Monica O'Brien

Current

Blogger at Twenty Set
Marketing Consultant at Monica O'Brien, LLC

Past

Analyst at Brazen Careerist, Inc.
Quality Engineer at Trading Technologies
Information Technology Analyst at Caterpillar

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Education

The University of Chicago - Booth School of Business
Truman State University

Recommended

7 people have recommended Monica

Connections

208 connections

Industry

Computer Software

Websites

Monica O'Brien’s Summary

Monica O’Brien is a Marketing Consultant specializing in marketing strategy and consumer insights at the juncture of new media and traditional marketing. She specializes in small to mid-sized companies with an online presence.

After she's done with her day job, Monica attends the Chicago Booth School of Business (at the University of Chicago), currently ranked the #1 MBA program in the country by Business Week, and is one of the 2007 Chicago Business Fellows. She concentrates in Marketing, Strategy, and Entrepreneurship.

Monica holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, with a minor in Physics, from Truman State University.

Monica O'Brien’s Specialties:

Monica has years of experience in business, marketing, and technology and operates best at the intersection of these three fields.

She specializes in online marketing, including blogging, SEM, SEO, social media marketing, email campaigns, and affiliate marketing.

Monica hates to get pigeonholed as a techical person, but the truth is she's an awesome web developer too. She has programming skills in VB.NET, Oracle SQLPlus, PHP, CSS, XHTML, MySQL, Wordpress, and Drupal, to name a few.

Monica O'Brien’s Experience

Blogger

Twenty Set

(Online Media industry)

December 2007 — Present (1 year 8 months)

* Over 100 articles of career advice for young professionals
* Press includes online publications and coverage in the Christian Science Monitor
* Guest Writer for major blogs including Mashable, ProBlogger, and Personal Branding Blog
Marketing Consultant

Monica O'Brien, LLC

(Marketing and Advertising industry)

October 2007 — Present (1 year 10 months)

• Built an 1300+ double opt-in email lead list in 5 months – increased affiliate revenues by 500%
• Increased traffic 20% with Facebook and Twitter marketing campaigns
• Establish relationships with PR and marketing professionals to feature products from fashion-intense TV shows such as Gossip Girl and The Hills
Analyst

Brazen Careerist, Inc.

(Online Media industry)

May 2008 — November 2008 (7 months)

• Recruited and retained over 100 Gen Y bloggers to promotional network
• Re-launched company website and attracted 425 new members in 3 months
• Created sales projections and marketing materials used to pitch to venture capitalists for funding
• Contributed to company blog and Twitter marketing campaign – increased Twitter followers by 25%
• Lead software development projects from start to finish by working with sales, marketing, design, and development through software development life cycle
• Built relationships with clients/end-users of the brazencareerist.com website to better define user requirements, improve usability of the website, and create new user-friendly features
• Served as liaison between sales, marketing, design, and development to manage the SDLC process
• Gathered user requirements and prioritized and scheduled new features to manage sales/investor deadlines
Quality Engineer

Trading Technologies

(Privately Held; Computer Software industry)

August 2007 — May 2008 (10 months)

• Lead team that improved testing coverage by 20% through automated scripting
• Developed and executed user acceptance test cases
• Managed scheduling and resource sharing with other product leads on the team
Information Technology Analyst

Caterpillar

(Public Company; CAT; Machinery industry)

May 2006 — August 2007 (1 year 4 months)

• Decreased downtime 10x on $7 million automated valve assembly line - Saved over $2000/hour
• Built vendor relationships and regularly presented projects to executive management teams
• Gathered user requirements and designed and implemented distributed applications to automate tedious factory processes
• Lead implementation of a new corporate process planning system that improved assembly planning and processing documentation

Monica O'Brien’s Education

The University of Chicago - Booth School of Business

MBA , Finance, Marketing, Strategy, and Entrepreneurship , 2007 — 2010 (expected)

• Developed and analyzed marketing research survey for new Wi-Fi technology in conjunction with Deloitte
• Created marketing materials as VP of Marketing for the Graduate Women in Business

Activities and Societies:

Graduate Women in Business
Truman State University

BS , Computer Science, Physics , 2002 — 2006

• Increased recruitment numbers 200% as VP of Publicity/Recruitment for ΣΠΡ social sorority
• Built and re-launched two organization websites for ΣΠΡ social sorority and ΑΦΩ service fraternity

Activities and Societies:

Alpha Phi Omega (service fraternity), Sigma Pi Rho (social sorority), Sigma Pi Sigma (honor fraternity), Red Cross Volunteer +2 years