Mark Schaefer Adjunct Marketing Professor at Rutgers University

I met Mark sometime ago via Twitter, even before I had read his books he proved that being authentically helpful certainly drives results.

Most recently I invited Mark to be a speaker to a huge audience at an IBM event held in Ireland. Mark delivered a plenary talk on the "Return on Influence" and also delivered two sessions on "Six Layers of Engagement". Mark's content and delivery style really brought the topics to life. Of the weeks sessions, the feedback provided put his sessions as one of the strongest.

Here are some of the comments:

“Inspirational session. Could listen to Mark endlessly. Was disappointed when this session was over. Really excellent”

“Excellent, one of the highlights of this year's conference. This man has his finger on the pulse of what is really happening with web enabled business, and in particular sales and marketing. He's years ahead of anyone I've heard speak on the topic before. IBM's social media strategy/policy makers would do well to take a crash course from him in effective ways of using the web and social media to engage with customers and prospect”

“Excellent . Mark Schaefer really did it for me this year! Has changed the way I look at the tools now, and finally got me to sign up for Twitter - and even tweeting! :)”

There would be no hesitation, from me, to anyone thinking about hiring Mark. Someone I am delighted to call a friend.

I asked Mark to come speak to the American Advertising Federation - Louisville after one of my colleagues recommended him after seeing his presentation at the Digital Non-Conference in Cincinnati.

Mark spoke at one of our club's monthly luncheons, and did a great job of explaining a complex subject to an audience of about 125, with mixed levels of experience and expertise. At our next Board meeting, everyone was still raving about his presentation, saying how we need to 'have more speakers like THAT'. It's important to our executive committee to give our members programs of value and information that they can take back and apply to their jobs. Mark did just that--and brought humor and entertainment at the same time. I would absolutely recommend Mark to anyone looking for a fantastic speaker and presenter.

Mark is an excellent resource for providing organizations with marketing services. He has been assisting me with utilizing Social Media as a means for connecting with possible clients and he is very knowledgeable in this area. Utilizing Social Media effectively is not an easy task without an experienced resource. His strategic approach is extremely valuable and he is very effective in explaining how to apply it.

I've had the pleasure of working with Mark for the past year. He has been one of our stellar faculty members in our executive education program. Not only does he have deep subject matter expertise, he also relates well to an executive audience and is a genuinely good guy.

I was a student in Mark's Marketing Research & Design course at Tusculum College. Mark was very effective in teaching the course by way of incorporating real marketing scenerios and projects into the subject matter. The skills and practices he taught in the class were very useful to me for my personal and career development.

Mark has the unique ability to connect the dots to identify business solutions that will drive top-line growth or back-office efficiencies because of his creativity and broad experience across product development, marketing, sales, supply chain and eBusiness. He is also one of those special people who understand how to leverage technology to drive business value. All this added with his passion to make a difference by identifying short-term gains combined with how these come together to support a strategic vision make him unique.

Mark Schaefer is one of the most creative and out-of-the-box individuals I have ever worked with. His vision and tenacity brought rapid changes to our web-based projects and delivered high value to our business units. Mark focuses on immediate results while also pursuing an aggressive strategy for the future. Mark gets my highest recommendation.

I had the privilege of working with Mark when he was the leader of Alcoa's eBusiness team. He is an extremely knowledgeable marketing strategist and really understands how to develop solutions that enhance a business' value proposition. He always does this in his typical win-win style. His skills in helping his clients and his team see the big picture are remarkable and Alcoa's eBusiness extranet always received high marks in customer satisfaction surveys. Mark is a very skilled communicator and leader who keeps abreast of the latest tools, techniques and benchmarks. He would be an asset to any marketing team.

I have reported to Mark, under his capacity and leadership as the Director – eBusiness and Commercial Systems @ Alcoa, for four straight years. Mark is a very passionate, bright, and visionary individual – probably one of the most creative leaders I have met in my career. He is target-focused, will work hard to reach his goals; yet will not compromise the human factor along the way; which makes him a great individual to report to. In any team scenario, Mark will be the ideal catalyst to lead the team (and each individual within it) to even the most challenging stretch-goals. Mark is a change management specialist, a sales talent, and a gifted marketing expert. I have nothing but praise for him and wish him all the very best for any of his new ventures.

While at Alcoa, I worked with Mark on the strategy and implementation of our Customer Service Extranet and eBusiness Portal. Mark has unlimited vision when it comes to pushing the limits and thinking out of the box. He has a solid understanding of technology capability, customer requirements and business process applications and blends these understandings in determining the right strategy to push forward.

While working with Mark, I witnessed him effectively drive a complete redesign of our customer extranet site www.alcoadirect.com, taking it to a much higher level of customer satisfaction. I also watched him design and launch a brand new internal eBusiness Portal used to coordinate strategy between business units. Mark is a true professional with tremendous energy and passion. I would highly recommend Mark for any project driving improvements for eBusiness.