Douglas Lerner

“I have worked with Doug when he was both at Discovery Communications and Capital One. Our work together has been in building brands, products and campaigns that are grounded in market and consumer insights. He is one of the smartest, and forward-thinking senior marketers I know. He always advocates in his organizations to invest in strategy and primary research early and often, to help to ensure that what is being launched and promoted, is co-created and validated with internal stakeholders and target consumers. Doug is insightful on these large brand and innovation initiatives, to not only develop a brand positioning created around the emotional job target consumers need, but also to execute a thoughtful process that brings company leadership along. His wisdom and savvy style is key on big brands, and even moreso, on transformative innovation projects when leaders demand revenue growth from launching new offerings, but often are fearful of disrupting the status quo. He is masterful in including leaders at the right time, so not only do they feel that they are part of the journey, but also buy-in, and align at the necessary times to keep the initiative on track. Doug is a rare breed that will drive a brand through everyday execution, and invests the same amount of effort developing the best strategy and leading disruptive Innovation to build a pipeline of revenue-growth producing new product launches. It is always my honor to get to work with Doug. He has a creative mindset, and yet is an analytical thinker. He is also adaptable, and a great communicator when there is need for a pivot. Equally valued is his collaborative nature, which is key to success in todays world, where many teams members are working independently at home many days, and are not physically present together in the office together.”

“I had the opportunity to work with Doug during our time on the Consumer Bank Customer Engagement and Product Marketing team. He was leading the product marketing team to nurture relationships and developing product val prop, brand playbook and go to market strategy for new products. He was a great leader and mentor to me as we figured out how to navigate through the complexities. As well, his wealth of knowledge and expertise in campaign strategy and execution came into play when we had to create a plan from scratch. He values relationships and understands that’s key to running a successful team and campaign. He’s a very personal and caring leader who wants his team to succeed and helps them every step of the way. It was a pleasure to work with him and tackle every day challenges together. Having Doug on the team makes any challenging work more enjoyable and his humor brightens our day. ”