Veteran Bob Pickens Joins Savvy Marketing Group
Posted: 11-05-2007 : RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.

Research Triangle Park, NC -- Serial entrepreneurial marketing executive Grace W. Ueng, announces the addition of Bob Pickens, as managing director with Savvy Marketing Group’s Resolute Ventures™. Savvy Marketing Group advises senior management in both established and emerging growth companies through two service offerings: Resolute Ventures™ and Chief and Crew for Hire™.

For over two decades, Bob has held the roles of CEO, COO, or CFO of emerging growth companies and taken them from start-up to IPO, first venture funding to successful exit, and emerging growth stage to acquisition by a Fortune 250 company. He has international experience as North American CEO of a publicly traded German company and from starting and operating international divisions of multinational companies.

Bob has orchestrated the raising of over $100 million through venture capital, debt financings, strategic partner investments, IPOs and sales of companies. Prior to his entrepreneurial career, Bob spent 17 years with Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corporation in positions of increasing responsibility in operations, sales and marketing. He has served on the board of directors of Washington Aluminum Company, Red Storm Entertainment (sold to Ubisoft), DataFlux (sold to SAS), Interactive Magic, and ViOS.

“Together with Grace and Savvy Marketing Group, I look forward to continuing to add strategic value to ventures in the Triangle,” states Bob. “As a team, we share a common commitment to the success of our clients.”

“Bob and I started working together over a decade ago at my first venture in RTP. His management style, sage business intelligence and integrity are unsurpassed,” says Grace Ueng, “We have partnered on clients for the last couple of years so I am thrilled to have Bob join Savvy Marketing Group to add more bench strength to our growing Resolute Ventures offerings.”

Savvy Marketing Group uses proven methodologies garnered from real world experience to deliver results for clients. Resolute Ventures™ is designed to provide counsel to chief executives with their corporate strategy, business planning, and fund raising.

“We hired Savvy Marketing Group to advise us – three years later, we have been acquired by D&B and merged with Hoover’s,” states Bobby Martin, co-founder and president of First Research. “Grace and her team have been involved in key steps along the way - in our strategic marketing planning, facilitating our positioning and key messages, as well as our customer satisfaction market research. She also helped find key talent including Bob Pickens whose guidance was helpful in the our achievement of a win – win transaction.”

Grace will continue managing Savvy’s Chief and Crew for Hire™ services which offer outsourced chief marketing officer and implementation for those ventures not yet ready to have a head of marketing and staff in house or those simply needing extended bandwidth and expertise. Capabilities include providing counsel on overall marketing strategy, fielding market research to assess market opportunity, and writing marketing plans including defining the lead generation roadmap and prioritizing marketing programs to meet overall revenue goals.

About Savvy Marketing Group
Savvy Marketing Group, LLC is a leading RTP consulting firm that uses proven methodologies to help new ventures within Fortune 500 companies as well as early to later stage companies maximize their chances for success. Founder and CEO, Grace W. Ueng, has served as an executive with five high growth ventures which collectively generated over $1 billion in investor returns. Savvy Marketing Group focuses on corporate strategy and business planning through their Resolute Ventures™ services, and delivers on marketing strategy and planning through their Chief and Crew for Hire™ services.

Clients include companies in the consumer products, life sciences, and information technology and business services sectors. A sampling of established and emerging growth companies served include: John Deere, Cherokee Investment Partners, Charles & Colvard, Geomagic, SciQuest, Capital Analytics, Virtual Heroes, First Research, Maxwell Marketing, and A Shred Ahead. See www.savvymarketinggroup.com for additional information as well as Ms. Ueng’s speaker’s reel.