Vidar Brekke

Current

President & Co-Founder at Social Intent

Past

VP Marketing at Linkstorm
Partner, VP Strategy at Kurani Interactive
President & Co-Founder at RepXchange

Vice President Marketing at JPMorgan Chase
Co-Founder / VP Sales & Marketing at Icemedia USA
Strategic Planner (Account Planner) at Ogilvy

see less...

3 more...

Education

SUNY Albany
University of Bergen, Norway
Norwegian Royal Navy

see less...

Recommended

8 people have recommended Vidar

Connections

314 connections

Industry

Marketing and Advertising

Websites

Everything about me

Vidar Brekke’s Summary

I am an experienced leader and entrepreneurial marketing strategist & product development executive with a focus on what’s next and how to get there first.

I co-founded “Social Intent” with a vision for the mobile and social web and the unique opportunities it presented for brands to extend themselves into the lives of customers.

I’m equally skilled in laying out long-term strategic plans at the C-level as I am executing them. In my career I have managed teams across practically every marketing discipline from traditional branding to interactive marketing, web development, SEO/SEM, bleeding edge social media technologies and mobile app development.

I have a knack for ideation and concept development and I pride myself on being able to simultaneously think like a business-executive, technologist, interaction designer, marketer and customer.

I am also the host of New York OpenCoffee: http://www.meetup.com/NYopenCoffee/

Vidar Brekke’s Specialties:

Online marketing strategy, interactive ad technology, social media marketing, product development, mobile apps, facebook, iphone

Vidar Brekke’s Experience

President & Co-Founder

Social Intent

(Privately Held; Computer Software industry)

August 2008 — Present (1 year 4 months)

Kick-ass social media technology consultancy and development studio w/senior talent that’s highly engaged in the NY tech, marketing and social media scene.

# Subject matter expert on marketing strategy and app development for Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, iPhone.

# Managed a ‘skunk works’ team of designers and developers to deliver work for F500 clients and startups.

# Assuming roles as strategist, producer & project manager, creative director, marketing and PR manager.
VP Marketing

Linkstorm

(Privately Held; Internet industry)

April 2007 — August 2008 (1 year 5 months)

Linkstorm is an advertising technology company that is pioneering a new approach to rich-media display advertising. Clients include GM, AMEX, Wal-Mart, E-Trade, Nissan, Cisco & IBM.

# Completely rebranded 7-year old publishing services company into an interactive advertising innovator.

# Developed new product requirements, which triggered a complete rewrite of the core ad-serving product.

# P&L, creative and strategic responsibility for all marketing & PR, including web, collateral, tradeshows, 3rd parties.

# Formed and managed in-house ad agency to serve client needs for creative, strategy, metrics & ad optimization.

# Created and managed company blog, ghost-wrote CEO communications.

# Co-author of several pending patents.
Partner, VP Strategy

Kurani Interactive

(Privately Held; Marketing and Advertising industry)

February 2006 — April 2007 (1 year 3 months)

# Produced award winning B2B work for multinational clients.

# Transformed traditional web-development shop into a technically astute content management systems provider.

# Day-to-day business management, including sales, marketing & business development.

# Provided strategy, branding, positioning, creative direction and project management on client projects.

# Advised clients on tactical programs including email marketing, PPC and SEO.
President & Co-Founder

RepXchange

(Computer Software industry)

January 2005 — January 2006 (1 year 1 month)

Provider of community-based fraud protection services for eBay merchants.

# Brought a new product and business to market in record time and on a shoe-string budget.

# In charge of product development, including preparing patent filings, technical specs, use-cases, wire-frames, as well as managing the offshore software development team.

#Developed the launch PR and Social Media marketing plan that generated 400 business customers in its first month, with zero out of pocket marketing expenses.
Vice President Marketing

JPMorgan Chase

(Public Company; JPM; Banking industry)

September 2002 — December 2004 (2 years 4 months)

$1BN unit of JPMorgan, providing transaction and administration services on behalf of global debt and equity issuers.

# Responsible for marketing strategy, including branding, positioning, messaging and marketing execution across 20+ products.

#Transformed marketing department from a reactive support function to a proactive & strategic business partner.

#Managed primary customer satisfaction research program, including analysis and C-level presentation of findings.
Co-Founder / VP Sales & Marketing

Icemedia USA

(Marketing and Advertising industry)

March 2001 — September 2002 (1 year 7 months)

Icemedia USA was the US branch of a Dutch viral-marketing agency focused on youth marketing.

# Managed sales, business development and new product development for the US

# Was about to bring to market the first ‘social network’ when the company was forced to close due to the events of 9/11
Strategic Planner (Account Planner)

Ogilvy

(Public Company; WPP; Marketing and Advertising industry)

November 1998 — January 2001 (2 years 3 months)

# Brand Strategist for IBM, IBM Global Services & Lotus accounts

# Provided customer and market insights to clients, creative, account & media executives

# Helped develop communication strategies for award-winning global campaigns for IBM

# Managed and conducted focus groups and one-on-one research interviews

Vidar Brekke’s Education

SUNY Albany

MA , Communications , August 1997 — September 1998

• Concentration in Business Communication & Marketing Management
• Class Valedictorian, Summa Cum Laude
University of Bergen, Norway

BA , Sociology & Information Science , August 1994 — June 1997

• Graduated top 3 percent
• Awarded grant to study in the US

Activities and Societies:

Student's Society Debate Team
Norwegian Royal Navy

Kvartermester (Drill Sergeant) , Leadership , 1991 — 1993

• Graduated top 3
• Boot-camp drill sergeant, 48 privates under command.