Val Watson

Background

About Val Watson

I am a Marketing Professional with experience in all areas of marketing. Most marketing positions require that one be flexible and able to handle multiple demands in addition to working with a variety of management levels within the company as well as with vendors and customers. I know I have not only the skills but the character traits you are looking for in this position. My position at Apple highlights what I am capable of doing. When hired by Steve Jobs for the position of Director of Higher Education Marketing, I had to work directly with clients, vendors, and internal management at a variety of management levels. Not only was I able to propel the Higher Education revenue levels to unexpected positive levels, but I created a team that thrived on providing the best solution for the market. This was a challenge as Apple had lost its market dominance to Microsoft and the CEO/CIO community just didn’t see how Apple could resurge. The 3 main influences that absolutely drove us to become the vendor of choice were: 1. Understanding the information and building on facts. This required research and not letting emotions step in, sticking to the facts. Never wavering on our goal, it might take some time but we knew we would prevail. Defining our economic denominator to be revenue per department, not per school. This was really important as other vendors were just focused on the school, not the individual departments. We were willing to look outside of the box to achieve our goals. All of this would have been for not without the right people. The right people have to do more with character traits and innate capabilities than with specific knowledge, background, or skills.