BERLIN – Prophet, a global growth and business transformation consultancy hires Layla Keramat as a partner in its Berlin office. The design expert will be responsible for helping to drive the expansion of the firm’s Experience and Innovation practice in EMEA.

Prior to Prophet, Layla held executive creative director roles at frog and Interbrand– defining and designing innovative digital solutions with her teams – as well as Sony and Deutsche Telekom, serving a client-side role.

“We are thrilled to welcome Layla to Prophet and have her exceptional capabilities and stimulating thinking drive the development and growth of our Experience and Innovation practice in the region,” commented Tobias Bärschneider, EMEA Regional Lead & Partner. “Prophet is going through a period of exceptional growth in these disruptive times and this particular area of our business is seeing high demand as clients look to sustain competitive advantage through innovative business solutions. Layla’s human-centered approach will undoubtedly help our clients drive truly transformative growth.”

With more than 25 years of experience working both client and consultancy side in Germany and the U.S., Layla’s subject matter expertise and multidisciplinary work in product and service design has delivered breakthrough solutions for brands such as BMW, IKEA, Samsung and Siemens.

“I’m excited to join Prophet as this period of unprecedented demand to accelerate the pace of digital transformation continues. Businesses have an amazing opportunity to shape their future rather than react to it and I’m looking forward to helping clients explore the capabilities needed, identifying the best experience design solutions and bringing them to market,” said Layla.

Layla is a jury member of ADCE and formerly the UX Awards, as well as an adjunct professor at the School of Visual Arts in New York. She can also be found regularly speaking at universities and industry events.

NEW YORK – The non-profit group, C200 announced that Prophet Partner Melissa Goldner will be the newest member of its C-Ahead program.

C-Ahead is an exclusive development program created to support and celebrate female leaders while providing specific actionable content that focuses on the skills and experience necessary for women to succeed in significant positions at major corporations. New members require nominations and those accepted participate in a 6-month virtual program that aims to build leadership skills by providing educational and networking opportunities with other C200 members.

“One of my passions is to empower other women in the workplace. I’m thrilled to have been given the opportunity to join this wonderful program,” said Goldner. “My goal is to apply these learnings and share them with my fellow female leaders to help them become more successful both in and outside of Prophet.”

Goldner, who joined Prophet as a partner in January, has many years of leadership experience at client services organizations, including Slalom and Ogilvy & Mather where she was known for helping clients reinvent their business from top to bottom. She has worked with clients across consumer goods, finance, insurance, media and entertainment and other industries to drive organization-wide transformations, enhance digital collaboration and create high-performing teams. The C-Ahead program will help her further development in these areas and grow in her leadership role at Prophet while offering networking opportunities, access to exclusive events, and other educational programs.

“C200 and its programs are designed to grow and inspire future women leaders,” said IBM Senior Partner Kelly Watson, mentor to Goldner and member of C200. “Since connecting with Melissa, I knew she was in the position to impact the advancement of female business leaders. Her passion to learn and share her wisdom makes her a terrific addition to the program.”

Goldner has already learned important lessons in her first few weeks as a C-Ahead member and couldn’t be more thrilled about the support she’s received from not only her C-Ahead peers but also Prophet.

“Supporting women leaders is something that I’m extremely passionate about said Prophet’s President Chiaki Nishino. “As the executive sponsor of DEI and one of the founders of the Prophet’s Women in Leadership effort, which aims to harness the power of women leaders and help them thrive at Prophet and beyond, I am thrilled for Melissa to bring her learnings to our team and continue to grow as a leader at our firm and help us grow as a firm.”

Goldner says that even if she can be a small piece of another person’s success, it makes the entire experience worthwhile.

SAN FRANCISCO – Prophet, a global consultancy, has added five new leaders who will enhance the firm’s digital marketing, transformation, customer experience and digital design capabilities. These new hires will also join Prophet’s growing bench of senior female leaders as the firm continues its commitment to put women in senior-level roles, elevate their voices and build a more gendered-balanced workforce.

“From adapting to the realities of a post-pandemic world to facing unprecedented levels of change and disruption, companies require new thinking and transformative approaches to compete in today’s market,” says Michael Dunn, Prophet’s CEO and Chairman, “These new leaders have a wealth of expertise assisting brands with transformation, marketing, design and experience all through the lens of digital and will be vital team members as we continue to help our clients unlock uncommon growth.”

Dunn adds, “Having a diverse set of voices from a variety of backgrounds enables us to provide the best service to our clients. We are excited to add these five highly accomplished women to the Prophet family and continue our commitment to create a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce.”

The new hires are:

• Amanda Thurston, Partner, New York: As a member of the firm’s Marketing and Sales Practice, she will guide data and platform transformation efforts to generate demand and above market growth for clients. Before joining Prophet, she was chief marketing officer at Group M, North America, and marketing services leader at IBM iX.
• Caitlyn Phillips, Partner, New York: Philips brings 20 years of experience spanning advertising, consulting and innovation to the Digital Practice after building out and leading CX for Wunderman Thompson’s east region as well as IBM and Amazon.
• Layla Keramat, Partner, Berlin: She brings 25+ years of experience defining and designing innovative solutions with a human (and planet) centered design approach. Keramat has designed complex systems of service and product for connected car, future mobility, future learning, telecommunication, IoT (in home and industry) and smart cities shaping innovative experiences for global brands (BMW, IKEA, China UnionPay, Deutsche Telekom, Porsche) and startups in markets across the U.S., Europe, Middle East and China.
• Amy Laskin, Associate Partner, New York: Laskin focuses on digital marketing and content strategies to help companies achieve growth and transformation. Her prior experience includes leadership positions at Ogilvy, Bed Bath & Beyond and WW (formerly Weight Watchers). And at R/GA, she led content strategy for the global B2B unification of the Verizon
• Susan Hosking, Associate Partner, San Francisco: Joining Prophet’s Experience and Innovation practice, Hosking is a product strategist with expertise in creative product and service development as well as business strategy. Previously, she was senior manager at Bain & Company and a design leader in its innovation practice, ADAPT.

“Customers’ demands are constantly evolving and companies need robust strategies to provide the experiences, products and services they require,” said Chiaki Nishino, President at Prophet, “These women leaders have proven track records of developing solutions to complex problems and will help our clients achieve transformative growth.”

As part of these hires, Prophet is enhancing its marketing and experience transformation capabilities. Thurston has expertise in demand generation and enacting data-led transformations while Laskin specializes in digital content creation and multi-channel storytelling across a variety of disciplines including ecommerce, brand strategy and development, digital strategy, social media and more. Phillips, Keramat and Hosking each bring a deep and diverse set of capabilities to uncover human-centered, innovative experiences for global brands.

Mat Zucker, senior partner and co-head of the Marketing and Sales practice comments, “I’m excited that these talented experts are joining our stellar global sales and marketing team. A digital marketing strategy is vital for growth and companies need to be ready to respond to new opportunities when they arise, invest in content and capabilities to meet the moment.”

About Prophet

SHANGHAI – Prophet, a leading global growth and business transformation consultancy, has been recognized with two awards at the Digital Impact Awards Asia 2021. The consultancy received a gold award and a silver award in the “Best Use of Digital in the Financial Services Sector” category for its work with AXA and MB Bank respectively.

With over a decade of experience in Europe, this was the first Digital Impact Awards to have taken place in Asia, celebrating the creativity and innovation of digital work across the region.

Prophet’s distinctions are a testament of its excellence in creating impactful digital experiences and strategies for clients in the region. The project awarded the gold award was the innovative digital customer experience Prophet developed for AXA, which saw its first humanized user interface called Emma. Prophet’s work with MB Bank, which transformed it into becoming a digital-first, customer-centric bank in Vietnam, was given a silver award.

“We are thrilled to have been recognized for two awards at the Digital Impact Awards Asia 2021,” said Alan Casey, Partner and Asia Regional Lead at Prophet. “Companies in Asia are transforming at a fast pace to meet the evolving demands of the local consumers. We are honored to have worked with many of these clients to help them drive uncommon growth and are excited to see the impact our work has had on their businesses.”

AUSTIN, Texas – For the second year in a row, Springbox, a Prophet company, has been recognized by the B2B Marketing Elevation Awards for excellence in multiple categories. These awards acknowledge the exceptional talent, achievement and success in the B2B marketing space across the U.S. – solidifying Springbox’s position as a premier digital agency.

The firm was awarded a silver distinction in the “Best Use of Account-Based Marketing” category for an ABM pilot program designed to revolutionize demand generation and nurturing capabilities for Cigna.

“We had a wonderful partnership with Cigna to collaborate on how best to move their capabilities forward while generating near-term results,” said Angie Gette, vice president of strategy and insights at Springbox. “It’s difficult to drive change in such a large organization, but everyone embraced the opportunity. We’re glad for the impact our planning had on their business and demand generation function overall.”

In the “Best Brand Initiative” category, Springbox’s reimagining of the Amazon Business brand was honored with the silver distinction.

“We are proud to have helped bring the Amazon Business brand to life and played a small part in its immense global growth,” said Darcy Munoz, partner at Prophet. “From articulating the global strategy to activating it in a campaign across channels, we partnered with our Amazon Business colleagues as one integrated team committed to the best strategic and creative outcomes.”

These awards stand as a testament to the hard work and innovation the Springbox team dedicates to every client.

About the B2B Marketing Elevation Awards

The U.S. Elevation Awards is an incredible B2B marketing event that brings together and recognizes the best of the best programs across all channels. This event delivers B2B marketers the opportunity to learn from each other, to share best practices and to see new techniques.

CHICAGO – Prophet announced today that Kristen Groh has joined the global consultancy as a senior partner in its Chicago office. Kristen will be a part of Prophet’s North American Leadership Team as well as its Transformation Solutions practice, applying her extensive expertise in digital and customer-centric transformation to help Prophet clients drive growth and advance the firm’s portfolio of transformation accounts.

Previously, Kristen was the Industry Lead for Consumer Products in North America at Publicis Sapient, where she had been advising clients on how to leverage digital capabilities to drive transformative growth. Kristen brings expertise across a broad set of topics, including digital strategy and transformation, brand and experience strategy, design and strategic planning, in addition to strong client relationships and account building.

“We are thrilled that Kristen is joining the Prophet team,” said Chiaki Nishino, President of Prophet and Head of North America. “Her experiences and expertise as a digital native in professional services will undoubtedly help our clients leverage the capabilities necessary to drive truly transformative growth.”

Prior to Publicis Sapient, Kristen held leadership positions at DesignKitchen, VSA Partners, and Ogilvy & Mather, where she led engagements with leading companies such as Estee Lauder, IBM, Caterpillar, Polaris, SC Johnson, J.M. Smucker and Unilever. Her unique career combines practical experience in digital product, marketing, technology, design, with a deep emphasis on relationship building with clients.

“I have long been an admirer of Prophet — its work, people and values,” Kristen said. “I couldn’t be more excited to join this outstanding team and look forward to partnering with clients on their transformation journeys to creatively grow and expand their businesses.”

NEW YORK, (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Prophet, a global consultancy announced the expansion of its brand activation expertise through the hiring of Greg Erdelyi, Sarah Tosques, and Damien Peraino to enhance the firm’s creative capabilities.

The new group brings a diverse set of experienced, high-caliber, transmedia creative expertise to Prophet to develop brand and marketing ideas for clients. They will work as a cross-platform, multi-disciplinary team to develop innovative programs that can be quickly executed.

“We believe there is significant demand from clients for bold ideas, executed with speed in market,” said Marisa Mulvihill, partner and global head of Prophet’s brand and activation practice.

Greg Erdelyi joins Prophet as a partner and executive creative director. He brings with him more than 20 years of experience and has worked with brands such as Johnson & Johnson, Oscar Health and Land Rover. Prior to his role at Prophet, Erdelyi held several leadership positions at agencies including J. Walter Thompson, Young & Rubicam and McCann and most recently led agency sales at the marketing-tech platform, VidMob.

Sarah Tosques, Prophet’s new associate creative director, brings both strategy and storytelling capabilities. With a fine arts background, she joins Prophet from Beekman Social and has worked at Untitled and TBWA/Chiat/Day. Her brand experience includes Spotify Premium, Oscar Health, TD Bank, PepsiCo, Accenture and Estee Lauder.

Damien Peraino joins as Prophet’s first executive producer. A seasoned integrated production leader, his award-winning work includes digital, TV and experiential. He has held similar roles at Dentsu McGarryBowen, IBM’s Resource/Ammirati and Ogilvy, working on such brands as General Motors, Kraft, Clorox, Marriott, Hershey’s and BlueCross BlueShield.

This new team enables Prophet to deliver even better:

• Activation concepts that deliver bold ideas to bring brand and marketing strategies to market
• Brand-building campaigns that shift perceptions through awareness activities
• Brand moments and experiences that build notoriety and reinforce a client’s brand strategy
• Content programs and thought leadership that activates a new brand, builds authority and generates demand

“We know our clients are especially hungry for big ideas now,” said Mat Zucker, senior partner and co-lead of Prophet’s marketing and sales practice. “Along with our existing design and verbal capabilities, including Prophet’s digital marketing agency, Springbox, this new group is built to be a new resource for concepting, collaboration—and magic. We plan to grow this team to keep up with demand.”

NEW YORK, NY – Prophet announced today that Michelle Bottomley will serve on the global consultancy’s board of directors. Michelle will serve as a strategic growth advisor – helping guide Prophet’s leaders in making impactful decisions that will better the organization and its clients.

“Prophet’s unique ability to steward purpose-led business transformation from strategy to digital execution provides an advantage to clients seeking growth and to more fully live their purposes,” said Michelle. “I couldn’t be more excited to join the Prophet board given our shared values and commitment to growth acceleration via branding and modern tools.”

Michelle has an extensive background in growth vision, strategy, and execution, as well as digital innovation and commercialization. She currently serves as Chief Executive Officer at Modern Growth Exchange, a tech-enabled growth acceleration business that provides customer-centric growth tools that allow clients to visualize their customer portfolios and align marketing, sales and service programs to drive profitable revenue growth.

Prior to Modern Growth Exchange, Michelle served as Chief Marketing Officer for New York Life, Staples, Mercer and Barclaycard. Before that, Michelle worked in the marketing agency world – holding leadership positions at Bronner Slosberg Humphrey (now Digitas), Epsilon and Ogilvy. Outside of her primary roles, Michelle has years of experience advising and coaching business leaders across categories and sectors. She has served on the boards of Bose Corp and Blue Planet Training (Own The Room). In addition to Prophet, she currently serves on the boards of the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) and Susan G. Komen.

“It’s rare to come across a leader like Michelle who has the depth and breadth of relevant industry expertise that she does, and also brings a servant-leader mindset with humility and grace to be a teacher in her field,” said Michael Dunn, CEO and Chairman at Prophet. “We are excited to continue to learn from her as she advises our firm around modern growth, transformation and data-driven growth marketing trends that will propel our business forward.”

NEW YORK, NY – Prophet announced today that Amber Haggins has joined the global consultancy as Global Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). She will help the firm drive forward its DEI efforts to continue to create a more inclusive and impactful experience for Prophet employees and clients.

Amber steps into this newly created role with extensive experience in DEI. She comes to Prophet from Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, a global law firm, where she served as Director of Diversity & Inclusion, responsible for embedding diversity, inclusion and cultural competency into both the firm’s day-to-day operations and long-tail strategic goals.  Before Katten, she worked across government and aerospace industries to lead the strategy and execution of DEI initiatives. Early in her career, she served as a practicing attorney in Washington D.C., where she specialized in Commercial Litigation, Products Liability, Labor & Employment Litigation and Counseling.

“It is such an honor to join Prophet and a leadership team determined and committed to progress in diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Amber said. “We will continue to approach our DEI journey with humility, transparency and accountability to make a meaningful impact. I look forward to partnering with Propheteers to make a real difference at Prophet, in our communities and for our clients.”

This new leadership role emerged out of Prophet’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion made last summer. The search for a strong leader, who would fit Prophet’s needs and ambitions, was highly thorough and intentional.

“We are beyond excited to be able to work with Amber, our Prophet DEI council and the rest of the firm community to continue to drive our DEI agenda forward,” said Chiaki Nishino, President at Prophet and executive sponsor of the firm’s DEI efforts. “Her experience and expertise are exactly what we were looking for in this essential leadership role. We look forward to learning and growing as a more inclusive and equitable organization under her leadership.”

For more on Prophet’s DEI journey, read this update. 

NEW YORK, NY – Global consultancy Prophet announced the results of the sixth Prophet Brand Relevance Index® (BRI), a ranking of the most relevant brands based on consumer feedback.

The top 10 most relevant brands of 2021 are:

1. Apple
2. Peloton
3. KitchenAid
4. Mayo Clinic
5. LEGO
6. Costco
7. Honda
8. Johns Hopkins
9. PlayStation
10. Amazon

Apple maintained its standing as the most relevant brand for the sixth year in a row, while brands like Peloton, Mayo Clinic, LEGO, Costco, Honda and PlayStation, took top spots for the first time. Notably, Disney dropped from No. 6 to No. 30, while Pinterest – the top social media brand – fell from No. 10 to No. 31. Johns Hopkins (No. 8) made it into the Index for the first time, while Apple, KitchenAid and Amazon held onto their positions in the top 10 from 2019.

Toy brands like Fisher-Price and American Girl made it into the top 50 for the first time, as families sought out brands that could keep their kids happy and entertained. Brands like Southwest Airlines, Nike, KitchenAid, Folgers, Peloton and Mayo Clinic stood out once again as leaders in their respective categories.

This year’s study found that brand relevance scores increased over 5 percent – showing that relevant brands are more important than ever. The top 10 brands shared a commitment to staying true to their purposes while adapting to changing consumer behaviors and expectations brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

“Following 2020, a year that highlighted the essential role brands play in consumers’ lives, it’s been thrilling to discover which brands have won over the hearts and minds of consumers who have radically different expectations and behaviors,” said Marisa Mulvihill, Prophet partner and co-author of the BRI. “The top brands from this year’s BRI have found compelling ways to fill the missing needs of consumers dealing with the global pandemic – making them feel comfortable, nurtured and connected.”

The brands at the top of the Index found a way to evolve and meet the moment – using data and technology to accelerate their digital transformations both out of interest and necessity. They have a clear focus on creating digital experiences while tapping into the more human elements of their brands. The rise of the “human brand” allowed businesses to show empathy, acknowledge loss and suffering, and even spark joy in difficult times.

To find out which brands are the most relevant to U.S. consumers, Prophet surveyed 13,114 individuals about more than 228 brands across 25 categories. Their responses were measured on four foundational brand relevance principles: “Customer Obsession,” “Ruthless Pragmatism,” “Pervasive Innovation” and “Distinctive Inspiration.”

“This year’s data proved that consumers value brands more than ever,” said Scott Davis, chief growth officer at Prophet.  “As individuals around the world dealt with uncertainty and lost the ability to connect in person, they turned to the brands that tapped into their emotional needs by bringing them joy, comfort, purpose, truth and connectivity. It will be interesting to see if this year was a one-year shift in our BRI findings or if this will now become the new brand relevance norm.”

Prophet’s methodology places the consumer front and center, providing an authentic picture of the role brands play in their lives today. As a result, the Index provides tools for business leaders to identify areas of strength and ways to improve the relevance of their brands to achieve uncommon growth.

“The BRI reveals the kinds of insights that are truly indispensable to our clients– especially those that are looking to undergo customer-centric transformations,” said Mulvihill.

BRI Methodology

Prophet partnered with Dynata, the world’s largest first-party data and insights platform and a first-party consumer and professional data based on extensive, proprietary market research panels.

In the U.S., Prophet surveyed 13,114 consumers about more than 228 brands across 25 categories. Companies from all industries that contribute materially to U.S. household spending were included, except brands in the alcohol, tobacco and firearms categories or those engaged in primarily business-to-business categories. More information about the methodology can be found on the BRI website here.

The complete results can be found here.

About Dynata

Dynata is the world’s largest first-party data and insights platform. With a reach that encompasses over 62 million consumers and business professionals globally, and an extensive library of individual profile attributes collected through surveys, Dynata is the cornerstone for precise, trustworthy quality data. The company has built innovative data services and solutions around its robust first-party data offering to bring the voice of the customer to the entire marketing continuum – from strategy, innovation, and branding to advertising, measurement, and optimization. Dynata serves more than 5,500 market research, media and advertising agencies, publishers, consulting and investment firms and corporate customers in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. Learn more at www.dynata.com.

About Prophet

LONDON – For the fourth consecutive year, Prophet has been named as one of the leading management consultants in the UK by the Financial Times.

Compiled in partnership with Statista, the FT’s fourth annual list reveals those consultancies most recommended by their peers and clients. In 2021, Prophet has received coveted recognition once again for its expertise in both the marketing & brand and sales & customer relationship sectors.

“To be celebrated as one of the most highly regarded consultancies by the FT once again is a real honor and acknowledgment of the unwavering reputation of our transformational work,” said Tobias Bärschneider, Partner and EMEA Regional Lead at Prophet.

“This achievement kicks off another exciting year for Prophet. While we are still navigating global challenges and facing uncertainty, digital transformation continues to fuel the consultancy sector. Our expertise and services continue to be in high demand and it’s a privilege to see our high caliber team of strategic and creative experts delivering such incredible solutions and results for our clients in the UK and around the world.”

The full list, and details of the survey’s methodology, can be found here.

NEW YORK – Prophet announced today that Melissa Goldner has joined the global consultancy as a partner in its New York office. Melissa will be joining Prophet’s organization & culture practice, applying her extensive expertise in organizational change and transformation to help our clients drive growth.

Melissa joins Prophet from Slalom Consulting, where she held various leadership roles in both account management and organizational effectiveness. She was known for helping clients “future-proof” their organizations – reinventing businesses from top to bottom. She has worked with clients across consumer goods, finance, insurance, media & entertainment, and more to drive organization-wide transformations, enhance digital collaboration, develop high-performing teams and implement new technologies.

“Joining a highly regarded global consultancy like Prophet made sense for me,” Melissa said. “With an amazingly talented team and client roster, Prophet is a place where I can act on my passion for inspiring and inventing new and more powerful spaces for people and companies to thrive.”

Prior to Slalom, Melissa enjoyed spending several years at Ogilvy & Mather where she had the opportunity to play multiple roles for different parts of the organization. She started as a Vice President for Impact, and employee engagement practice under Ogilvy’s Public Relations arm then was asked to partner in developing a new strategy practice in their Digital Group with the mission to identify, define and embed new core capabilities at the cutting edge of emerging areas to future-proof its customer engagement offering and enhance its sales/profit performance and long-term growth.

In her last role at the agency, she served as a Partner of Transformation where she helped transform the organization’s Diversity and Inclusion efforts, reimagining its strategy and programs to foster an environment in which all employees could contribute to their fullest potential.

“Melissa’s diverse background running transformation initiatives and developing large accounts, as well as her experience leading global Diversity and Inclusion programs, is exciting as we look to our leadership team to not only drive transformation for our clients but also internally at Prophet,” said Chiaki Nishino, President at Prophet. “We are confident she will make a substantial impact on our firm’s organization and culture capabilities as well as account development. We are very excited to have Melissa on board.”

About Prophet