Team

Ted Ganchiff

Ted has been aligning teams and developing positioning and messaging for GdotA clients for over 15 years. Prior, he worked at ad agencies in both Chicago and Silicon Valley. For Fortune 500 companies, startups at every stage, mid-market companies, not-for-profits, and more, he works with clients and the Spinforce team to tailor Summits and deliverables to solve for a huge range of challenges. Once the Summit is finalized, he takes a leadership role in guiding executives, founders and teams to a shared, informed and inspired understanding of how they should articulate their unique beliefs and promises for greatest impact.

Kyle Okimoto

Kyle understands the relationship between creative messaging and execution. As Chief Marketing Officer at E*TRADE, he introduced brand strategy and customer engagement programs that reinvigorated this digital pioneer. He also served as the leader of transformational sales initiatives and co-head of Strategy & Business Development at Merrill Lynch, enabling it to better integrate with and utilize Bank of America’s resources post-merger. Prior to Merrill, he held various positions where he helped articulate and implement messaging across consumer packaged goods, IT, online content, apparel, and more.

John Stoops

John spent nearly 20 years in leadership positions in advertising, most recently as a Vice President-Account Director with Leo Burnett where he developed and executed global marketing strategies for world-class brands including Proctor & Gamble, Unilever, Kraft Foods and Comcast. In 2015, John founded The Revival, a theater and business/communications training and education company built at the birthplace of improvisation on the University of Chicago campus. There, he uses theatrical and improv techniques to train professionals to expand their thinking and supercharge their communications.

David Houghtaling

What helps Dave see through the noise and articulate the “big picture” so succinctly, whatever the business category? Range of experience. Dave’s brand and messaging background is about as broad as you’re likely to encounter, from leading creative teams for global investment firms such as William Blair & Company, to serving as a Creative Director for innovator Jellyvision (if you were a fan of “You Don’t Know Jack,” then you were enjoying Dave’s creativity at work). Dave’s background makes him an incredibly quick study, moving from Summit to articulation with Dave-like efficiency.