The Growth Strategy Group

Marianne is an exceptional colleague and mentor. She is curious and courageous: she will probe to get at the heart of a matter and present thoughtful (and sometimes daring!) proposals and solutions. Marianne is reliably abreast of current trends and challenges in the marketplace, able to develop marketing strategies that leverage valuable insights and experience. The depth of her expertise in digital marketing is matched by her breadth of knowledge and background working with myriad clients and organizations. Nevertheless, Marianne remains accessible and authentic. She is that too-rare mix of personable and direct: her genuine interest in both people and finding effective solutions to marketing problems makes her a remarkable consultant and collaborator.

As the new CIO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle, I asked Marianne to help me create and communicate a forward looking technology strategy for the bank. Her insights, research, and creativity were critically important to the strategy we developed. She brought a talented team together to work through the details with my internal team, and we were very successful together showing the board how we could shape the right technology strategy to support the bank’s goals. Marianne is a trusted advisor I know I can always turn to when I need solid, well reasoned perspective.

It has been an honor and a pleasure to have an opportunity to work with you. You are such an incredible asset, ally and partner, not to mention a valued leader and member of the team. Look at all you have accomplished! If you can’t stay . . . Hurry back!”

Working with The Growth Strategy Group proved to be an excellent strategic decision which ensured the long term success of our company’s fledgling new customer engagement program. Marianne’s holistic approach to evaluating our program’s core objectives, processes and underlying capabilities, coupled with her strategic recommendations and focus on executional excellence, prepared us to overcome the many challenges we would face in implementation. Marianne and team were efficient, effective, flexible and highly adaptable professionals who seamlessly integrated into the unique organizational fabric of our business. I would highly recommend them to both internal and external colleagues in search of top marketing consultative talent.

Marianne Hewitt of Integrated Growth Solutions did an exceptional job in supporting our business in operationalizing several critical elements of a new customer segmentation. Marianne helped us identify the core functions within our company, supported by various shared groups of services, such as IT, digital strategy, enterprise data, etc., which we would need to align functionally and build capabilities within to support segment management functions and maximum market penetration and profitability within each segment. She helped us to frame how to go about prioritizing many of the operational as well as customer facing segment priorities we must undertake as a business through various effective frameworks. Marianne is a true professional with both operational know-how as well as great insight into effective customer management and strategy.

In order to move forward on one of our bank’s major business initiatives, we engaged Integrated Growth Solutions, Marianne Hewitt, to help define the major processes associated with offering this new business activity. Marianne was very thoughtful and thorough in the way she approached the requirements gathering process. She not only kept the project on point, but made sure that we walked away with very detailed process flows that detailed on-boarding of clients all the way through execution and settlement of the product. Marianne very quickly came up to speed on the nuances associated with the product to be offered and made sure that she aligned herself with the business process owners in order to very quickly and succinctly gather their requirements. By the end of this process I was not only pleased with the work that Marianne had done for the bank, but actually excited at how much I learned about the product during the process. Given the success of this process, I would not hesitate to use Marianne’s services in the future.

We engaged The Growth Strategy Group for a major strategic initiative around Customer Management. Marianne Hewitt and TGSG brought content expertise, process discipline and passion to our combined team. Marianne knew this space (from both a strategic and technology perspective), challenged us to think differently, and put us in a position to win. I highly recommend this Firm if the task requires thought leadership, process management, and tangible results.

We were presented with a challenge of very quickly laying the groundwork for the development of a multi-million dollar growth initiative. We turned to Integrated Growth Solutions. They provided insight and guidance to develop the project roadmap and set the right path for implementation. Their level of experience, pragmatic approach and results-orientation was refreshing and exactly what we needed.

We asked Marianne of Integrated Growth Solutions to jump into the middle of a very important and fast tracked CRM program. She very quickly got up to speed, aligned resources and identified the correct project work plan. Throughout the project Marianne identified the key areas that our group should be focused on while working through a very important contract negotiation. She was always willing to consider other perspectives while pushing for what she thought was best and was very adept at running vs. participating in aspects of the project. I'd recommend Marianne for mid to large size organizations looking for a seasoned process expert that can work in any type of business setting.  

With every project I engaged Marianne Hewitt’s services, she was swift in establishing trust with my staff, definitive in timelines and outcomes, focused on results and, most impressively, in ready position to roll-up-her-shirtsleeves to assist and execute. It was easy to forget that she was a consultant and easy to consider her a real part of my team.

Integrated Growth Solutions was critical in helping our management team establish the overall framework, scope and business process roadmap to implement a multi-million dollar sales force automation system, and integrated drug sample management solution, supporting a pharmaceutical sales force of over 4,000. Their in-depth knowledge and experience across a broad range of industries and companies provided a viable best-practice approach, which greatly simplified the decision-making and implementation of a complex, business-critical and high-stakes technology solution. They worked effectively across multiple levels of stakeholders, from executive management to front-line technical staff, and were a major factor in our ability to deliver a successful system in alignment with our organizational objectives.

Marianne Hewitt with The Growth Strategy Group was a key contributor to a strategic growth initiative for our business.  She was instrumental in helping us establish our objectives and then worked with business area teams across the enterprise to develop delivery plans to achieve those objectives. Marianne exercised her experience and knowledge to help us a deliver a more coordinated enterprise effort while coaching the business teams along the way with new processes and approaches unfamiliar to them. Marianne shared tools and techniques with us that will position us well for similar future endeavors. Without Marianne’s engagement and leadership, we would not have been able to meet our aggressive timeline and delivery objectives.  

Integrated Growth Solutions, provided invaluable counsel on the largest systems conversion project our organization had ever undertaken. They provided the executive leadership on large projects that our organization lacked.

As chairman of the DePaul Computing & Digital Media Leadership Council I have had the privilege of working with Marianne Hewitt. Marianne was the Chairperson of our Development committee. She was instrumental in the creation of the DePaul Corporate Technology luncheon. She recruited a panel of Cloud Computing industry experts, organized the Leadership Council, and hosted approximately 100 senior IT business leaders. This event was so well-received that we have decided to make it an annual event. The success of the event is directly attributable to the leadership provided by Marianne. She used her project and people management skills to great advantage in her role as Development Committee chair.

I engaged Integrated Growth Solutions to assist me in developing a clear, actionable strategy and in helping me communicate that strategy to my peers in management and to the board.  Marianne and her team were able to quickly understand the organization, interview the key stakeholders and provide in depth analysis of the situation.  The recommendations and communication materials I received from IGS were critical in convincing the management team and board to provide the required funding and support to move our modernization effort forward.  I wholeheartedly recommend IGS and Marianne as strategic partners who deliver excellent value.

Now that your time working with the bank has officially come to a close, I just want to say what a pleasure it has been to work with you. I have lost count of the number of times that you amazed me with your ability to push and prod without completely ruffling the other person's feathers or how you maintained your composure in less than ideal situations. Seeing you in action challenges me to be better in how I prepare for meetings and how I present the results of my work to others, especially at the Executive level. You are a true professional in the highest sense of the word. I sincerely hope that our paths will cross again.  

It’s been an absolute pleasure working with you and I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say we will miss the experience and value that you have brought to all of the campaigns you’ve worked on. I wish you the best moving forward and hope winter in Chicago isn’t too harsh this year!