Nominated By:
James Obermayer
Why are you nominating this person?
As CEO of the DMA he is at the point of the spear in lead generation and consequently lead management as it contributes to the wealth building capability of thousands of companies. The DMA defends the industry and promotes best practices.
What stand-out thing have they done?
Thomas J. Benton is the CEO/COO of DMA. With a career across a variety of direct response marketing environments, including as senior vice president of marketing analysis for America Online. Since joining DMA in 2012 as CFO/COO, he has led the development of the Associations strategic plan and established financial and membership analytics and reporting that are more informative and transparent. Benton has fortified important financial performance indicators and systems, and created a more nimble and variable staffing model to strengthen DMA and better serve our members. Before joining DMA, Benton spent several years as a financial consultant and philanthropist. In addition to helping individuals and businesses with financial, business, and marketing analyses, he served as treasurer and board member at Helping Children Worldwide (HCW), a nonprofit organization that founded The Child Rescue Center and Mercy Hospital in Bo, Sierra Leone. Previously, Benton was senior vice president, marketing analysis, at America Online, where he built and ran AOL Marketings financial planning and business intelligence functions. In this role, he oversaw several of AOL Marketings business units, including financial planning; business and M&A analysis; marketing systems and data mining; member acquisition and retention analysis; and marketing research. Concurrent with this role, Benton served for nearly two years as acting CFO to the president of AOL programming. During his tenure, paying membership at AOL grew tenfold from three million to nearly 30 million.
Their Company URL: http://www.thedma.org
About the Author: Susan Finch
Susan has been a web solutions provider since 1997 and combines it with her years of experience in Public Relations, Marketing and Advertising. In her own company, Susan Finch Solutions (http://www.susanfinch.com) Susan provides training, design, set up, strategies, and graphics for clients online and for print. Susan has been a director for the SLMA since 2008.
