Our League of Superhero Marketers
The Market Creation Group (MCG) is composed of a team of marketing experts with backgrounds in many different B2B industries, disciplines and specialties. Together, we offer our clients an extraordinary combination of marketing strategists, creative artists, designers, developers and writers. We also have a strong network of trusted partners who deliver additional horsepower for specific needs.
Team Members
Find out more about each of our team members below:
- Brett Schklar, President and Chief Marketing Officer
- Keith McCurdy, Art Director
- Laurel Brozovich, Marketing Executive and Copywriter
- Coreen Nickerson, Strategy and Research Director
- Mark Stiltner, Copywriter
- Kerrey Knisley, Copyeditor and QA Specialist
- Christy Schindler, Account Executive
Board of Advisors
Brett Schklar, President and Chief Marketing Officer - Mr. Smarty Pants
Over his 14-year career, Brett Schklar, the founder and current president/chief marketing officer (CMO) of the Denver-based Market Creation Group (MCG), has become a well-known and respected marketing guru, business visionary and community leader in the Denver area. Using his natural knack for marketing and an unparalleled passion for technology, Brett launched MCG in 2006 to create a business-to-business (B2B) marketing agency that has been celebrated for its continual innovation in providing in-depth marketing strategy, marketing automation, sales tactics, project management and demand generation in the B2B technology realm.
As a small business owner and entrepreneur at heart, Brett has grown MCG without emulating traditional methods of business management, but instead cultivating a work environment that promotes a healthy work and life balance. His leadership achievements at MCG have been recognized by recent awards including the #1 Fastest Growing Private Company 2009 in Flight V, recognition as one of Denver’s Forty Under 40 Awards, and through various profile pieces written about him in Entrepreneur Magazine and the Denver Business Journal. The most valuable successes to Brett, however, are the ongoing charity fundraisers and community events he and the MCG team host and participate in for organizations like the American Heart Association, Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center, National Leukemia & Lymphoma Society as well as many others.
Prior to founding and leveraging his strategic marketing insights at MCG, Brett was the vice president of Product and Marketing for Vericept Corporation (now Trustwave), a data loss prevention technology company. Engaging his leadership abilities and industry expertise, he drove the execution of Vericept's product and marketing goals, ensuring the strategies aligned directly to the pressing business requirements of its customers and prospects.
Preceding Vericept, Brett was director of various software-based marketing and product programs in the internet security industry, with Internet Security Systems (now IBM) and Q1 Labs. He gained significant experience in the security industry via product management and marketing, brand management, demand generation and strategic marketing practices. His roles included positions as director of product & marketing, senior offer manager of services, as well as product line manager.
Prior to the internet security marketplace, Brett held senior sales and marketing positions within AT&T, focused on internet-based services, giving him a great fundamental understanding of the telecommunications industry.
Brett has served as a speaker at over 20 industry and marketing events across the nation. Currently, Brett is on the board of directors for the Denver/Boulder Software Club, the Denver’s Art District on Santa Fe and committee chair for the American Heart Association of Denver for the 2010 Start! Heart and Stroke Walk. He has served as chairman of the Product Marketing/Management Special Interest Group for the Technology Association of Georgia and is an advisor to various CTEK member companies. He is the founder of the Colorado Security Marketing Roundtable and a member of the Rockies Venture Club.
Brett received a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Communications from the University of Tennessee and a Master’s of Science Degree in Management of Technology from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Brett is a devoted father to his son, Ari, avid skier, cyclist and casual runner.
You can find Brett's LinkedIn profile at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/bschklar.
Keith McCurdy, Art Director - Pretty Boy
Keith McCurdy has been a creative leader and visual designer for over 15 years. Prior to joining MCG, he was Principal and Creative Director for Brand M Studios, a new media design and consulting firm. While at Brand M, he was responsible for the conception and creation of industry-forward, interactive media for the B2B market. Working closely with team members and industry professionals, Brand M's design leadership was instrumental in strengthening client brands and enabling them to emerge as major players in their market space. Clients ranged from high-tech start-ups to major corporations, such as Verizon, MapQuest and Medtronic.
Before founding Brand M Studios, Keith was recruited by bConnected, a leading software company for the B2B healthcare industry. As Creative Lead, he successfully collaborated with sales and engineering executives to design high-end user experiences and interfaces for .Net, Flex and AJAX applications for the company's main software products. He also oversaw the creation of branding guidelines, sales materials, marketing collateral and was instrumental in helping the company reach viability for a major acquisition.
Collaborative relationships with executives, designers, marketing teams, sales professionals and technical experts have enabled Keith to create best-in-class media experiences for web, interactive media, identity, print, illustration, video and user interfaces. Over the years, he has formed a deep commitment to producing media experiences that provide clients and users something unique in the marketplace.
Keith is a devoted father and husband. He enjoys painting, snowboarding and watching his son draw countless works of art.
Laurel Brozovich, Marketing Executive and Copywriter - The Whip
After graduating with honors from the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at CU-Boulder in 2000, Laurel started her career in web marketing working for the consulting, training and support services division of Sun Microsystems in Broomfield, CO. At Sun, Laurel excelled in a number of different web marketing, web development and corporate communications roles, including becoming the youngest division communications manager in Sun's history.
After leaving Sun in 2004, Laurel started her own web copywriting and consulting business, working with a number of the state’s top interactive agencies, including texturemedia, which won two Webby Awards in 2008. Since that time, Laurel has provided her expertise on 100+ web engagements, including web projects for several high-profile companies in the Denver metro area, such as Medtronic Navigation, Kaiser Colorado, Rocky Mountain Health Plans, Oz Architecture and Sun Microsystems.
Laurel joined the Market Creation Group team in April of 2008, providing web information architecture, copywriting and project management for clients including Level 3, Verio and ACT Conferencing.
In her free time, Laurel enjoys traveling, reading and spending time with her husband, Mark, and Welsh Corgi, Hutch.
Coreen Nickerson, Strategy and Research Director - The Brain
Coreen Nickerson has worked in the field of B2B and consumer marketing for over 15 years, covering a wide range of industries, including technology, retail and not-for-profit. She spent over 10 years as an independent consultant, developing project management skills, practicing marketing research and presenting competitive analyses to her clients. Coreen has a depth of experience conducting and managing primary and secondary market research projects designed specifically for the needs and budgets of clients.
One of Coreen’s long-time clients was T-Mobile, a $4 billion wireless service provider with 33 million customers, and a leading U.S. wireless service company. Coreen spent seven years as a consultant to upper management reporting on the viability and market-readiness of various wireless products and services. During her tenure at T-Mobile, Coreen successfully collaborated with Engineering to design and execute primary market research projects contributing to the evaluation of dozens of wireless voice and data product launches, including pre-paid, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Internet phones, camera phones and more. Her contribution resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue for the company.
Coreen has been instrumental in applying her marketing and project management talents to work for other companies and clientele, including VoiceStream Wireless, Boeing, AT&T Wireless, InfoSpace and Deutsche Telekom. Additionally, Coreen has worked internationally – she served as the interim Marketing Director of TAL, an Icelandic start-up wireless company. At TAL, Coreen was responsible for all market research, branding, advertising and pricing efforts, which ultimately contributed to a market share of 15% within the first year. She also held a B2B internship at Deutsche Telekom in Germany.
Coreen has served on a variety of boards during her career, including PTA President at Daniel Bagley Elementary School. Currently, she serves as a volunteer for the Business Marketing Association. She is a native Californian and holds a BA in German studies from UCLA. She earned an MBA from the Foster School of Business at University of Washington in Seattle. She is a devoted mother of two children and enjoys outdoor activities, including hiking, skiing and scuba diving. She has also completed several triathlons.
Mark Stiltner, Copywriter - The Mad (Idea) Scientist
Mark Stiltner is a professional creative thinker and copywriter who has been creating winning ideas for major brands for over half a decade. He is the founder and Creative Director of Factory Radical, a marketing and advertising firm specializing in small- and medium-sized business. A graduate of the C.U. School of Journalism and Mass-Com, Mark has often returned to his college to teach copywriting and creative concepting to the next generation of advertising students. Mark is also a fiction writer, a chef and an entrepreneur who has founded several businesses, including Danger Chef, a company that creates spicy-infused seasonings.
Kerrey Knisley, Copyeditor and QA Specialist - The Cleaner
Kerrey Knisley is a copyeditor guru and web quality assurance extraordinaire, leveraging over 14 years of experience in advertising, web development/production and marketing leadership. Prior to joining the Market Creation Group, Kerrey was the Marketing Manager of the Marketing Communications Department at Level 3 Communications, Inc. – one of only six Tier-1 Internet providers in the world. As Marketing Manager, Kerrey managed all copy and graphic production across the entire company, including all editing and overall quality assurance on all marketing materials and website development, amongst numerous other management and marketing duties for the company. Prior to that, Kerrey held various other positions within her tenure at Level 3 Communications, Inc., including Corporate Marketing Manager, Global Interactive Solutions Manager, Quality Assurance Manager and Sr. Project Manager.
Prior to Level 3, Kerrey was the Sr. Project Manager of DDB Interactive (a division of DDB Needham Advertising). There, Kerrey produced several high-end websites, including World Cup ’98, Footaction, American Airlines, GTE, Mountain Dew, Embassy Suites/Hampton Inn and more – acting as the lead for these accounts from inception to completion, ensuring client satisfaction and that the highest quality website was produced.
Kerrey has won numerous awards for her outstanding leadership and job performance, as well as two New Media Invision Awards – one for Footaction and the other for World Cup ‘98. Kerrey also holds numerous certifications in coaching, leading and management.
While Kerrey’s background started in the legal field as a paralegal, her passion drove her in a different direction. She has an uncanny knack for everything that is detail-oriented – known by her peers as “Eagle-Eye Kerrey.” She is a self-motivated, results-oriented individual with a proven track record of excelling in demanding and unstructured environments.
Kerrey enjoys traveling, writing, all sports and spending time with her friends and family, but most importantly, being a wife and mother.
Christy Schindler, Account Executive - The Social Butterfly
The Market Creation Group found and courted Christy Schindler after meeting her through the Business Marketing Association’s Interview Resume Competition. As a top finalist, MCG knew it just had to have her. Christy is a recent graduate (2009) from Colorado State University, with a degree in communications and business.
She comes to the MCG team with experience in B2B sales, business development processes and customer service. Her B2B sales experience comes from University Directories, selling ad space for the CSU/Ft. Collins Directory. Here, she relentlessly raised the bar in her sales team and the region to rank in the top five sales performers in all four states of the Rocky Mountain region. Christy later took her sales experience into management at New York and Company, a women’s clothing retailer, where she continuously increased brand loyalty and employee productivity through organizational programs, tracking and reporting in operational and brand areas.
Now, Christy is into her true profession, as MCG’s Account Executive, where she leverages her background to excel in driving MCG’s marketing programs, office services and social media tactics. Christy is empowering her sales experience with her ever-increasing passion for social media and search engine marketing to grow her B2B sales management experience in the virtual world. Specifically, she is concerned with how social media networks, such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, podcasts and e-newsletters, can be tracked and measured to gain and convert quality leads to clients and revenue. Through leveraging her sales and social media efforts to build virtual relationships for the Market Creation Group, Christy aspires to be a Digital Marketer for MCG.
Outside of MCG, Christy is an active and very involved member of the Business Marketing Association. She is creating, organizing and managing a Young Professionals Group for the Colorado Chapter, which is expected to launch in February 2010.
On her off-time, Christy enjoys the Colorado outdoors, traveling, volunteering and baking, but most importantly, spending time with her family, friends and Bluetick Bloodhound, Koda.
Randolph L. Pitzer
Executive Vice President/General Manager
Technology and Business Marketing Practice, Chicago
Randolph L. Pitzer heads up the Technology and Business Marketing Practice in Chicago, a group focused on enterprise technology and non-technology clients. He is also the global lead for the Enterprise Technology sector for Edelman’s Global Technology practice. In that role, he acts as the subject matter expert for enterprise technology, and is “dialed into” all things enterprise technology focused around the global Edelman network.
Pitzer has a broad background in the technology space that spans over 30 years. He has worked on both the corporate and agency sides. Pitzer has worked for a number of enterprise software firms in a number of marketing and communications capacities, including Mercantec, OpenPort Technology, SPSS and Spyglass. He has worked for Ketchum Public Relations and Ogilvy Public Relations on the West Coast. At these firms, his clients included Epson America, Fujitsu America and MAI Basic Four.
At Edelman, his group is the lead group for technology resources in the Midwest. Among the clients in his group are Acxiom, Autodesk, Infogix, Motorola, Rockwell Collins and Verio, an NTT company. Other former clients include Altair Engineering, A.T. Kearney, CGI, EDS, Manugistics, PeopleSoft, Veritas and SSA Global.
A hallmark of Pitzer’s skill set is his ability to use communications and marketing support to deliver against a client’s business goals. His experience as a corporate marketer helps him to understand the complexities of a client’s business, and develop programming that supports the business and its goals to deliver meaningful results.
Pitzer has been with Edelman for eight years and serves as part of the leadership group for Edelman in the Midwest, as well as as part of the leadership group for Edelman’s Global Technology Practice.
Pitzer holds a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Missouri at Columbia. He is a member of the Public Relations Society of America and the Business Marketing Association. He serves on the board of the Chicago BMA.
Connell I. Saltzman
Caddis Capital LLC
Connell I. Saltzman has gained very broad financial, senior operating management and board of director experience through working with privately held, publicly held, private equity/venture-backed and not-for-profit organizations. Saltzman has gained knowledge in a variety of industry sectors, including technology, software, telecommunications, manufacturing, banking, services, retail, restaurants, hotels and resorts as the Chief Financial Officer, Chief Executive Officer or Chief Operating Officer. Revenues of these organizations have been in a range from start-ups (pre-revenue) to those with revenues in excess of $350 million. Saltzman also has operating experience with organizations that have had operations outside the United States, including the United Kingdom, Mexico, Canada and Western Europe.
Saltzman has either assisted as an advisor or prepared as the company’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) securities filings submitted to the SEC, as well as exempt offerings for debt and equity. His work on securities offerings has encompassed various forms of equity, notes offerings, initial public offerings (IPO) and related ongoing public company filings.
As a Chief Financial Officer, Saltzman has been responsible for managing the accounting and finance, human resources, legal (including preparation of customer, alliance partner and vendor agreements), facilities, operations (i.e., delivery of product and administrative organization), IT and shareholder/investor relations functions. In each organization, Saltzman has developed his direct reports and related staff to take on increased responsibilities. His management style is one of general supervision, which includes explaining why a particular task or process is necessary, rather than micromanagement. As the various organizations have experienced growth, significant changes in processes were implemented, including accounting software system conversions, acquisition/enhancement of sales force automation processes and systems, budgeting process and financial/operation reporting to executive management and boards of directors.
Saltzman has volunteered his time for many organizations. He is the past National Chair for American Field Service (AFS), the largest program providing international and intercultural learning experiences for high school students and teachers to live with host families to gain international and intercultural learning experiences. AFS participates with 54 partner countries around the world. In addition, Saltzman is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Colorado Society of Certified Public Accountants (CSCPA), for which he has chaired past conferences. He is a past member of the Colorado Hotel and Lodging Association and a member of his synagogue’s board of trustees. He has also been a Director for the Colorado Chapter of Financial Executives International (FEI), and former Adjunct Professor at the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado, teaching for masters degree programs.
Saltzman received a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Colorado and his MBA from the University of Minnesota.
