Umbrex is pleased to welcome Agnes Allotey with Stratosphere. Agnes is a Strategy, Innovation, Product and Organizational Development expert and a Management Consultant with 19 years of experience at firms including McKinsey and Company, Bloomberg L.P., Dow Jones & Company and Milvik (BIMA).  She has exposure to multiple industries and functions including the development of Public-Private Sector Partnerships, Insurance, Mining, Banking, Sustainable Enterprises and Media.  She is currently the Founder and Executive Director of Stratosphere, a management consulting firm focused…

  Toopan Bagchi identifies the importance of  building segmented brand management teams to maximize marketing capabilities and effectiveness.   In a continuously disrupted landscape, many retailers are realizing the potential for private brands to not only improve margins, but to also attract customers, build baskets and drive loyalty. However, given retail’s traditional reliance on CPG companies to develop and cultivate brands, capabilities around true brand management are often limited.  Retailers leaning in on private brands would be wise to establish and…

  Ben Dattner and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic explain why the opinions of others shape our personal ‘brand’ and how to shape our digital personas for the best possible results in this article published in Harvard Business Review. Who am I, really?’ Philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists – not to mention poets and artists — have been trying to answer this question for centuries. The good news for business leaders is that they don’t need to turn into armchair psychotherapists, or get an…

  Jonathan Paisner shares his expert insights on branding in this new video series. This week, a 150-second overview of The Branded House vs. The House of Brands. There is a little bit of brand in everything your business says and does. We’ve created this series to give you a little bit of brand thinking to inject into your business strategy, and help you make smarter decisions. So today, let’s spend the next 150 seconds talking about brand architecture.  …

  In this detailed article, Surbhee Grover identifies the decision-making inputs and new market approaches that will be required to survive in the new economy. For entrepreneurs, coming out of COVID-19 isn’t the end of a crisis. It’s the beginning of a new way of thinking about their approach to product-market fit, financing, marketing and go-to-market strategies. And for some, will be a time to reflect on their personal approach to risk. The exponential pace of change to society will…

  Susan Hamilton Meier shares her thoughts on the merger of analytical and creative thinking and the processes and tools she has designed to help teams problem-solve more creatively. I turned up at the Boston Consulting Group, probably as the only hire who had never opened a spreadsheet before, so that was interesting, and I ended up, by virtue of that, getting assigned to projects where I did a lot more people skills, so I did a lot of interviews,…

  James Black provides a comprehensive list of questions designed to help you build a marketing strategy that can help your business move forward in 2020. Entering the New Year provides a great opportunity to take a quick audit of your brand or business to identify opportunity areas in your 1) customer understanding, 2) go to market strategy and 3) marketing capabilities. These 20 questions are designed as thought-starters to help you get a sense of the state of your…