Mr. Ed Tazzia

biography

Ed has been with Gundersen Partners since 1997. He manages our Midwest office in Detroit and specializes in corporate marketing search and consulting assignments. He is our most experienced marketing executive having spent nearly twenty-five years in client-side roles from entry to executive with some of the best known firms in the world. His clients include IBM, Goodyear, International Paper, Gartner, ICI-Glidden, SABMiller, E*Trade, Wal-Mart, and Intuit.

Ed’s professional experience includes marketing and general management positions in packaged goods and high-tech, retail and sports marketing. He started his career at Procter & Gamble spending ten years in brand management roles, including seven in new products. Later, he was the Vice President of Marketing for the North American Soccer League, the professional soccer league that brought Pele to North America.

Ed returned to consumer packaged goods with Vlasic Foods, a subsidiary of Campbell’s Soup Company, eventually being named Vice President of Marketing. His time there included a stint as General Manager of Campbell’s U.S. Hispanic Business Unit where he led a team marketing Hispanic cuisine to both Hispanics and to the general market.

In 1991, Ed was named Vice President - Marketing for Silo Electronics Stores, the U.S. subsidiary of the Dixon’s Stores Group, the world’s largest electronics retailer. The combination of classic packaged goods and electronics retailing led to his recruitment by IBM where he was eventually named the global marketing executive on the IBM commercial PC business, a worldwide $5B business. Other responsibilities at IBM included a major cross-divisional program (IBM SystemXtra), exploration of handheld mobile computing as a business, and the Aptiva Consumer Division products.

Ed is a regular contributor to Brandweek, has been published in AdAge and other trade journals and has spoken at both industry conferences and colleges including Wharton, Columbia and Michigan State University. He also serves as the Chairman of the Board of the global P&G Alumni Network. Ed is a graduate of Michigan State University with a BA in Advertising.