Co-hosts Brad Forsythe and Ray Schilens interview Kate Newlin, principal of Kate Newlin Consulting. Kate is a business strategist working with senior executives at critical crossroads in the development of their brands, categories and portfolios. She uses a three-step methodology respected for its ability to surface unmet consumer needs that provide strategic competitive advantage for her clients. 

Her new book, Passion Brands (Prometheus 2009) Kate calls for nothing less than a renovation of the process through which we develop, market and improve the goods and services of our consumer economy – based upon an unprecedented level of engagement with the consumer. She advises the forging of brand democracies, marketing states in which consumers have as much of a vote as the manufacturer and marketer in the design, pricing, packaging, marketing and uses of their favorite products.

She authored Shopportunity! How To Be A Retail Revolutionary (Collins, 2006), which was selected both as a Harvard Business Review book to read in 2006 and an Oprah Selects for the Christmas Issue, 2006 of O magazine – illustrating the wide spectrum of appeal for her grasp of business issues facing a consumer society, as well as her “eminently readable” (Bloomberg review) style.  

Prior to launching her own consultancy, she was president of Faith Popcorn’s BrainReserve, a trend-based marketing consulting firm. She developed proprietary innovation acceleration techniques on behalf of RJR Tobacco and its core brands (Camel, Winston, Salem and Doral) which she continued to apply with a variety of brands and companies seeking incremental revenue from existing equities. During her career, she’s worked with a broad cross section of the Fortune 500 and entrepreneurial firms, including McDonald’s, Pennzoil/Quaker State, Kraft, Hasbro, Cigna, GE Capital, Guthy-Renker Corporation, Specialized Mountain Bikes, Waldenbooks and LensCrafters. 

She began her career in business with a variety of New York-based agencies. By 1983, she was the youngest executive vice president and global creative director of a major firm, advising The Procter & Gamble Company, S.C. Johnson Wax, Godiva Chocolatier, Weight Watchers International, Waldenbooks and scores of other major consumer products companies and retailers on issues of business and marketing strategy. 

In 1986, she started her own practice, which she sold 10 years later in order to become president of Faith Popcorn’s BrainReserve, a consultancy which focused on emerging trends and issues about to be faced by global business. In 2001, she left BrainReserve to start her own firm, dealing with near-term issues of business strategy, portfolio and brand innovation. Throughout her career, she has become known for strategic insights that can be developed by business to make a powerful difference in the consumer experience and the companies’ balance sheet. 

She lives in New York City with her nine-year-old daughter, Mattie.

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