Mark
Degner
President and CEO
Mr. Degner has a 15 year career in sales, marketing and consulting - primarily serving the Consumer Packaged Goods industry.
Prior to forming FreshLook Marketing Group, Mr. Degner served as Vice President - U.S. Marketing, at Information Resources, Inc. Mr. Degner's main responsibility at IRI was to develop sales tracking solutions, and category management solutions across all perishable departments in the supermarket. Over the course of his 10 year career at IRI, Mark held a number of management positions - all in the areas of sales and consulting. Mark is an expert at developing solutions and applications from sales data.
Before IRI, Mark worked for Willard Bishop Consulting, LTD. Mr. Degner has a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Western Illinois University.
Mr. Degner is considered by his peers to be a borderline workaholic - but he still finds time to enjoy his family, and is active in youth development programs at his local church.
Joe
Kolano
Vice President, Operations
Mr. Kolano joined FreshLook Marketing Group with 10 years of experience with Information Resources, Inc. in Chicago. At IRI, he worked in the Research and Development Department managing a team responsible for the support of IRI's data processing and reporting logic.
In addition to this role, Mr. Kolano was also responsible for the research, design and development of an automated system for the processing, quality control and reporting of scanner sales data. This stand-alone system is currently being used internationally by multiple IRI-affiliated companies.
Mr. Kolano received both a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Computer Science and a Masters Degree in Finance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Ed
Mackowiak
Vice President, Sales
Mr. Mackowiak joined FreshLook Marketing with 9 years of experience with Information Resources, Inc.
In his most recent assignment at IRI, Ed managed a national sales force concentrating exclusively on the brokerage community. Ed is an expert in sales management - and his wealth of experience in the sales and marketing arena is a significant benefit to FreshLook Marketing Group.
Earlier at Information Resources, Inc., Ed managed client businesses including Kraft, Lenders Bagels, Tony's Pizza, Archway Cookies and Guiltless Gourmet. Having succeeded in these client service assignments, he was promoted and given the opportunity to work directly with CPG sales forces, and marketing teams - helping them create fact-based sales presentations and category management programs using scanner sales data, and advanced analytical software tools.
Ed began his career as a retail sales representative with Beecham Products. During a five year tenure with Beecham, Ed was promoted 3 times ending as National Accounts Manager.
Ed's undergraduate degree is from Purdue University and he has an MBA from Indiana University.
Ed currently resides in Indiana, and his hobbies include softball, mountain climbing, and backpacking.
