop profitable new product and brand portfolios and have enabled clients to implement and embrace customized customer-centric innovation systems.

Michelle’s previous professional experience includes consulting at a variety of strategic consulting firms including Prophet, a branding consultancy, Kuczmarski & Associates, an innovation consultancy, and Female Factor, a firm focused on women consumers. Additionally, Michelle worked in brand management at S.C. Johnson on the Oust® brand and in Air Care New Products. While at S.C. Johnson, she led several successful new product initiatives which ultimately contributed to the brand incrementally growing the category and taking share leadership.

Michelle earned an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern, with concentrations in marketing, management & strategy, and management in organizations. She graduated with high honors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, receiving a BS with a concentration in Industrial Distribution Management, where she was named one of the top 100 graduates of her class.