Jeff Haggin, CEO

Jeff provides executive leadership across the spectrum of SolutionSet's digital, direct, retail, and data management services. His vision, business acumen, and advocacy for open and competitive business practices have made him an influential leader in the marketing services industry.

By grounding the agency's work in behavioral data, Jeff helps deliver targeted, relevant, and personalized marketing communications that effectively drive transactions. This focus on the facts has continuously improved results and reduced costs for clients.

Jeff has worked on behalf of businesses to acquire, develop, and retain more valuable and loyal customers for more than 25 years, most notably as the founder and CEO of the former Haggin Marketing. He is the author of more than 50 articles and has presented for many years at the DMA and other trade associations.

Mike Wychocki, Executive Vice President

Mike has developed exceptional client relationships for SolutionSet since 1998, bringing strategic and creative guidance to brands such as American Express, adidas, Cintas, and RadioShack. He manages the Chicago office and provides executive leadership for a large team in Mill Valley.

Prior to SolutionSet, Mike led accounts including Sears, Sunbeam-Oster, and the Home Depot at a competing marketing agency. He began his career at a major retailer, splitting time between advertising and sales promotion positions. Mike believes this collective experience has given him the ability to create profitable marketing programs by balancing brand strengths with promotional messaging.

Mike regularly participates in speaking engagements for the DMA and also contributes to industry publications.

Alex Kaplinsky, Executive Vice President / Chief Technology Officer

Alex oversees the account management, strategic planning, and technical execution of digital projects at SolutionSet.

With a focus on optimizing business strategies and processes, Alex has found the right technical solutions for clients such as Stanford University, eBay, EFI, and TiVo. His proven methodology serves as the foundation for successful digital marketing campaigns, websites, and community development projects.

Alex has held key management roles with innovative web development companies across Silicon Valley, including Intend Change, Liquid Thinking, USWeb, and Networkers.

Bob Gaito, President, Data Management

With over 17 years' experience servicing the direct marketing community, Bob is intimately familiar with the data management and list processing challenges that businesses face today.

Intent on finding better solutions to these challenges, Bob founded I-Centrix in 2000. The company became a leading service provider in the catalog and retail community, and is now the Data Management division of SolutionSet. Bob and his team continue to introduce new data management technologies to the marketplace and strive for nothing short of outstanding service quality.

Bob remains focused on implementing solutions that maximize return on every marketing dollar, whether it be proper reporting and analysis packages, statistical modeling, contact cadence development, or postage optimization processing.

Steve Freedman, President, Getmembers.com

The founder of Getmembers.com, Steve is widely recognized as pioneering one-stop direct mail advertising in the fitness industry. He developed processes to design, print, and distribute communications at extraordinarily competitive costs and has achieved Preferred Vendor status with many franchises.

Steve has deep experience in all aspects of direct mail, including sales and client management, list procurement, creative development, and printing and mailing fulfillment. Through smart, consistent, and effective marketing practices, he helps brands become top of mind in the consumer consideration process.

Prior to founding Getmembers.com, Steve worked as a CPA at KPMG Peat Marwick in Atlanta. He holds a BBA in Accounting from Emory University and is a licensed CPA in the state of Georgia.

Valter Calamita, Chief Financial Officer

In addition to his role as chief financial officer, Valter contributes to agency-wide strategic planning and is responsible for leading IT and HR operations. Prior to joining SolutionSet, Valter was senior vice president and chief financial officer at Omnicom-owned DDB Chicago, one of the largest advertising agencies in Chicago, where he managed all costs during record years in terms of margins and guided an executive team in budgeting, forecasting, and profitability analysis. He served as chief financial officer for three other companies in the DDB Chicago Group: Tribal, Matrix and Downtown Partners. Before that, he was financial director and chief financial officer at DDB Brazil, and held senior financial positions in Brazil at Pillsbury/General Mills, Citibank, and Coopers & Lybrand.

Robert Balmaseda, Senior Vice President, Digital Marketing

As account and strategy lead for digital projects, Robert oversees the project management and user-experience consulting teams. He blends marketing strategy with a keen eye for operations and delivery to provide effective digital solutions to business challenges for adidas, Wells Fargo, San Francisco Symphony, Stanford University, Education.com, Cisco, Kodak, Aruba Networks, San Francisco Chronicle, and AT&T.

Prior to joining SolutionSet, Robert held key management positions with agencies, start-ups, and consultancies including Carat, iGeneration, HardCloud, USWeb/CKS, and Digital Planet. Robert received a BA in history from the University of California, Los Angeles, participated in the doctorate program for European cultural and intellectual history at the University of California, Berkeley, and attended the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Tim Ross, Senior Vice President, Digital Marketing

Tim helps SolutionSet clients leverage social media and collaboration technologies to improve how they interact with customers, partners, and employees. He has more than 10 years experience providing marketing strategy, product acceleration, and business development consulting for Fortune 500 companies and Internet start-ups. Tim was most recently the founder and executive vice president of marketing at 3VR, a leading provider of advanced video search appliances, and served in executive positions at V2 Group, USWeb, and Networkers.

Mike Lee, Senior Vice President, Digital Marketing

Mike oversees the digital brand marketing service offerings at SolutionSet. With his broad background in business consulting, marketing strategy, and technology, Mike's experiences help him to assist his clients in pushing the boundaries of their digital communication planning with compelling, effective campaigns.

With over 13 years in client service, Mike has worked with RadioShack, Motorola, Intel, California Closets, Peet's Coffee & Tea, and TiVo. He believes that disciplined, measured planning leads to effective campaigns that provide a chance for improvements and fact-based decisions.

Prior to SolutionSet, Mike worked at KPMG Consulting and Carat. He holds a BS in electrical engineering from Northwestern University.

Frank Anan, Senior Vice President, Digital Marketing

Frank leads strategic planning and brand/technical execution of digital projects and multiple digital initiatives (community, systems engineering) at SolutionSet, in addition to managing the San Francisco office.

Frank works with organizations and corporations in all stages of development - from start-up to later-stage innovation to Fortune 100 - in finding the optimal balance between sales and marketing objectives and technology strategy and solutions.

A founding partner of SolutionSet Digital, Frank was managing director of Form Studios and led global technology engineering teams during his tenure at start-ups Eturn and Xpherix - application providers to the telecommunications industry - while building and managing both business and technology relationships with Verizon, SBC, Cingular, and BellSouth.

Jim Finnerty, Senior Vice President, Data Management

Jim manages the technology and Internet marketing services groups for SolutionSet Data Management. His focus is on leveraging software, database, and IT systems to deliver solutions for direct marketing process and optimization challenges. Jim has served as architect and manager of many core applications and service bundles used at SolutionSet including I-Dentify™, our industry-leading match-back application, and I-Mail, which integrates online and offline communication streams. He shares his expertise at industry conferences and events.

Jim has been with SolutionSet since 2000, bringing 15 years of experience in developing and managing DM-focused technical platforms. He holds a BA from SUNY Geneseo and an MS from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Jack Sturn, Senior Vice President, Data Management

As senior vice president of client services since 2001, Jack has fostered strong relationships between the SolutionSet Data Management group and its clients. Jack provides leadership to a team of merge/purge and list-processing account management professionals, inspiring their efforts to "wow" clients with their service level and knowledge.

Prior to joining SolutionSet, Jack worked for 15 years in the banking industry in administrative and executive management roles at the regional and community banking levels. He earned cum laude honors in finance at Siena College, and holds an MBA from Russell Sage College.

Jeremy Green, Senior Vice President, Data Management

Jeremy is responsible for the production and operational groups for SolutionSet Data Management. His focus is on ensuring that SolutionSet continues to be an industry leader in creating new technologies and methodologies in response to the daily changes and challenges facing direct marketers. He leads his team in the design and implementation of leading-edge tools and processes to achieve improved efficiencies, increased quality, and expanded functionality, which results in cost-savings to SolutionSet clients.

Jeremy has served in this role at SolutionSet since 2000 and has more than a dozen years of experience in the direct mail industry.

Ellen Sato, Senior Vice President, Strategy

Ellen is a hands-on practitioner in our strategy team, specializing in helping businesses to increase marketing efficiency and build profitable customer relationships through sophisticated management, analysis, and application of marketing information. Her skills in statistical analysis and modeling, measurement, and reporting play an integral role in the development of data-driven marketing strategies, integrated contact plans, and continuous improvement.

She has over 20 years of consulting and client-side experience with catalog/retail, high-tech, financial services, travel, and automotive businesses, including eBay, Sunglass Hut, Cisco Systems, Hello Direct, Nissan Motors, and Chase Manhattan Bank. Prior to SolutionSet, Ellen spent 13 years as founder of a database marketing consulting practice. In addition, she has held consulting positions with Kestnbaum & Company, Precision Marketing Corp., and Epsilon, and she served as director of direct response marketing at Oracle Corporation.

Betsy Witthohn, Senior Vice President, Strategy

Betsy is a leading light in our marketing strategy practice. With the wealth of knowledge gained from over 25 years in the direct marketing industry, she develops and guides the execution of results-driven strategies for a broad set of accounts. Betsy believes the integration of sound database analytics with practical, real-world business focus provides the foundation for delivering the transactions necessary for success.

In addition to leading SolutionSet's AT&T strategy team, Betsy has provided strategic guidance for Cintas, Amazon.com, and American Express. Over her career, Betsy has designed and assisted her clients in developing prospect and housefile databases, managed complex response analysis projects, and developed successful contact strategies for both acquisition and retention. Prior to SolutionSet, her clients included Dow Jones, Bank of America, and Office Depot. She began her career in marketing for a major direct marketer - Harry & David. The knowledge she gained there about the importance of developing strong creative statements that also sell is invaluable in her contribution to her client's attainment of their goals.

Michele Drohan, Senior Vice President, Client Services

Michele has been with SolutionSet for 14 years, leading agency teams in their service to brands including AT&T, Hallmark Gold Crown, Discovery Channel, Safeway, and Wells Fargo. An early career in publishing laid the groundwork for her expertise in pairing creative strategy with multipage print production. Michele is first and foremost a client advocate, working to ensure that strategy, account service, creative, and production all work holistically to serve the end product - on time and on budget. Michele's client-centric philosophy is shared by all her teammates, and thus she measures success not just by client results, but by her team's exceptional response. She has also led several integrated agency efforts, bridging our work with other key agencies to serve mutual clients and communicate a unified brand story.

Greg Carter, Senior Vice President, Client Services

Greg serves SolutionSet's clients in strategic planning, creative development, and account management functions. He specializes in multichannel marketing campaigns, driving the coordination of direct mail, retail store traffic, and online shopping.

Over the past 20 years, Greg has managed database marketing and creative design to build profitable direct response programs. Prior to joining SolutionSet in 2003, he was vice president of data acquisition at American List Counsel. Greg also held senior marketing management positions with Harry & David, Jackson & Perkins, West Marine Products, and Musician's Friend - four of America's premier specialty direct marketers. He has served on the board of the Catalog & eCommerce Club of Northern California.

Mark Pearson, Senior Vice President, Client Services

Mark leads strategic planning and creative/brand execution for several large retail and direct accounts at SolutionSet Chicago. Mark works with corporations to build innovative brand communications that captivate stakeholders, and get results. He combines the best of direct response and retail promotional strategies, great ideas, incredible design, innovative technology and an obsession with craftsmanship and detail to work with one goal in mind - to create transactions.

Mark has spent over 20 years as an executive with the country's leading advertising and marketing agencies, serving clients that include top retailers, manufacturers, and brand marketers. Prior to joining SolutionSet, Mark was co-president and chief creative officer of Ambrosi, producing broadcast, promotional and direct print, in-store visual marketing and web solutions. Mark's teams have won numerous ADDY, Catalog Age, and Retail Advertising awards for their creative work.

John Wynn, Vice President, New Client Relations

For more than 10 years, John has helped prospective and new SolutionSet clients shape and achieve their marketing objectives. His experience provides a unique bridge between business development and direct marketing concepts and strategies, as he helps clients form response-driven programs for direct marketing, loyalty, customer relationship management, marketing communications, and digital objectives. Clients that have benefited from John's support include adidas, Amazon.com, American Express, Brown Shoe Company, Cintas, KeyBank, Nautilus, and Safeway.

Prior to joining SolutionSet, John served as the principal director for the San Francisco office of Publicis Groupe, a global advertising and media conglomerate.

Jeremy Gustafson, Vice President, New Client Relations

With a focus on driving marketing services innovation, Jeremy leads teams that implement key business and marketing strategies to simultaneously build brands and drive transactions for SolutionSet clients. Prior to joining SolutionSet, Jeremy was a senior vice president at Ambrosi, where he oversaw global retail marketing. Specializing in complex multichannel retail efforts, he served as the architect and implementation leader of many programs for Fortune 500 clients such as Disney Consumer Products, Walmart, Kaiser Permanente, Home Depot, GE Money, American Airlines, Chico's FAS, and Nike.