JEFF EWALD:
President and Founder of Optimization Group Inc. in Ann Arbor. Starting the business just a few weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, Ewald has built the company from three people laboring in a basement to a staff of 12 with a roster of 45 Fortune 500 clients and federal government groups. More than 95 percent of the company's revenue comes from outside Michigan, and includes business from more than 27 countries. Optimization Group delivers marketing services that integrate marketing, science, and technology. Ewald's hands-on experience in providing a wide range of marketing and marketing research services across many industry sectors enables him to guide clients in developing information, processes, and systems in communications research and planning, new product development research and planning, idea generation, and qualitative and quantitative marketing research. During the first part of his career, he focused on product management and new product development at General Mills and the Vlasic Foods subsidiary of Campbell Soup Co. He also worked at J. Walter Thompson in research, strategic planning, and account management. While there, he spent more than eight years with the Goodyear Tire & Rubber account, serving as the account director. He was also general manager of the Detroit office, Thompson's largest. Ewald was the inaugural winner of the David Ogilvy Research Award. He also has received the AME gold award for global marketing effectiveness. The company has won several Effie awards and is a member of the American Marketing Association and the Advertising Research Foundation. Ewald received his bachelor's degree in music from Indiana University, his MBA from the University of Michigan, and has served on the marketing faculty at Wayne State University's Graduate School of Business.
