Executive Members – San Francisco Group

Margaret Abeles is a strategy and marketing leader who creates winning strategies, streamlines operations and provides impactful consumer insights. Her experience includes companies of all sizes in many geographies and industries and she has held senior-level positions at companies such as Disney and Schwab, as well as mid-sized companies and early stage ventures. 

Margaret’s experience includes: Chief of Staff/Advisor to the Leadership Team — act as trusted advisor; deployed to departments and projects that need intensive focus; coach to individuals, executives and departments. End-End-Strategic Planning — creates strategic planning approach, plan and playbook; develops insights about customers and competition. Organizational Development — devises ways to increase efficiency and effectiveness of teams; mentors and coaches employees; advises on change management initiatives. Her specialties are: chief of staff functions, strategy development, marketing and sales planning, customer insights, organizational and leadership development. Margaret holds an MBA from UCLA.

Putting clients and candidates at ease to get the best results” are the words Jodi Avina lives by. Jodi is Director of Recruiting Services for the 2GOCompanies, and is considered a consultative and empathetic recruiter. She works with companies to thoroughly define both the environment and the position in order to find the best cultural and competent fit, and ensures a smooth process by enabling both employer and employee to be at ease and put their best foot forward. Jodi also co-leads the Health Services & Life Science practice group. She has been with CFOs2GO for 20 years providing executive search and placement services for a variety of clients, utilizing her knowledge of international cultures and fluency in several languages. While her career has taken a bit of a circuitous route – from living in France in college, to working with Ernst and Young and then pursuing healthcare and medical device sales, and then finding her way back to financial services, this time as a recruiter. Each of these career choices have led to a lifetime of learning through curiosity and listening.

Janet Beach  is a marketing strategist, brand development advisor, and research professional. She and her firm, US Marketing Services, design and conduct in-depth research with prospects, customers, and influencers, apply the insights, and make detailed recommendations for brand strategy and tactics. They structure insights regarding what are the real priorities that drive actual purchase preferences among decision-makers for a brand and category, and how to expand client business.

Janet and her business partners make specific, actionable brand marketing, sales, and brand communications recommendations and develop/contribute to the follow-on projects. They handle the implementation for clients or leverage the time and expertise of existing client marketing staff in order to execute programs. Either way, they work closely with clients for increased brand success, competitive advantage, growth and profit.  Janet and her partners frequently work with companies in the technology, healthcare, biotech, and finance businesses.

Janet’s background training has included work for many iconic brands (Post, Nestle, Kimberly-Clark, Dole, Tropicana, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft General Foods, P&G, Keebler, Levi’s, Apple, Symantec, HP, Sprint, 0racle, Schwab, Wells Fargo). Her years as a marketing and management consultant, working for leading brands as well as new, emerging and innovative companies gives her an ability to efficiently add insightful recommendations and strategic leadership to client plans. Her depth of experience working on new products and brand launch plans has prepared her to address a constellation of business challenges.  

Janet is known for her collaborative style that makes working with her and with her company a real pleasure. Many clients work repeatedly with Janet and her firm over the course of their own careers, because the strategic collaboration works so very well.

Elise Brownell, PhD, is the Founding Partner of ZephyrBiotech, a firm that specializes in Interim Executive and Project Management support for emergent, virtual and transitioning bio/pharmaceutical companies. She has extensive experience in senior project management and executive- level leadership positions in the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

Most recently Elise was a founding member, head of project management and senior director of Aerovance, Inc, a venture-backed biotechnology company spun out from Bayer Healthcare. At Aerovance she created and managed effective team processes to bring four product candidates into full scale clinical Phase 1 and 2 development. Prior to Aerovance, Elise acted as head of project management for Bayer’s Biotechnology Unit, where she integrated project strategies to meet therapeutic and market needs. Other roles were directed toward building and negotiating partnerships with third parties to support the development programs, and leading research teams through early bench-to-clinic development phases.

Elise received her MS, MPhil and PhD (Biology) from Yale University, and her BS (Biology) from Allegheny College.

Diane Hayes, principal at Diane Hayes Sales Training & Consulting is an experienced leader, trainer and motivator who teaches sales teams how to sell digital and traditional media TOGETHER for the benefit of their advertisers. Often doubling the properties digital billing while increasing their business development revenue and nurturing sales people to believe in themselves and achieve success beyond their own expectations, Diane is a trusted media executive who has worked with both large broadcast groups like COX Media, Tribune Broadcasting and the CBC in addition to smaller station and broadcast groups. She's a hands-on problem solver with extensive practical experience in sales, sales management, business development and digital sales, achieving results for both the station and their clients.