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Linda Rosso is an award winning marketing and communications professional with a corporate and agency background and available for on-going counsel and projects offering you senior-level attention, on call.
Linda has developed a specialty in interim management, an effective contract solution for organizations with short-to-mid-term staffing needs due to unfilled positions and leaves of absence.
Please browse the engagement descriptions to see the range of solutions that have been created to support our clients. Contact Linda for a creative, flexible and efficient proposal that meets your particular situation.
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Can we hire expertise for current needs and transitional leadership to build a team for the future?
Linda Rosso provided a unique and effective solution for AsiaWorks, an international training and consulting firm headquartered in Hong Kong. Following a five-month engagement as public relations counsel, Linda accepted a multi-year contract as Director of Marketing. Working from the United States and traveling frequently to offices throughout Asia, she led the creation of branding strategy, quality standards and multi-media marketing communications in four languages. Her crisis management experience was essential during the 2003 SARS outbreak, and her corporate philanthropy experience was called into play after the 2004 Tsunami. To build Asian-based marketing expertise and support succession plans, Linda formed a regional marketing team to implement corporate, regional and local market programs, and coached for a successful handover.
How can we sell a business and maintain a positive reputation with employees, customers and the media?
 Linda Rosso was retained by Ford Motor Company as public relations counsel to the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of its subsidiary, First Nationwide Bank for one year, to strategize and implement communications for a highly sensitive plan to sell the Savings & Loan. She developed plans to cover multiple contingencies in both media and employee relations, and led the existing staff in successful implementation. Ford's signal of retreat from financial services and the $1.1 billion (then largest-ever) S&L sale was respected as a sound business decision and received accurate portrayal in the financial media.
How can we manage communications in a complicated merger and create a new corporate culture?
Linda Rosso was retained by the American subsidiaries created through the combination of Mitsubishi Bank and Bank of Tokyo - Bank of California and Union Bank - for a year-long engagement to develop and execute a merger and integrations communications strategy that preserved brand awareness yet shifted corporate identity to a new bank called Union Bank of California. She stepped in to manage and mentor a team of key individuals to accomplish integration objectives, including employee communications, new corporate identity, customer communications and media relations.
Linda Rosso prepared the employee, customer and media communications for an international merger between San Francisco-based Citron Haligman Bedecarre advertising agency with Washington DC's Magnet Interactive, Singapore's The Ad Inc. and London's AKQA and their joint strategic business alliance with Accenture.
We're going public. How can we maintain our consumer messages while creating a new investor image?
Rosso Marketing and Communications was retained as strategic communications and investor relations counsel for Beringer Wine Estates, assisting them in the transition from privately-held to publicly-traded company. We worked together for 18 months, pre-Initial Public Offering through quarterly and first year earnings and Annual Report. During this time, we developed strategies to enhance the investment opportunity while supporting marketing differentiation for seven distinct consumer brands. We counseled senior management and developed detailed, functional corporate communications and investor relations plans, including protocols and governance procedures for media and analyst relations and employee information disclosure policies. Our team developed the investment presentation for IPO road show and managed quarterly conference calls on earnings and wrote the quarterly earnings releases. Rosso wrote and published highlights brochures for employee stock ownership programs and led the development and design of the corporate and investor relations website. Stock price rose 100 percent in the first six months after the IPO and the company was subsequently acquired.
We are re-inventing our business. How can we start fresh with a positive, cohesive image?
Rosso Marketing and Communications assisted the San Jose Medical Group with strategic public relations and marketing through a corporate reorganization and their emergence from bankruptcy. We developed a new logo and corporate identity, produced news releases, edited physician-written editorials for local newspapers, designed and placed advertising and organized health fairs to attract new customers and serve existing patients.
How can we launch our new business venture in a big way on a limited budget?
Rosso Marketing and Communications directed the start-up market launch of Harmonic Lightwaves, now a leader in the laser optics systems industry. We developed and implemented a trade show strategy, collateral material and trade media relations plans that helped to create a pre-emptive leadership position in an emerging industry. The evidence: favorable press comment, high trade show booth attendance and the ability to attract key investment partners and prepare for a successful Initial Public Offering.
Linda Rosso developed the initial marketing communications strategy for professional services firm M Squared, including their marketing communications plan, sales presentations, collateral and media relations materials, helping to launch the interim management industry and position the company to achieve ongoing success, including Inc. 500 listings and the completion of its sale to a publicly-held company.
We need a change in the way we are "doing" marketing. How can we find the right direction?
For the Silicon Valley law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Linda Rosso evaluated overall marketing efforts and made specific recommendations to guide management decisions on departmental organization structure, including strategy, processes and programs. Additionally, she sourced the key personnel hire to run the firm's new marketing department.
Rosso Marketing and Communications conducted a full audit of medical technology company Quadra Med's marketing and sales programs and developed a comprehensive plan for a new way of communicating with customers.
A key marketing employee has left...and the position will be open for several months. How can I cover the workload?
When the partner in charge of marketing at Thomas Weisel Partners scheduled her four-month maternity leave, she entrusted her job to Linda Rosso. The role involved maintaining and creating positive media opportunities for a high-profile CEO and senior partners, guiding a junior staff, sourcing new employees, overseeing investment conferences and the creation of new marketing collateral.
As a frequent associate providing on-call client support to the San Francisco office of Edelman Worldwide, the world's largest independent public relations agency, Linda Rosso served as its acting general manager, covering a three-month leave of absence. In this interim position, she focused on senior-level counsel to clients, business development activities, financial administration and management of 50-person staff.
 Robertson Stephens, a premier high-tech investment banking firm in San Francisco, called on Linda Rosso to manage their public relations function for a seven-month transitional period during the 1999 bull market. Prior to the firm's sale and subsequent closure, she focused on developing interview and presentation skills for executive management and equity research analysts, ensuring the firm received regular, positive coverage in the highly competitive financial market media.
Montgomery Securities, the investment banking firm founded by Thomas Weisel, was well-known for its annual investment conferences. During a critical three-month transition between outgoing and incoming department heads, Linda Rosso managed the conference function, ensuring smooth planning, production and execution of high-budget, high-profile client events. As the interim executive, she provided oversight for all logistics, including travel, venue selection, food service, decorations, entertainment, contract negotiation, budget and accounting.
How can we find out what people saying about our company?
In partnership with Edelman Public Relations, Linda Rosso designed and implemented an audit that tested the effectiveness of the Countrywide Financial marketing communication strategies with their employees, customers, financial analysts, media, real estate and mortgage industries to help the company hear and respond to marketplace findings. Subsequently, the mortgage banking corporation called upon Rosso Marketing and Communications to develop its first crisis communications plan.
How can we communicate our business plan to employees at all levels in the company?
Rosso Marketing and Communications developed an employee education campaign on Sola Optical's strategic business goals, translating high-level management presentations into understandable, embraceable messages for all employees.
What's the best way to manage our corporate philanthropy?
Rosso Marketing and Communications designed the non-profit business structure and capitalization requirements for a new corporate foundation for leading videogame marketer, Sega of America. Linda Rosso researched and analyzed the state of children's health and education, then developed a cause-related marketing strategy, which set the corporation's philanthropic agenda. She sought out and performed due diligence on all potential grant candidates. Linda's work won the full support of the Sega Foundation's Board of Directors who accepted 100% of grant recommendations, totaling $2,000,000 US dollars in the first year.
Our needs are simple. Is there anyone who can handle communications strategy and occasional press announcements?
Rosso Marketing and Communications supports Seagate Properties public relations efforts with regular press releases highlighting real estate sales and acquisitions in the business and trade press.
Where can we find a reliable source to handle a range of individual marketing projects?
Rosso Marketing and Communications handled a range of assignments over several years, from writing the corporate brand identity plan to developing global destination promotion plans for consumers, member banks and merchants to preparing the sponsorship plan for the Olympic Games.
Over a several year period, Rosso Marketing and Communications teamed with the in-house marketing agency of McKesson Corporation to develop employee campaigns, marketing plans and consumer promotions and print collateral materials for water products, grocery distribution and pharmacy chain divisions.
Rosso Marketing and Communications wrote the corporate capabilities brochure for Sony Signatures, the licensed entertainment products division of Sony Corporation.
Rosso Marketing developed the marketing plan for AT&T to identify and reach qualified individuals and consortiums to bid on government-issued PCS wireless communications licenses, in an effort to develop new strategic alliances and create a future customer base.
Linda Rosso enjoys taking on advertising and catalog copywriting assignments, challenged by following an established creative direction and proven-to-sell writing style. Clients have included garden, clothing and home furnishings catalogs for Smith and Hawken, Golden Bear, Blast, Hold Everything and Design with Lighting.
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