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Wendy has built a 20-plus year career in all areas of management consulting, marketing and public relations. She has extensive experience identifying and solving strategic business challenges for companies of all sizes, across nearly every industry. She has developed and implemented highly successful marketing and public relations campaigns for companies on both the corporate and agency fronts and has personally overseen the launch of thousands of products and services, and hundreds of companies. Wendy formed Vendeloo Incorporated in 2001, as a consultancy boutique offering clients management consulting, public relations and marketing counsel. As Founder and Managing Partner of Vendeloo, Wendy leads the firm's activities on both the operations and account management fronts, helping to oversee client's strategic communication programs, including media relations, marketing and advertising. She also provides clients with a wide range of management consulting and other strategic business services. In 2010, Wendy also joined MOSCOT, a global eyewear and lifestyle brand known worldwide for its iconic eyewear – The MOSCOT Originals, Titanium and Spirit Collections – and a Vendeloo client, as the company’s Vice President of Marketing and Business Development. Prior to forming Vendeloo, Wendy was Founder and President of Mindstorm Communications, a highly respected public relations and marketing agency that specialized in business-to-business and consumer technology. Under her stewardship, Mindstorm grew to 65 professionals and nearly $7 million in annual revenue, representing more than 75 clients, including Sony Electronics, Screaming Media, Cablevision Digital River, Silicon Graphics and Reebok, with offices in NYC, San Francisco, Boston and Washington DC. Wendy charted the company's overall direction and led the agency's activities on both the business and account management fronts, splitting her time between high-level strategic counsel to clients, day-to-day account oversight and company operations. In August 2001, Golin/Harris International, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Interpublic Group of Companies, and presently one of the world's leading public relations firms, acquired Mindstorm. Wendy served as Executive Vice President at Golin/Harris' New York office leading the agency's consumer and technology business-to-business practices and serving as strategic counselor to key clients before leaving the agency to form Vendeloo. Prior to starting Mindstorm, Wendy served as Senior Vice President at TSI Communications, one of the nation's largest and most respected technology PR firms, where she led both the Sony and Business-to-Business account teams, representing close to 30% of TSI's overall revenue. During her five-year tenure at TSI, she tripled the Sony Electronics account to several million dollars per year and expanded the agency's role to support all divisions of Sony Electronics. She also formed TSI's Business-to-Business PR practice, and in less than three years, grew the practice to $2 million in revenue per year, working with nearly 40 companies in diverse areas of technology, before spinning out her division to form Mindstorm Communications in 1999. Prior to joining Technology Solutions, Wendy served as Marketing Communications Manager for MicroDynamics Ltd, a software development company. She created and helped implement the company's annual $2 million marketing program, planned and managed more than 50 product roll-outs, events, trade shows, and press conferences and was responsible for establishing and maintaining joint marketing programs with the company's key industry partners, Apple, Sun, Panasonic and Sony. In 2007, Wendy co-founded The MOSCOT Mobileyes Foundation, a charity with the mission of preserving sight and improving the lives of New York City's underserved populations by providing free, quality medical eye care and vision screening. As Executive Director of Mobileyes, she is responsible for the ongoing development and growth of the charity, as well as day-to-day management of all activity. Wendy's diverse background also includes teaching reading and mathematics to grade levels kindergarten through eighth, an experience she claims taught her everything she needs to know to successfully run a company, lobbying for Japanese companies on Capitol Hill, and researching and writing a Japanese language instruction book (Education Services Corporation, Washington, DC, 1992). Wendy graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from George Washington University (with semesters spent in Spain and Japan) with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science (thesis: "The Kurile Island Dispute") and a minor in Japanese. She is an avid traveler (having explored 65 countries and counting) and photographer (www.wendysimmonsphotography.com), and built and owned a bar named Belly on Manhattan's Lower East Side. She currently lives a converted schoolhouse in Brooklyn. |
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