People
Shayla Swoyer, Principal
Shayla Swoyer is the founder and principal owner of Customer Affects L.L.C. She has over 15 years experience working with early stage and rapid growth companies in a diverse number of industries. Her expertise is in providing dynamic business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketing services that create demand for products and services, strengthen company image, and support business growth goals.
Shayla has led the execution of marketing programs that have successfully shortened sales cycle times and generated new and repeat business for Evare, Peritus, Polaroid, and a division of Tyco Healthcare. She has played an integral role in the successful introduction of products and services and has launched highly targeted marketing campaigns and unified graphic strategies to prospective customers. Her aggressive strategy and creative campaigns have yielded impressive results that helped to fill sales pipelines.
Shayla Swoyer possesses the type of diverse talents that foster innovative approaches to market opportunities. She is skilled at understanding the marketing needs of an organization, generating a plan to support business goals, and providing the leadership and expertise to execute the plan.
Shayla has a B.A. in English from Dartmouth College. Shayla is also a graduate of the Commonwealth Corporation's Entrepreneurial Training Program. This comprehensive program teaches powerful business planning with an emphasis on the financial and marketing aspects of a successful business.
If you want customers in your foyer, call Shayla Swoyer.
Theodore B. Swoyer, Principal
Ted Swoyer brings senior level marketing, technical, and business acumen to Customer Affects L.L.C.
Ted has directed the marketing efforts at several companies before, during and after IPOs and acquisitions. He has served as both marketing director and product marketing manager and has built and staffed marketing departments. Ted couples insight and imagination with an ability to communicate complex subjects in understandable, relevant, solutions-focused language. This has allowed him to contribute to the success of the corporate identity programs, product launches, lead generation campaigns, reseller programs, web sites, sales tools and training courses he has developed for companies of all sizes. Ted also has an extensive technical background. He has served as product manager, national and regional technical sales support, team trainer and coach for high-performance software maintenance teams, course developer and instructor for UNIX, IBM mainframe, and software maintenance-related subjects, IT consultant and programmer on a variety of platforms spanning microcomputers to mainframes, and creating variety of applications spanning systems to IT.
Ted has a B.S. in Computer Science from Rutgers University.
Advisory Board
Customer Affects prides itself on the business, marketing, and entrepreneurial expertise of its advisory board of senior level executives that have an average of 20 years of experience in the most important aspects of running a business including marketing, sales, finance, product and service development, delivery, and project management.
James P. Bucher
James P. Bucher brings a wealth of sales and marketing knowledge to the advisory board of Customer Affects. He is a senior level sales and marketing executive with more than 20 years of progressive success in the medical device industry. Currently an independent sales consultant, Jim was most recently the vice president of sales and marketing for the Radionics division of Tyco Healthcare. In that capacity, Jim was responsible for the worldwide positioning, branding and distribution of Radionics' broad line of innovative instruments for modalities ranging from stereotactic radiosurgery and radiotherapy to radiofrequency generated pain management and tissue ablation devices.
Prior to joining Radionics, Jim was employed by Carl Zeiss, Inc. where he held successive positions as regional sales manager, national sales and, ultimately, division manager for the Surgical Products Division, responsible for sales, marketing and service for the United States and Canada. During his tenure at Carl Zeiss, the company's surgical microscope enjoyed tremendous market share growth, buoyed by the successful launch of such new products as image guided surgery systems, medical lasers and stereoscopic endoscopes. Jim began his career in the medical device industry as a sales representative with the V. Mueller division of American Hospital Supply Corporation, after his discharge from the U.S. Army where he attained the rank of captain. From there he joined Coherent Medical as a sales representative and, later, national accounts manager and surgical laser product manager.
Jim has served on the Board of Directors of ThinkFirst National Injury Prevention Foundation, and as industry advisory member to Project ORBIS International and has served as well on industry committees of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, Congress of Neurological Surgeons and American Association of Neurological Surgeons, among others. Jim graduated from Gettysburg (PA) College with a bachelor's degree in liberal arts.
Kelly R. Barker
Kelly R. Barker provides marketing and management expertise to the advisory board of Customer Affects. As principal of Kelly R. Barker & Associates, Inc., Kelly is responsible for supervising all new business and client service operations, including strategic planning and media strategy. He has worked for a full spectrum of clients and has services accounts in the consumer, manufacturing, high tech, hospitality and food service arenas and has acted as Vice President Marketing, Vice President, International, Vice President of Marketing, Sales and Distribution, and Managing Director.
Prior to founding Kelly R. Barker & Associates, Kelly was Director of Operations and International Marketing for The Moseley Corporate where he supervised strategic planning, corporate positioning and day-to-day tactical execution of brand development programs for a variety of world wide brands clients including Burger King, Subway and Veterans Canteen Services. In an effort to realign staff to more closely complement client needs, Kelly led a reorganization of this specialty products manufacturing company providing marketing, design, product development, architectural and construction services to the food and hospitality industries.
Prior to joining The Moseley Corporation, Kelly spent five years as Director of Development and founding team member of Dunkin' Ventures where he was charged with start-up responsibility for Dunkin' Donuts growth vehicle including the development of ninety nine Chili's Grill and Bar restaurant locations.
Kelly graduated with a Master of Business Administration in International Marketing from Suffolk University. He also holds a Bachelor of Science with honors in Marketing and Business Administration from Eastern Nazarene College; a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and General Management and an Associate of Science in Management from Thomas Edison State College.
Betsy Down
Betsy Down has been a successful entrepreneur and provides a tremendous amount of insight on starting and growing a new business. Her experience and knowledge is a valuable asset to the Customer Affects advisory board. Betsy leads and teaches classes, and provides one-to-one coaching for the Entrepreneurial Training Program at the Commonwealth Corporation. She has served as the Executive Director of the Enterprise Center at Salem State College, a 53,000-sq. ft. business incubator for start-up and young businesses. Betsy successfully increased the building occupancy to 100% and initiated training programs and consulting services for tenant and member businesses. She also worked for MassDevelopment as the Operations Manager of the Jodrey State Pier, a $13 million revitalization project resulting in a modern dockage facility dedicated to serving the Gloucester fishing fleet.
As a successful entrepreneur, Betsy founded Bookworks, a full service bookkeeping company providing monthly services and conversions from manual to computerized accounting systems. Betsy has a B.S. in Business Administration from Emmanuel College and an A.S. in Business Management from North Shore Community College. She is also a member of the Salem Chamber of Commerce, North Shore Women in Business and sits on the advisory board for the Academy of Management at East Boston High School. In addition, Betsy has been a member of the Salem Partnership, past board member for the Salem Chamber, NSWIB and counselor for SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives).
Sarah Holden
Sarah Holden brings successful experience in project and budget management to the Customer Affects advisory board. She has twenty years of experience in project and team management. She has led many project teams to success.
During the last twenty years Sarah has managed construction and renovation projects of varying sizes and complexities. Her strengths in communication give her an edge in working with countless outside contractors and vendors. She has negotiated and managed utility contracts and real estate leases, saving the owners hundreds of thousands of dollars. Her ability to understand the needs of customers has led to successful negotiation in potentially difficult situations.
Her organization skills and her ability to manage many tasks at once led to the successful management of an annual budget of $6 million for operations and $2 million for capital. Management of these budgets during stressful economic times for the owners required attention to every opportunity for savings.
After working in the corporate realm for twenty years, Sarah started her own construction project management business--Fishbone Project Management. She manages construction projects for companies, allowing them to focus on their core business while their projects are being implemented.
Sarah has a professional degree in Architecture from the University of Maryland. While at Maryland she also completed a B.S. in Urban Studies. In 1991, Sarah graduated with an MBA from Northeastern University. She is also a graduate of Commonwealth Corporation's Entrepreneurial Training Program.
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