Merkle

Our Team

Building a CRM agency focused on Banking is something that no one has successfully attempted – until now. Merkle has assembled a team of industry experts with unparalleled experience in financial services marketing and analytics, all with one overriding trait in common: The team didn’t join Merkle because of what we do – they joined the team because of why we do it. Our team shares the foundational belief that companies are about customers first and foremost. Our customers and yours. We are in the business of helping you build and profit from relationships with your customers. And we’re good at it. Our team keeps growing, and with an average of 20 years of experience and a desire to drive change, you are going to want this team on your team.

Leadership Team

Will Bordelon

Will Bordelon

Sr. Vice President and General Manager, Banking & Finance Practice

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Will is a member of Merkle’s executive leadership team and general manager of Merkle’s Banking and Finance group. In this role, Will is responsible for delivery of services to existing clients, growth and profitability of the business, and the continued application of Merkle’s core value proposition to the challenges and opportunities of the banking industry. Will has over 15 years experience in the financial services industry in the areas of customer relationship marketing, database marketing, consulting, marketing technology and agency services. Will leads a dedicated team of CRM marketing experts, across these disciplines, helping firms improve the way they understand and engage with customers to drive sustainable growth and profitability in their customer portfolios.

Before joining Merkle in early 2008, Will spent five years in the Asia Pacific for Acxiom Corporation as a member of their regional leadership team. In this role, Will worked with innovative brands to advance the development of CRM and data driven marketing in the region, and to integrate Acxiom’s local acquisitions into an organized regional footprint. Prior to his overseas assignment, Will held various roles with Acxiom in the US.

Will holds a BS in international economics from Louisiana State University.


Lisa Freeman

Lisa Freeman

Vice President, Client Group Leader

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Lisa Freeman is a Vice President and Client Group Leader in Merkle’s Retail Banking and Consumer Finance group. In this capacity, Lisa is responsible for a group of clients in the role of account executive for the integrated delivery of all Merkle services and the attainment of the client’s business goals.

In her tenure with Merkle, Lisa has leveraged her deep and diverse direct marketing experience to help our clients launch new products, create acquisition strategies, and develop customer communication platforms that build brand and enhance the customer experience in crowded and competitive marketplaces. Lisa held previous roles with Merkle in client management and marketing strategy. Prior to joining Merkle in 2001, Lisa was Vice President of Marketing and Operations for a major wireless distributor. Her agency career began over 17 years ago in the New York office of Draft Worldwide, and includes 6 years at Devon Direct, where she launched MCI’s revolutionary Friends & Family program and worked with financial services clients including Advanta and Fleet Bank.

Lisa holds a BA in English from Rutgers University.


Paul Evers

Paul Evers

Vice President, Client Group Leader

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Paul Evers is a Vice President and Client Group Leader in Merkle’s Retail Banking and Consumer Finance group. In this capacity, Paul is responsible for a group of clients in the role of account executive for the integrated delivery of all Merkle services and the attainment of the client’s business goals.

Paul has more than 15 years of both client- and agency-side experience database and customer relationship marketing and interactive. Paul began his career with eight years in consulting at both Ernst and Young, and Diamond Management and Technology Consulting. Paul then spent five years on the client side, leading database marketing and then interactive marketing and analytics for Cendant and Wyndham Hotel Group.

Most recently Paul joined Merkle from Rosetta, where he spent three years, originally in their consulting and strategic services practice and then leading their relationship marketing services group. In this capacity, Paul managed CRM and had direct responsibility for the design and deployment of consumer-led marketing programs.

Paul completed his MBA at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.


Diana Tummillo

Diana Tummillo

Vice President, Industry Marketing Strategy for Banking and Finance

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Diana leads the Retail Bank Marketing Strategy team focused on deploying data-driven direct marketing acquisition and CRM strategies for banking and consumer finance clients.

Diana has deep experience managing high performance strategic marketing teams, with more than 20 years experience in retail bank direct marketing. Diana has successfully deployed direct marketing strategies for 20 of the top 50 banks in the U.S.

Prior to joining Merkle in 2009, Diana was the SVP of Strategic Planning for Harte-Hanks financial practice. She also played a key role in building Alcott Routon, a direct marketing company acquired by Harland Clarke. Diana has extensive experience in credit marketing, and was formerly Vice President of Card Marketing for SunTrust BankCard ($800 MM credit card portfolio).

Diana has participated as a guest speaker in national conferences including DMA, CBA, and has been published in DM News and Bank Marketing.

Diana earned an MBA with honors as well as a BS in Marketing from the University of Central Florida.


Dean McCarney

Dean McCarney

Senior Director, Retail Bank Client Services Leader

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Dean leads the Retail Bank Account Management team, coordinating and supporting all of the Account Directors, Account Managers and Account Coordinators that manage the day-to-day activities of our client partnerships.  
 
Dean has over twenty years’ experience in the financial services market with a broad array of focus ranging from retail banking, credit card marketing, co-branded portfolio marketing and membership services to name a few. Since joining Merkle in 2001, Dean has been responsible for managing Merkle’s client programs including acquisition and retention programs, new product launches, and customer communication marketing. 

Prior to joining Merkle, Dean spent 10 years with a teleservices firm as Vice President of Account Management, managing the global financial services division. Prior to that he created and built their training and development department, in addition to managing their national accounts group. He also led the launch of the company’s first wholly-owned subsidiary 365biz.com. He served on the executive board that brought the company public with a successful IPO in April 2006.


Sandra Swindle

Vice President, Technology Solutions

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Sandra leads Merkle’s technology teams supporting banking and consumer finance clients. Sandra has deep experience deploying large scale high-performance technology solutions, with more than 10 years’ experience serving the financial services industry. Sandra has successfully architected and led technology solutions for several of the top 10 financial service institutions in the U.S. that include both large scale warehouses and real-time POS systems. Her experience spans consumer and small business banking, consumer and small business credit cards, private label credit cards, and global wealth management solutions across a wide variety of multi-channel marketing and customer service platforms. 

 
Prior to joining Merkle in 2011, Sandra developed her career at Acxiom where she held various leadership roles in technology and account management, supporting financial services, government, and information intensive industries. Most recently, Sandra played a leadership role in a major platform re-engineering project focused on migrating hundreds of disparate legacy database systems into a single global data supply chain servicing all lines of business. 
 
Sandra earned a BBA cum laude from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and was awarded Outstanding Graduate in CIS. 

Marketing Strategy Team

Dawn deClouet

Dawn deClouet

Senior Director, Bank Marketing Strategy

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Dawn has been in banking and financial services marketing since the early 1980s with a balance of client and agency side experience. Dawn started her career working on the client side and worked for multiple banks over her career with specific experience in marketing databases, direct marketing strategies, line management and strategic planning. Dawn’s client side experience includes: Premier Bank (now JP Morgan Chase), Union Planters (now Regions) and Whitney National Bank.

Dawn was one of the original database marketing strategists at Fusion Marketing, a retail bank direct marketing agency, later acquired by Acxiom. Having worked across all lines of business in retail banking, she brings depth of product knowledge paired with experience gained from developing and implementing effective marketing strategies that build quality customer relationships, improve retention and drive profit. She has extensive experience in enterprise segmentation strategies, as well as product specific implementation strategies.


Dan Moore

Director, Bank Marketing Strategy

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Dan has more than 20 years of practical and innovative experience in financial services and ecommerce businesses. Prior to joining Merkle, Dan led LendingTree's product management, consumer experience, and direct marketing teams where he brought advanced analytical concepts and product marketing experience to drive substantial revenue growth. Prior to LendingTree, Dan built and managed the online channel for Wachovia's home equity and mortgage products, responsible for online marketing, ecommerce product development, pricing, and overall channel management.

Dan also worked in direct marketing roles for Wachovia, First Union National Bank and Signet Bank and consulted with a variety of financial service clients. Dan has marketing and analytics expertise across a wide range of direct marketing channels and financial services products.

He holds an M.S. in Management Information Systems from the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business and a B.S. in Business from the University of Virginia.


Brian Campbell

Brian Campbell

Director, Bank Marketing Strategy

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Brian has experience across many lines of business with great depth of knowledge in debit and credit card marketing strategy, acquisitions and portfolio direct marketing programs, loyalty product development, and payments strategy. Brian joined Merkle from Chase Bank, where he served as vice president, responsible for leading the successful launch of Chase’s Ultimate Rewards Debit Card products.

Prior to Chase, Brian spent several years in vice president roles at Washington Mutual and GE Consumer Finance. His career started at Bank of America where he spent seven years sharpening his competencies in leadership, strategic thinking, business analysis and customer segmentation.


Julie Kustoff

Julie Kustoff

Director, Bank Marketing Strategy

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Julie brings more than 20 years of experience in direct marketing communications strategy and execution. With a passion for marketing aligned to customer need, Julie has built her experience and beliefs through a diverse career of strategy and leadership roles. Prior to joining Merkle, Julie held a senior vice president role at Rapp. Before that Julie held various vice president roles in strategy and client management at Epsilon and Rapp Collins Worldwide, FKB Direct, and Steven Winchel and Associates.

Julie’s breadth of experience across industries provides her a great perspective on how customer driven marketing has evolved, both within and outside the realm of banking. She brings a great deal of experience across nearly every line of business within retail banking – with consumers, small businesses, corporate and institutional.


Quantitative Strategy Team

Aman Sokhi

Aman Sokhi

Senior Director, Quantitative Strategy

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Aman Sokhi has over 14 years of experience focused on quantitative strategy and advanced analytics within the financial services sector. Aman joined Merkle from Bank of America, where he was a Senior Vice President in roles that spanned several capacities including risk, product marketing (particularly credit card and mortgage), portfolio strategy, customer retention, finance, credit operations and customer portfolio analysis.

Prior to Bank of America, Aman held similar roles at Citigroup and MBNA, including experience in affinity and cobrand marketing strategy. Aman’s broad experiences in financial services with Fortune 500 banks provides a great perspective on enterprise strategy, relationship management, customer-driven marketing and profitability optimization. Aman leads a dedicated team of analysts and statisticians, articulating quantitative strategies and bringing insights to life through advanced analytics. 

Aman has a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from Temple University.


Rakesh Patel

Rakesh Patel

Director, Quantitative Strategy

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Rakesh has over 12 years' experience in quantitative solutions in data-driven marketing, focused on building the quantitative strategies driving evolution of our clients’ product-driven marketing programs and the alignment to customer-driven marketing. Rakesh joined Merkle from Equifax, where he was the Associate Vice President for offline credit solutions. Prior to that, he was with Capital One. Rakesh is a proven manager of large strategic projects working with cross-functional teams with a consistent track record in creating sound business strategies, exceeding performance goals, and delivering substantial business value. His experience within the financial services area includes building solutions for credit card, mortgage, home equity, and deposit product lines.

Rakesh has a Bachelor’s Degree in Business from the University of Florida, with minors in Economics and Actuarial Science.

Evan Goldstein

Director, Quantitative Strategy

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Evan has over 13 years of experience in financial services, focused on quantitative strategy, advanced analytics, and execution.  Evan joined Merkle from MasterCard Advisors, where he was a Senior Managing Consultant focused on developing and analyzing revenue generating initiatives for local banks and credit unions.  In his 5 year tenure at MasterCard Advisors, Evan also had experience consulting to many larger issuers with regards to their the small business portfolios. 

Evan began his career in financial services with Capital One, focusing on cross selling additional services to existing cardholders, predominantly via inbound channels such as Customer Service Marketing or the Voice Response Unit.  Over 7 years at Capital One, Evan also worked on the analysis of initiatives such as Retention and Online Account Servicing.   Before joining MasterCard Advisors, Evan spent a year with E*Trade, analyzing the lead source selection and overall performance of the consumer mortgage business. 

Evan has an MBA from Duke and a BS in mechanical engineering from MIT.


Creative and Media Strategy Team

Paul Manion

Paul Manion

Creative Director, Financial Services Division

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For the past 18 years, Paul has crafted his direct relationship marketing experience on a variety of financial driven accounts from mutual funds, banking, auto insurance, health insurance and personal wealth management. He has built an impressive portfolio with the simple philosophy that a strong understanding of a company’s brand combined with a well-crafted direct response message can be very powerful. The results have established a number of longstanding business relationships and awards ranging from local and national ADDY’s to the coveted ECHO Award that honors direct marketing campaigns that have excelled in direct response strategy, creativity and results.

Before joining Merkle, Paul was a Creative Director at W.B. Doner in Detroit where he managed their Direct Response and Design Studios. Prior to working at Doner Detroit, he worked his way up from an Art Director to an Associate Creative Director in the co-headquarters of W.B. Doner in Baltimore. Paul has brought great creative alive for a diverse group of companies including, ADT, AutoTrader, Black & Decker, Citizens Bank, Expedia, Hibernia Bank, LensCrafters, Owens-Corning, PNC Bank, Progressive Auto Insurance, Scudder Investments and Sylvan Learning Centers. The challenge of bring results-driven creative alive for clients is what he is committed to fulfilling.