Brian Berman: Advisory Board Member in Thousand Oaks, CA

Led marketing strategy to deliver industry-leading Retail, Services (Lessons, Repairs & Rentals) Brand, Content, Media, Local, Experiential, Partnership Marketing and Public Relations for the largest musical instrument retailer in North America with over 300 locations and $2B in revenue l Drove YoY sales increases of +4.5% across brick and mortar retail stores through the planning and execution of a $50M marketing budget across TV, radio, digital, social, co-op and in-store marketing l Led cross-functional departments in the rapid expansion of Guitar Center Lessons, responsible for driving exponential unit and student growth and high double-digit EBITDA and sales growth l Designed and implemented a new product launch process driving a "first-to-market" merchandising strategy which resulted in the launch of over 200 new products in 2018, each with custom/optimized marketing campaigns l Redesigned promotional strategy utilizing customer, sales, and indexing data to develop Omni- channel promotions contributing to record-breaking EBITDA increases l Streamlined and redefined partnerships program growing revenue by 20% and margin by 50% l Orchestrated a B2C and trade PR strategy responsible for 4.7B media impressions annually l Produced award winning content series resulting in Internet Retailers naming Guitar Center #6 retailer worldwide in YouTube views

l Created local marketing programs responsible for 800 local events and over $1M in incremental sales annually l Integrated musician's services into national retail marketing resulting in increased visits and lifetime value of over 400% l Expanded gift card strategy responsible for increased penetration resulting in YoY sales of +125% l Implemented financing programs responsible for average basket increases (+11%), penetration (5%) and applications (80%)