Case Study: Carlson Companies
“I have been fortunate to have worked for Kathy Hollenhorst for the past 10 years and have witnessed firsthand her ability to come into a variety of organizations and transform them for the better. What I appreciate most in Kathy is her passion for the customer, her courage and wisdom to leverage technology to dramatically improve the business and her leadership in helping bring out the best in her staff and everyone around her.”
Gino Giovanelli
former VP eCommerce
Carlson Companies
During her tenure with Carlson, Kathy Hollenhorst was selected to lead a strategic initiative to integrate marketing processes across the enterprise. At that time, Carlson desired to leverage possible synergies across all functional areas for the six operating units, with a goal of determining the feasibility of expanding shared services for the enterprise.
In this highly consultative role, Kathy was responsible for working with the executive leadership of each of the six operating groups (hotels, cruise, restaurants, leisure travel, marketing services and business travel), to develop marketing strategies across business units, consider integrations of marketing people and process, and to develop an enterprise data warehouse.
Key Deliverables:
- Defined a strategic plan for increased effectiveness of the multiple hundred million dollars in marketing spend
- Conducted a feasibility plan for the consolidation of over 1,000 external vendors and several hundred internal
marketing team members - Completed a Six-Sigma based analysis of all marketing processes
- Delivered an integrated marketing plan as Chair of the Marketing Leadership Council