Board of Directors
Bill Sanders, President
Mark Evans, Immediate Past President
Teresa LoBue, Co-Vice President Meetings – Logistics
Donna Lyon, Vice President Public Relations
Louisa Salazar, Co-Vice President Meetings – Programming
Serene Wong, Vice President Seminars and Special Events
Golden Ashby, Director–Emerging Media
Bill Sanders, Board of Directors, President
Bill Sanders is an independent project management and process consultant. The opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of his clients.
Previously, Bill was a member of the Executive Committee and the VP of Project Management at Real Branding, a digital advertising firm in San Francisco.
While there, Bill oversaw Real Branding’s project and resource management practice, leading the team responsible for ensuring that both client projects and internal processes run smoothly and efficiently. His personal expertise and interest lies in systems analysis and integration—closing the gap between strategy and execution. In 2007, Bill was appointed to Real Branding’s Executive Committee, reporting to its Board of Directors.
Bill has amassed over 15 years of project management experience, 10 of which is specifically focused on digital marketing, ecommerce, large scale web development, integrated marketing, and social media. Prior to joining Real Branding, Bill served as the Director of Interactive Services & Project Management for Publicis Dialog, San Francisco. In addition he has held positions as a Principal and Sr. Consultant at ROCG Consulting and as an Executive Producer at Riverdeep.
His client-side experience includes such organizations as U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, Crist Engineers, Mattel, Mattel Interactive, Broderbund Software, The Learning Company, and Riverdeep. His clients have included Sprint, HP, WebEx, Bermuda Board of Tourism, Calistoga, Unilever, Lipton, Disney, and Peet’s Coffee.
Mark Evans, Board of Directors, Immediate Past President
For executives and investors, managers of Fortune 500 companies and other clients requiring expert assistance with competitive research in the energy, financial services and high-tech industries, Mark Evans brings a wealth of experience. For more than 10 years, he has earned a reputation for providing skilled and practical guidance as a market researcher and analyst, consultant, and entrepreneur. He is also currently serving as Vice President of Membership for the San Francisco American Marketing Association and membership chair with Palo Alto’s VC Taskforce.
Prior to starting his own research firm, Mark was director of sales and business analysis for the consulting firm, Business Design Corp. (BDC), specializing in developing and implementing new growth strategies for both BDC and its clients. His areas of expertise include:
Marketing Campaign Planning; Online (CPC) Advertising Strategies; New Market & Opportunity Assessments; Competitive Profiling; Corporate Organizational Analysis.
Earlier in his career, Mark was the assistant director of operations at the Pacific Technology Center in Southern California, a business incubator for start-up companies. He was instrumental in helping young companies understand and analyze their industries and markets. While there, he also helped connect dozens of businesses with funding, executive employment and company leasing opportunities.
Mark previously worked as a Market Analyst with telecom equipment vendor, Occam Networks (OCNW) with responsibility for competitive intelligence and market analysis.
Mark holds a BS in the Sociology of Society & Law from the University of California, Davis.
Teresa LoBue, Board of Directors, Co-Vice President Meetings - Logistics
Donna Lyon, Board of Directors, Vice President Public Relations
Donna’s prior experience in the United Kingdom (UK), where she specialized in marketing communications, makes her a great addition at Text 100. Donna joined Text 100 in 2006, having formerly been with the The Larose Group as an Account Executive after completing her MBA at Golden Gate University, San Francisco.
Her talents allow her to devise public relations campaigns for Text 100 clients such as Informatica, BlueArc and Data Domain and assisting in new business pitches securing Cisco Systems and I-many. Additionally, she secured tier one coverage in publications such as San Jose Mercury News, The Street and CNET. She manages three speaking programs for Cisco Systems including Unified Communications, data center and network systems and run customer media outreach program for Informatica and also performs people management duties, including running the Text 100 internship program for San Francisco.
Prior to starting at The Larose Group, Donna worked as a Business Developer for a direct insurance company. Here she established connections with business partners and implemented direct marketing campaigns to meet their needs using direct mail and inbound and outbound telecommunications techniques. In addition, Donna has a number of years experience in general marketing, business to business and business to consumer, and public relations.
Donna has been a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) in the UK for over ten years and a member of the American Marketing Association (AMA) for many years as well. Currently she volunteers as the public relations vice president of the San Francisco AMA increasing the awareness of the AMA in the bay area. Donna also participates in luncheons and functions with the San Francisco Publicity Club and the San Francisco chapter of the Public Relations Society of American (PRSA).
Donna received her B.A. degree in Business at the Cardiff University and her Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing, the highest professional marketing qualification in Europe, at Bristol University.
Louisa Salazar, Board of Directors, Vice President Meetings
Louisa Salazar is VP/Communications Manager at J.P.Morgan Chase. Louisa is an award-winning communications professional with proven results serving industry leaders, complemented by graduate and undergraduate degrees in marketing and business management, and ten years of experience. Expertise in managing multiple projects simultaneously, effectively balancing objectives and resources. Acknowledged for abilities to build consensus, adapt to changes, and drive solutions in high-stress and fast-paced environments. Entrepreneurial spirit as evidenced by owning and managing an online retail business. Known as a resourceful, dependable team player with superior communication skills.
Serene Wong, Vice President Seminars and Special Events
Serene has been an active member of the SFAMA since 2002. She started out as a Golden Gate University collegiate member, holding board positions, first as the VP of Finance and then later as the collegiate chapter President. In 2005, she volunteer for the EIMA and eventually in 2006, took over as Co-Chair. In 2007, she joined the board as the AVP of Special Events. She graduated from Golden Gate University with both a Bachelors in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing in 2004 and then with her Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications degree in 2006.
Serene has worked in the retail industry for over 10 years for companies such as Macy’s, Victoria’s Secret, Ralph Lauren and finally Ghurka during the years she was working towards her degrees. During that time, she maintained a high GPA and graduated with her Bachelors Cum Laude. She was also awarded the Graduate Excellence Award from the marketing department in 2004. She has also worked in the sports industry as the marketing coordinator for the ABA basketball team, San Francisco Pilots, for six months, helping them create a stronger sponsorship program, built their website, created their team program and organized their summer basketball camp. She also had her first taste of how quickly a team can go bankrupt when they have to compete with the NBA.
Serene worked as an account executive at Bleu Marketing Solutions, an online advertising agency, after finishing up a successful three-month internship with them. Starting out as an intern, she quickly learned that all her marketing experience could not have prepared her for the new age of internet advertising. As an account executive, she was responsible for promoting her clients products to different online advertising networks and affiliates. Before leaving the company, she was one of two Search Engine Specialists in the company. At the end of 2008, she took and passed the certification in becoming a Google Professional.
During her spare-time, Serene enjoys spending time with her two god-children, as well as her niece and nephew. Recently, she took the task of helping her mom close a family business, while laying plans to start a small online retail business, as well as starting to help her brother build and maintain a website for his small real estate investing company. When she does have time to enjoy life, she often listens to music, watching DVDs, learning new computer programs, making jewelry, traveling, taking pictures, dancing, and reading a good book. One fun note about her that many people don’t know is that she enjoys taking Cuban Salsa, East Coast Swing and Belly Dancing lessons at the gym.
Golden Ashby, Director—Emerging Media
Golden is a seasoned marketing professional with over seven years experience in defining/executing strategies that influence repeatable campaigns in marketing, social media, public relations, project management, web technologies, market research, market analysis, creative writing, and execution of online and offline marketing events to drive adoption for over eight major corporations. Golden is the CEO/0wner of GO 2.0 and the Senior Social Media Manager for BOCA Communications.
Golden taught teaching market research sessions at San Francisco State University in 2008 and 2009. He enjoyed supervising the undergrad student quantitative and qualitative market research pools. Golden worked closely with internal stakeholders and systems to analyze, grade, and record hundreds of student’s data. That enabled him to get a first hand view of how marketing affects consumers.
He started up his first business in 2005, called “Golden Marketing and Promotions”. Golden used marketing strategies and analysis to build brand awareness for anybody from Beyonce, Christina Aguilera, and Gwen Stefani, to the SF Giants/49ers and the Oakland Raiders in the Bay Area. He also hired, trained, and supervised a 20 person team to improve H&R Block’s market position in the Bay Area. Golden refined relationships with key “power” tax users by using client relations, creative writing, strategic planning, and product management in order to implement the marketing plan he designed for H&R Block in the entire Bay Area of California.
Golden graduated with his MBA at San Francisco State University in December 2008, with an emphasis on marketing. He received his BS in Marketing from Portland State University, where he held the business seat on the student senate. He was the Vice President for the Marketing Association (colligate chapter of the San Francisco American Marketing Association), and the Vice President of Marketing of the Graduate Business Association while attaining his MBA.
