Omnichannel marketing solutions provider Media Horizons is pleased to welcome Julie Roehm to its Advisory Board. Julie Roehm is an award-winning marketing professional and an inductee into the Advertising Hall of Fame. She specializes in omnichannel and digital solutions, making her an ideal fit to guide Media Horizons into the future.
Roehm will join a dream team of business professionals on the Advisory Board, including Media Executive Mark Ford, former CMO of The Economist Group and Consumer Reports Kim Miller, and former COO, CFO, and CEO of various companies Jim Brewster.
Media Horizons is a direct and digital marketing firm that specializes in building omnichannel solutions for its clients. It combines media buying power, creative talent, and data and analytics expertise to deliver digital and offline solutions that enhance clients’ abilities to acquire and retain customers.
With Roehm’s help, Media Horizons aims to improve its mission to drive awareness and conversions for its customers with targeted print and digital solutions.
Julie Roehm: A Transformative Career
Julie Roehm has spent her entire career redefining what it means to be a leader at major companies like Ford Motor Company, DaimlerChrysler, and SAP.
She received her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business before being given the task of launching the Ford Focus brand in the US. Rhoem was under 30 years old when she achieved her first major success with Ford, putting her on the map for marketing.
She later moved to DaimlerChrysler in hopes of leading the marketing efforts of the successful Jeep line of vehicles. Instead, she was given the dying Dodge brand. Roehm engaged in extensive customer and product research to revitalize the Dodge brand. ??Her background in engineering and her marketing expertise helped her to transform the brand both tangibly and narratively. Her team was responsible for bringing back the legendary Hemi engine and creating the brand slogan “Grab life by the horns.”
The massively successful campaign earned Roehm Brandweek’s “Marketer of the Year” award as well as induction into the Advertising and Automotive Halls of Fame (among many other awards).
Roehm went on to achieve similar successes with global software giant SAP, where she served as Chief Storyteller—a role created specifically for her interdisciplinary talents. She helped transform SAP’s brand image by defining customer experiences and developing new communication tactics to better express the brand’s value.
She would then return to the auto industry as CXO and CMO of ABRA Auto Collision & Glass, an auto body repair shop with 600+ locations. CXO and CMO in name only, Roehm also took the temporary role of CTO, managed a call center, spent time in warehouses and body shops, and hopped between departments to gain the perspective needed to provide omnichannel solutions to customers and improve the company’s agility. Roehm went on to disrupt the autobody industry by digitizing ABRA’s auto repair experience. The company was later sold for a return of 6.7x.
Julie Roehm’s additional titles include Chief Experience Officer, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Customer Experience, Best Athlete, Wife, Mom, and inspirational speaker. She is excited to add Media Horizons Board Member to her list of distinguished roles.
Lessons Learned through Leadership
Julie Roehm’s nearly 30 years of leadership experience will prove invaluable to Media Horizons as it seeks to expand and better serve its customers. Roehm’s innovative approach to leadership is anything but conventional, and the Media Horizons team believes that the lessons she’s learned are exactly what’s needed to accelerate the company’s potential.
Redefining Leadership in an Omnichannel World
Media Horizons helps its clients build omnichannel solutions to create seamless experiences for their customers. Julie Roehm is an omnichannel expert and the architect behind some of the most successful omnichannel projects at major companies. She understands that the success of omnichannel strategies relies on agile leadership and interdepartmental communication. Roehm will advise Media Horizons on how to design strategies that promote omnichannel success for its clients and within its own walls.
Fostering Trust in Teams
Leadership is no longer about reinforcing rigid corporate structures. Julie Roehm believes that fostering trust and reducing competitiveness within teams allows for better cooperation and faster problem-solving. Openness of communication is also key in reducing tension and promoting innovation within and among departments. Media Horizons hopes to adopt some of Roehm’s transformative techniques to improve productivity, creativity, and employee well-being.
Leading a Company through Culture
Company culture is at the root of stifling or cultivating team members’ ideas. Roehm has run the gamut of company cultures and she understands the interpersonal factors that can create roadblocks or spark innovation. She also understands that company culture starts with leadership. She and the rest of the Advisory Board will work to mindfully define the culture at Media Horizons to promote openness, trust, and pride.
Giving Back to the Community
When Julie Roehm isn’t modernizing major companies with omnichannel strategies and transformational marketing ideas, she gives back to the business community by hosting a podcast, The Conversational. On the show, she speaks to top business leaders about their journeys and the challenges they’ve overcome. She hopes to inspire future business leaders by humanizing today’s executives and showing that success and failure can both act as catalysts to achieving one’s dreams.
One of Roehm’s guests on The Conversational was Mark Ford, her colleague on the Media Horizons Advisory Board. It was Ford who invited Roehm to join the board. On the podcast, the two talk about their long-term friendship, and Mark recalls overcoming dyslexia, sleeping in his car, and other challenges as he sought his dream job in publishing. Listen to the entire interview here.
Roehm also spends her free time speaking to young people, particularly young women, about the challenges of finding a career path and staying motivated in today’s business world. Roehm speaks about how it took years to identify her own path—she completed an engineering degree before turning around and starting over in business school. During her talks at universities, she motivates students to walk through one door at a time and learn from success and failure along the way.
Julie Roehm on Joining Media Horizons
Julie Roehm is thrilled to be joining the Advisory Board of Media Horizons with her long-time friend and colleague Mark Ford and the rest of the incredibly talented board members. As an award-winning marketer and expert in omnichannel solutions, she will undoubtedly make an excellent fit at a company specializing in digital and omnichannel marketing.
Roehm is also an expert at managing mergers and acquisitions, and Media Horizons was recently acquired by parent company Central National Gottesman (CNG). Roehm’s advice will be integral as the companies unite and identify mutually beneficial processes.
“I’ve done a lot of M&A work on integrating companies, and this felt like an opportunity to help these companies create a new guiding principle,” says Roehm. “Who is it that we are? What do we want to be?”
Roehm will also be at the forefront of defining the company culture during the acquisition period to promote the best possible relationships going forward. Says Roehm: “For me, this feels like less of a turnaround and more of a transformation. We’re ready to create a better integration.”