Mary Mitchell

Mary spent the first eight years of her career at Ogilvy & Mather Direct in New York. She considers herself fortunate to have learned direct marketing at the feet of a great client and industry leader: American Express. After five years on Amex, she moved on to run the accounts of another direct marketing icon, Time Warner's Book-of-the-Month Club as well as that of direct marketing newcomer, pharmaceutical giant Ciba-Geigy (now Novartis).

In 1994, Mary joined Scholastic, the world's largest children's publisher, as Director of Direct Marketing for the Instructional publishing group. In addition to managing a $25MM catalog operation, Mary was responsible for the largest new product launch in Scholastic's history. Leading the charge, Mary ran a fully integrated effort that ranged from branding and advertising to managing lobbyists in key state capitals to organizing an in-school grass roots campaign throughout the country. Intrigued by the opportunity to help build a world-class direct marketing agency based on a new, data-driven model, Mary heeded the call FCB Direct in New York, joining as SVP, Group Management Director in 1997. Her charter included growing FCB's strategic services (database, telemarketing and interactive), new business and overall responsibility for account management planning and development. Everything was going along just fine until Mary went on a hiking trip and had an epiphany at the top of Yosemite Falls: She decided she had to move to Northern California.

Fortunately, FCB was supportive of her desires and in June of 1998, Mary took over as Managing Director of FCB Direct, San Francisco. Mary graduated from The College of William and Mary in Virginia, with a degree in History. She enjoys travel, golf, reading and proving that history was, in fact, a marketable major.