Lee Rafkin is Founder and President of Rafkin & Company, a full-service, independent brand strategy and marketing consulting firm established in 2002.
Lee is a dynamic and visionary marketing consultant with twenty years of global experience creating, launching and managing brands. Lee’s unique perspective is informed by leadership positions at global branding firms Siegel+Gale (Omnicom) and FutureBrand (Interpublic Group), combined with seven years of experience running his own successful independent consulting firm. Throughout his consulting career, Lee has partnered with an impressive list of clients in Asia, Latin America, Europe and the United States to create highly effective brand strategy, positioning, architecture, naming, identity, licensing, brand management and brand communications programs that are clear, compelling and authentic.
Lee's specialty is becoming a trusted advisor to senior-level clients such as Aetna, AOL, American Express, Bank of America, Discovery, Reuters, Tribune Company, Boston Globe, SPEED Channel, Gaylord Entertainment, Sony Music and UBS. Highlights of his work include leading a global brand council for AOL; branding Meadowlands Xanadu, the country’s first indoor Snow Dome; repositioning and launching numerous cable TV networks throughout Latin America for Discovery; developing a new positioning platform targeting Influentials in India and Japan for Reuters; integrating new acquisitions and developing brand architecture for Animal Planet; naming numerous products and services for Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Sony Music, GBMC Healthcare and Cardean Learning; creating digital branding strategies for the Chicago Tribune and Boston Globe; launching numerous start-ups; and creating brand extension and licensing strategies to reach passionate audiences for Discovery, Mercedes Benz, the Grand Ole Opry and the Apollo Theater.
Formerly, Lee was a Global Director and Practice Leader at Siegel+Gale, where he led its Simplified Communications practice. Lee managed a team of 12 specialists that utilized information design, plain language writing, user-centered research and customer experience strategy to simplify complex consumer touch points like bills, financial statements, contracts, correspondence, call-centers and web sites into easy-to-understand, more satisfying brand experiences that increased trust, transparency, loyalty and retention. Lee’s work with high-profile clients like American Express, Bank of America, PNC and the Internal Revenue Service led to significant productivity increases and cost savings, while dramatically improving customer loyalty and rebuilding trust for these embattled institutions.
At global brand consultancy FutureBrand, Lee was an Executive Director and led its Latin America region, with offices in Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina and Chile. Lee also served as the global client executive for AOL International, where he created and launched a major joint-venture brand in China with Lenovo, repositioned and redesigned Netscape, and developed and implemented brand training tools and seminars used by AOL worldwide.
Prior to brand consulting, Lee was a CMO and Brand Manager. Lee was the Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Savos, Inc., a start-up that streamed Internet audio to mobile devices. Previously, Lee was Director of Marketing for licensed consumer products at Nickelodeon, where he worked with Mattel, Hasbro, Target, Wal-Mart and Toys R' Us to successfully launch the highly successful Rugrats® and Blues Clues® merchandise programs. Prior to Nick, Lee was a classically-trained packaged goods brand manager at Nabisco and Pillsbury. Lee started his career in international investment banking at Merrill Lynch.
Lee holds an M.B.A. in Marketing from Kellogg and a B.A. magna cum laude from Brown University. He is conversant in Portuguese and Spanish, and lives with his wife and two children in South Orange, New Jersey.
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