Zach H.

Situation

The Women’s Tennis Association wanted to modernize their commercial strategy and technical. This meant starting an in-house agency responsible for editorial, advertising and sponsorship sales, creative and professional services, and strategic advisory.

Action

Initially, my scope was narrowly focused on identifying branded content syndication partners and productizing advertising and sponsorship inventory across social channels and the website directly. Early on, it became evident that the online video platform the team had selected, was leading the team astray, so I was brought in as a fixer. 

Results

During my time with the WTA, I forged strategic alliances with Twitter and Facebook, which resulted in over $850K of net new revenue from their monetization programs. And managed a team of internal employees, agency partners, global service integrators, and external vendors across multiple time zones relaunching the #1 Female Sport in the World's site.

Situation

Recruited by former Allen & Co I-Banker turned CEO to turn around a distressed media asset, which had fallen into receivership. At the time I was hired as GM, the company was in dire straights, with an unhealthy balance sheet. I needed to contain costs and drive revenue fast.  

Action

We had to dramatically cut costs, decrease overhead, and improve network quality to attract more valuable Tier 1 brand advertisers and publishers. So I quickly established a growth plan to increase revenues and expand profit margin. After six months, it worked swimmingly. 

Results

By the time I left, I'd grown top line from four to seven figures monthly and expanded the profit margin by 25%. This additional cash allowed the team to double in headcount, recruit a new Chief Technology Officer, build a social gaming ad server, and ultimately exit to Meredith Media. 

Situation

The Housing Markets had collapsed and a new segment of housing inventory emerged the Micro Apartment and Tiny Home. At the time, there weren't any brands designing high-quality, multi-purpose, American-made furniture for small spaces. I decided to join forces with my folks to launch a multi-generational family business. 

Action

We started by prototyping on interior design clients' dimes. Then we began seeing demand for fully furnished rooms. We decided to manufacture domestically in our home state of Connecticut. I spent my time leading the design and development of our eCommerce site with 86 SKUs for our Direct-To-Consumer line of business. 

Results

After landing lots of organic press, we decided to explore adjacent markets and identified the right conditions for hospitality. Realizing our product line translated to boutique hospitality was a huge unlock. I shifted my focus to B2B sales and we soon landed several large hotel deals and by year four became profitable.