elise ballard

Built Cherry Catering Company as a small, full-service catering company that provided lunch and gala dinners to business and non-profit organizations.Managed all aspects of the business as sole proprietor, including sales, marketing, product development, budgeting and supply, in addition to food production and service. Developed relationship marketing strategy to evolve to over 80% referral-based business in 16 months.

As one of a handful of original employees, I served PPI from its beginning in a multi-faceted sales and marketing capacity and helped to more than double its revenue over my tenure. Drove revenue gains and improved operating margin by optimizing PPI’s offerings for the emerging career-changer market.

ChefSteps is a food-centric startup that develops high-quality content and resources to inspire and educate cooks at any skill level. Increased membership subscriptions from 150K to 600K in 6 months through targeted press coverage, content syndication deals, and affiliate relationships. Key Accomplishments Defined a content marketing strategy that aligned weekly content releases and marketing outreach efforts to a more cohesive brand story across web channels and media affiliates, resulting in deeper audience engagement through a better user experience and clearer calls to action Secured high-impact coverage from tech, culinary, maker and start-up media outlets, working with journalists to guide narrative and align with the ChefSteps story in feature-length articles on Saveur, New York Times, TIME Magazine, GeekWire, Eater and others Established syndication partnerships with FoodRepublic, Martha Stewart, Eater and Food+Wine to expand awareness and drive exponential referral traffic, increasing subscriptions from 150K to 600K in 6 months

Ballard Productions has a mission to promote the collaboration of technology and culture, helping tech companies express innovation through art and make cultural connections to bring their products to life. Producer of Gigapixel ArtZoom (www.gigapixelartzoom.com) on behalf of Microsoft Research--an interactive, multi-billion-pixel panoramic image celebrating the artists of Seattle, Orchestrated the participation of hundreds of artists, volunteers, videographers and 3D photographers for the film shoot in less than 3 weeks. Results: - Working partnerships with key city council members and arts organizations - PR strategy resulted in coverage from several media outlets including Fast Co., HuffPost + KOMO - www.gigapixelartzoom.com received 400,000+ visitors within one week of its launch

Owned marketing operations for global channel program; serving as central liaison between the Microsoft Partner business group, IT operations, and customer service / fulfillment vendors for the annual launch of global partner enrollment campaigns. Responsible for business process planning and program budgets, membership portal content and optimization, and customer service / fulfillment vendor readiness. Key Accomplishments Constructed, defended, and oversaw the distribution of multi-million dollar marketing program and IT project budgets, aligned to business objectives and reconciled monthly to the penny Managed contract negotiations with and program transition to a more efficient global customer service / fulfillment vendor, driving significant efficiency gains and a 20% improvement in customer satisfaction ratings Created and regularly optimized volumes of partner- and vendor- facing online content, including marketing material, program guides, vendor training manuals, and field positioning documents

Marketing Consultant, Open Source Solutions at Microsoft