People

Bold consultants combine strategic vision and specialist experience with the ability to get things done, fast, and effectively. Everyone in the group has a reputation for excellence in their respective fields, and is capable of delivering to an extremely high standard without needing close management. Here are just a few of our consultants:

Management: Robin Batt, Founder and Managing Consultant

Specialises in: Strategy, Business Planning, Marketing, Alliances, Community/Event Development

Markets: Communications (Fixed, mobile and broadband), Emerging technology (VoIP, WiMAX, MVNO, Online Content, IP Video), Business intelligence (publishing, events)

Robin has 12 years commercial managerial experience in the Telecommunications Media and Technology (TMT) sector. She focuses on helping companies identify and meet market opportunities arising from emerging technologies. She provides specific expertise in business planning, strategic positioning, marketing and partnership/alliance development.

Since founding Bold in 2003, she has led business planning projects for mobile operators O2 Ireland, 3 UK, Orange UK & Telkom Indonesia.

She has also led new market entry, market research and market positioning projects for firms such as Overture (now Yahoo!), telecoms infrastructure provider, Band-X and start-up community The European Leadership Programme.

Robin has deep hands-on marketing experience - particularly across online, experiential, event and channel marketing. Specifically, she has driven consumer and channel marketing campaigns for a IP communications service provider and MVNO; built community and viral marketing campaigns for an upcoming breakbeats record label; and advised major IT firms on how to maximise their ROI from event marketing.

She also has extensive experience of B2B marketing in the publishing and events sector, working with clients such as Yankee Group (WiMAX World), and Imago (Mobile WiMAX Congress). In 04-06 she was the interim VP Marketing for pulvermedia, the New York based publishing company. In this placement she delivered the worldwide marketing for the VON events for 1 ½ years, driving growth of over 200% from one event to the next across every single event in the portfolio.

Robin has specific market knowledge in fixed and mobile communications, VoIP, WiMAX, MVNO, Unified Messaging, youth and online travel, content licensing, mCommerce and mobile internet.

A practical consultant, Robin delivers strategic planning firmly grounded within business realities, with responsibility for implementation and bottom line profitability.

Prior to Bold, Robin was a Managing Consultant with Coleago Consulting, Director Global Account Development with the George P Johnson Company, Director Strategic Alliances with eKit and Executive Director of First Conferences where she founded the ISP Forum and related publishing/event ventures.

Robin graduated from Oxford University, with an MA in Modern History. She speaks conversational Spanish.

Suzi Bentley, Managing Consultant

Specialises in: Marketing Strategy and Planning, Interactive Strategy and Implementation, Market research, Customer Experience

Markets: Internet, Interactive TV, Mobile, Mobile Data, Digital Media

Suzi is an experienced strategic communications consultant, with 15 years of experience in digital media. Her particular focus is on the delivery and marketing of Internet-based services. She has specialist skills in multi-channel user experience and customer insight.

She has lead the digital strategy and research teams at some of London's top agencies. At Modem Media, she launched the primary research capability, and created a customer experience taskforce. She developed both the client and strategic service departments at Tribal DDB, and developed digital strategies for a range of clients in the financial, FMCG, and technology industries, including Deutsche Bank, Unilever and Ericsson. Before that, she implemented interactive marketing for clients such as Seagate Technology, Shockwave.com and New Line Cinema at Lot21 Interactive Advertising Group, and Grey Advertising, both in San Francisco.

Suzi also has public sector experience, working with the Department for Children, Schools and Families (formerly the Department for Education and Skills) as well as for the Department for Constitutional Affairs, and Warwick University, helping to define and deliver interactive services.

Kay Chapman, Managing Consultant

Specialises in: B2B Marketing Management, Event/Direct Mail/Viral marketing

Markets: IT, Telecommunications, VoIP

Kay has over 9 years experience in marketing - driving strategic planning and branding through to direct marketing management. The majority of her experience lies in the marketing of IT conferences and exhibitions, having worked for Gartner, Advanstar and Imark Communications promoting events such as the Gartner Symposium ITxpo, the Gartner Themed Events Series, Softworld events and numerous "stand alone" B2B conferences in telecoms, finance, Central & E. European and pharmaceutical markets.

Event marketing in particular is results-driven marketing in it's purest form, and the necessity to deliver tangible value from marketing spend has been the ethos she has applied to all of her work. She has been able to use an array of transferable skills to deliver due diligence projects, feasibility studies and research reports to a variety of organisations from local and international NGOs to start up businesses.

In 2001 Kay took the personal challenge of driving business development projects in Albania for 12 months (with VSO) - an invaluable lesson in lateral thinking, problem solving and achieving results in difficult conditions! She holds a BA (Hons) Degree in Business, and a Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

More recently she has worked in the telecommunications sector, working with pulvermedia to market and promote the VON events, recognised as the leading VoIP Conference and Expo brand worldwide.

Karen Gold, Managing Consultant

Specialises in: B2B marketing, Event and Community development, Business Development, Project management

Markets: Telecommunications, Internet, VoIP, WiMAX, Online content/new media

Karen has 10 years experience in the Internet, telecoms and health sectors, with specific expertise in event and community development and marketing.

She has delivered a range of marketing and event-related projects, including multiple integrated marketing campaigns in the VoIP industry in both North America and Europe. She has also built media partnerships for Yankee Group's WiMAX World and recruited speakers for Imago's Mobile WiMAX Congress. Recently, she authored the sponsorship plan for a UK-based contemporary art consumer exhibition.

Prior to Bold she spent 6 years researching, producing and marketing B2B communities (portals, newsletters and events) in the Internet, Technology and New Media sector. Working under Bold's Managing Director Robin Batt, and later at managerial level herself, Karen's has specialist market sector experience in both the Internet Content industry and the telecommunications industry.

Subsequently Karen spent 2 years in a private, and then public healthcare environment, driving new business development at a strategic level. She also has fundraising and sponsor acquisition experience in the not-for-profit and arts sectors.

She holds a Ba (Hons) degree in Geography from University of Manchester.

Melissa Lehrer, Managing Consultant

Specialises in: Marketing Strategy, Direct and Channel marketing, PR

Markets: Software and Communications (fixed, mobile, broadband, VoIP, MVNO)

Melissa is an experienced marketing consultant with over 9 years experience in defining and executing marketing strategies within the IT and telecommunications sectors.

She specialises in product marketing, marketing communications and direct marketing in retail, B2B and channel environments. She has an excellent track record of developing channels from market research, proposition and partner recruitment through to creating and executing extensive partner programmes in multiple languages.

Prior to Bold, Melissa was Marketing Director at SpinVox, the world's only voicemail-to-text provider, where she played a key role in the company achieving 65K subscribers within the first year of launch. She also developed alliances with key channel partners (3, The Carphone Warehouse, The Link, 4uBusiness) and significantly raised the profile of the company within the mobile sector.

Previously she held roles as European Partner Programme Manager at Level 3, and as head of the marketing department at Inclarity, a leading Voice over Broadband service provider that achieved triple digit growth year on year. At Inclarity she established the VoIP channel proposition from scratch, achieving a market leader position within the service provider industry, building an award winning channel marketing programme, and overseeing highly effective lead generation campaigns across multiple media to support direct B2B sales.

Melissa has also held marketing roles at Zapper Technologies, a Reuters-backed Israeli software company, and at Babylon, a leaading provider of translation software with 18 million subscribers.

She holds an MA in Clinical Psychology (first class honors) and a BA in Psychology & English Literature (first class honors), from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is fluent in Hebrew and has a basic understanding of written French.

Melanie Cohen, Associate Consultant

Specialises in: Market research (Qualitative and quantitative)

Markets: New media and technology, Retail, Financial, Social and political, Automotive

Melanie specialises in both qualitative and quantitative market research and has ten years experience in this arena. She has recently delivered projects for Credit Suisse, COI, BT and HSBC.

Melanie delivers end-to-end market research from identifying research objectives through to identifying the most appropriate research techniques to achieve them, and project managing the execution of the fieldwork. She collates and analyses the data to present in a format that informs and guides strategic planning and insight, with a focus on 'analysis' rather than simple reportage of facts.

Previously, Melanie was an Associate Director at ICM (define acronym) for many years and headed up the Qualitative Division. During this time she worked on a diverse range of projects: consumer & business-to-business and national & international. Her qualitative experience has included moderating one to one depths, focus groups, triads, tele-depths, vox pops, accompanied shops, web-surfs and ethnographic observations.

Prior to this she led quantitative studies at ICM on behalf of a diverse mix of clients, including Bluewater, NTL, Norwich Union, Dixons Store Group, WHSmith and Lloyds TSB.

Melanie is a member of the MRS and AQR and has kept up-to-date with qualitative techniques by attending numerous industry seminars and training days.

Melanie graduated from Leeds University with a BA Hons (2:1) in English Literature and Sociology, and has a Masters degree in Social Policy and Social Research.

Christine Eaton-Hennah, Managing Consultant

With over 15 years marketing and advertising experience, Christine is a resourceful, commercially minded marketing director with a strong track record of delivering effective marketing campaigns. Her through-the-line experience spans both B2C and B2B markets, and includes working with leading brands such as Panasonic, O2, Coca-Cola, Halifax Life, Scottish Widows and WWAV Rapp Collins.

She has particularly deep experience of the European IT sector, having spent 7 years as marketing manager for Gartner's flagship IT Conference and Expo, generating annual revenue goals of over £5M and with an annual budget of £550k. She has also worked with Nokia and SAP.

More recently Christine was a key part of the marketing team for the European VON events. Specifically she was led the negotiations with media partners for the VON Europe event in Berlin, negotiating almost US $0.5M in free marketing, as well as planning and executing the print and online campaigns for this major pan-European Conference and Expo.

She is committed to delivering tangible value from marketing spends using direct media such as direct mail, e-media, advertising and telemarketing.