Kate Newlin

Kate Newlin is the founding principal of Kate Newlin Consulting and the author of Shopportunity!: How to Be a Retail Revolutionary (Collins, 2006) and Passion Brands: Why Some Brands Are Just Gotta Have, Drive All Night For and Tell All Your Friends About (Prometheus Books, 2009). Shopportunity! was selected by Oprah Winfrey for her book club in 2006 and was recommended as a must-read by Harvard Business Review that same year. Prior to founding her company in 2001, Newlin was the president of Faith Popcorn's BrainReserve. With more than 25 years of business strategy and marketing experience, Newlin has worked with a broad cross-section of Fortune 500 businesses, including McDonald's, Pennzoil-Quaker State, Kraft, Hasbro, Cigna, GE Capital, Procter & Gamble, S. C. Johnson & Son, LensCrafters, European Wax Center, Natura, Olay, Avon, Waldenbooks (Kmart), Quaker, Pepsi, Coke, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Boehringer Ingelheim, and many more.

Newlin is credited with developing the business strategy and product concepts behind the launch of Nabisco's 100-calorie packs, resulting in a category-wide reinvention of portion-controlled snacking and a $1 billion launch. She also was integral to the development of Bliss chocolates from Hershey's, the regional expansion of Cheerwine soft drinks (one of the last family-owned and -operated soft drink companies in the U.S.), the purpose-driven platform, rebranding, and repositioning for Rise Against Hunger, and the re-launch of South Beach Diet. Her proprietary research methodology is successfully employed to surface unmet needs, hopes, and aspiration-fulfillment strategies for businesses, brands, and nonprofits in a polarized and oftentimes cynical world. She is a true believer in both the concept of business as a force for good and the mission-critical role it must play in the emerging social landscape. She is a frequent speaker at retail and luxury marketing meetings and is often interviewed by trade and national media for her perspectives on the emerging marketspace.