Welcome to Verndale

It’s a good thing Chris loves his work, because he is always working. This has been the case since he was 14 and the pattern hasn’t let up since. He’s come a long way from the paper routes and commercial kitchens of his youth to being the head of Verndale, which he helped found in 1998.

Chris has a talent for seeing the large strategic picture as well as granular details – this gives him the uncanny ability to distill complex situations into simple, actionable strategies. He’s also a serial entrepreneur, constantly thinking of ways to grow and extend whatever business he’s engaged with. These traits have been as important to his client work as they are to his role in shaping Verndale’s success over the last two decades.

He considers Verndale his first child and cares deeply about its growth and health, as well as that of people who make it great. When he’s not on the road for a client or in a meeting, peppering a whiteboard with commanding infographics, you might find him on the move with his actual children as they chip away at their goal of seeing all 50 states.

One of Verndale's founding partners, Matt knows the business inside and out – which means he can pull out all the stops to deliver results for clients. Overseeing daily operations, he makes sure that every client has the best team and the right resources for the job at hand.

Matt is actively involved in defining and executing Verndale’s strategy. He is a key driver of new initiatives from service and product offerings to expansion and organizational structure. While Matt certainly has his hands on the day to day happenings of Verndale, he also has the big picture view and knows where we need to go to consistently exceed the expectations of our clients.

Matt’s mantra is that you have to break big ideas down into bite-size pieces so people can consume them. Matt’s dog and officemate, Gus, wholeheartedly agrees and is happy to demonstrate at any time.

Entrepreneurial spirit? Well, at 12 he founded his own landscaping business by saving up his paper route money to buy a lawnmower.

Grace under pressure? He volunteers as an EMT. After that there’s no business problem or client challenge that can make his palm sweat.

Stamina? In addition to the 18-year marathon keeping Verndale at the leading edge of technology, he is a regular at any number of physically brutal obstacle-based mud races.

He’s also pretty fantastic at seeing the big picture – artfully matching a client’s challenges with the best strategy to solve them. That includes helping them get the absolute most our of their technology investments.

Life’s not all hard work, barbed wire, and high pressure though. His favorite way to unwind is practicing the ukulele with his daughter or getting some quiet time in on the water with a cold drink in his hand.

He builds furniture, brews beer, smokes his own meat, makes his own hot sauce, grows his own vegetables, majored in Computer Science with minors in both Art History and Astronomy. Oh, and he can throw a football better than most. It’s all in the reflexes.

This ridiculously broad set of interests has shaped his ability to take disparate, complex technical concepts and make them incredibly clear. Because of this he’s able to act as the bridge between technical and non-technical teams – stoking meaningful collaboration between the two and freeing clients up to focus on marketing goals rather than technical roadblocks.

During his tenure at Verndale, he’s built a team of over 100 engineers across Development, Technical Business Analysis, Managed Services, and Research & Development. Being a Sitecore Certified Developer himself, he’s completed hundreds of successful client implementations, from straight CMS to the full MarTech stack.

When he’s not at Verndale you’ll find him spending time with his wife and kids, pursuing his myriad interests, or finding whatever excuse he can find to get his giant, wonderfully crazy extended family together.

This may sound like we’re talking about three people, but it’s actually the career path of Keith LaFerriere (who, in line with this simile, is literally a triplet).

His job is to make sure we design from the perspective of the consumer across all our accounts. Everything visual that we craft, whether its touch, tap, scroll or just simply look at, is part of his domain at Verndale. As is evident by his career path, Keith is constantly experimenting and likes to keep moving – which is a good thing because his role keeps him immersed in diverse client projects that vary wildly by both vertical and engagement type, not to mention his speaking engagements on UX, design, and the process of selling creative ideas.

He built his chops for this vast and varied role at several agencies, including Visual Activity for Disney, Comcast, and Harvard, R/GA for MasterCard Global and Coke Rewards, and Arnold where he was SVP of User Experience across digital accounts including Ocean Spray, Jack Daniels, Dell, CVS, American Eagle Outfitters and many others. In his past, he was one of the founding adjunct professors for the online design curriculum at Bentley University, a former Board of Directors member for the American Marketing Association and a former executive board member at MITX.

Keith enjoys a great bourbon, designing and collecting vintage signs, and believes in collaboration above all else.

Just ask her three young kids, the 30+ varieties of flowers in her burgeoning garden, the countless horses she’s taken care of over a lifetime of riding, and her goldendoodle, Charlie, who is an office staple.

Of course, the decade she’s spent as an HR professional doesn’t hurt either – with experience at Aberdeen Group, Bear Stearns, and more. She’s also SPHR and SHRM-SCP certified. Which may just sound like a bunch of letters if you’re not in HR, but it’s kind of a big deal. We see it as official recognition of what we’ve known all along – that she’s awesome at helping people become even better versions of themselves. So if you know any smart, respectful and talented people out there, be sure to send them her way.

Meg spends her free time with her family spotting whales off the Maine coast, swimming with giant mantas and sea turtles in the Caribbean, and hopping in on the occasional double dutch session.

Sidenote: She loves the heat. Like 90+ degrees kind of heat. Which means we have a pretty good idea who keeps turning the AC down when no one’s looking.

As Chief Marketing Officer Tim owns the agency brand and is responsible for all initiatives that strengthen our position as a leading customer experience partner to some of the world’s greatest companies.

Prior to joining the Verndale Team, Tim served as Director of Brand Activation for Breakaway, a hybrid agency/VC firm based in Boston. In that capacity, he developed and led an integrated practice of social, content, digital, public relations, and brand experience design for clients ranging from global brands like Puma, VELCRO Brand, and Tishman Speyer, to energetic start-ups like Oath Craft Pizza, IdeaPaint and Drizly.

Tim started his career as co-founder of MetroConcepts, a boutique entertainment marketing firm that served clients across the music and lifestyle industries, including Interscope Records, Virgin Records, adidas, and Red Bull. In his glory days he worked with artists like Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Black Eyed Peas, and Everlast.

As Chief Financial Officer with over 20 years experience Chris is a key contributor to Verndale’s growth strategy and is responsible for the overall financial health of the organization (which means we all sleep better knowing he’s fantastic at his job).

Chris is constantly searching for ways to improve and believes that consistent, incremental advancement is more important than making wild, uninformed leaps.

He’s also the quintessential team player – reaching well beyond the numbers and deep into the alphabet to provide thoughtful, level headed strategic advice to managers across the organization.

Chris has spent his entire career in the marketing and media industry with experience in both large and small companies. He was most recently SVP Finance at Isobar, and prior to that was CFO at Molecular, VP of Finance at Carat, and Controller at Arnold Worldwide. Chris also earned his MBA from the Suffolk University Executive MBA Program.

Most of his time outside of work is spent using his immense mathematical skills to keep score at his kid’s sporting events

The Celtics had Red Auerbach. The Redskins had Joe Gibbs. The Account team at Verndale – has David Kovner. With over a decade of account management experience across verticals ranging from energy to healthcare, and insurance to nonprofit – David helps push the account team at Verndale to be even better than they were the day before.

He believes the greatest asset to working as a team is keeping an open mind. His open mind is typically hard at work getting to know the nuances of our client’s business so that we can be the best strategic partner.

When he’s not leading the account team at Verndale, he’s on the field coaching his own kid’s soccer, basketball and softball games. Basically, he just can’t stop coaching.

Formally educated as a mechanical engineer, Ross found his way to an aerospace software company where he saw huge potential in web solutions – launching a web development company with several members of his team. This experience gave him the ability to work across a wide range of verticals and also helped hone his business operations skills.

He’s logged over a dozen years of experience delivering enterprise level software solutions – spearheading transformational projects across fortune 500 companies. He is extremely hands on, which isn’t surprising coming from a professional bass guitar player. After touring and traveling across the lower 48 he’s funneled that dexterity into solving problems and shaping engagement for his team and Verndale’s clients.

He’s a diehard Celtics fan living in LA, which is a testament to his courage and fortitude. It also means that if you’re looking for him during playoffs season he’ll be at Sonny Mclean’s with the rest of the Boston expatriates.

Our clients have long appreciated his collaborative approach and relationship building versus the hard sell, car-dealership-on-steroids approach that they’ve run into elsewhere. Over the last 10 years, he’s helped build a team that echoes this style, bringing a refreshing level of hospitality and partnership to every client they meet.

He knows his product backwards and forwards and has a ton of faith in his team – which leads him to make ever-loftier promises that, with enough caffeine and teamwork, we’re consistently able to achieve.

When he’s building client partnerships or promising the world, you can find him in the Berkshires, relaxing with his family in the crystal clear waters of Otis Reservoir, casting a fly in an icy stream or, (during weekends between pre-season and the championship) feeding what he calls his “Patriots Problem.

After graduating from Boston College with degrees in Computer Science and Psychology, and a brief stint with Primix Solutions, Liz began working at Verndale in 2001. As the company has transformed from a 7-person shop to the agency it is today, Liz has worked her way up through the roles of engineer, technical lead and technical architect.

Now as the leader of Development, Liz works closely with QA, Front-End and Engineering teams to bring best practices, organization, innovation and passion to everything they do. Her focus is two pronged. First: analyzing the health and strategy of each department to ensure a great environment for her team members. Second: working with technical leaders on projects to verify they are executing successfully within budget and timeline, always keeping in mind reuse, efficiency and quality.

Liz's various technical certifications keep her up-to-date within the industry and she isn't afraid to jump in and get her hands dirty when duty calls. She is particularly proud of her Sitecore MVP status. She is one of only three women to receive this prestigious acknowledgement in 2015.

Germán, who opened the office five years ago, was the perfect choice for the job. He’s learned to funnel his boundless energy, talents, and perfectionist tendencies into hiring the best people and helping them accomplish their goals. When he’s not doing that, he’s working on goals of his own at the local soccer pitch (or watching Messi work on his – Visca el Barça!).

In addition to running offices, he’s led development teams for most of the past decade – something he’s uniquely qualified to do since he’s a developer himself, with experience at tackling complex experiences for Fortune 500 companies and even running his own startup mobile gaming company

He loves food and can frequently be found fine-tuning his grilling skills. His guilty pleasure is pizza, which makes his obsessive soccer playing even more important!

Lisa is a fearless traveller. She’s walked the ring of an active volcano in Montserrat and swooped over lush green foothills in Hawaii. This adventurous spirit has spurned and equally epic trip through every geography that Digital Marketing has to offer – from sales and business development to account management and professional services for companies like Sitecore, Plexus Software, Ektron and more.

The philosophy behind her approach to sales is that with a well-aligned partnership is the key to transformation and success. Two companies working in lockstep together will get to their goals much faster than if they were on there own.

When she’s not at Verndale she spends as much time with her family as possible. You can finder her on a boat in the summer, in the mountains in the winter (she loves skiing more than she hates the cold), and if she’s not in either place she’s on the course working on her golf swing, which she admits needs some assistance.

Jeff leads Verndale’s Commerce Experience Practice, leveraging 25 years experience as a business owner as well as his digital strategy leadership across a wide variety of industries and business models. Having built his own timber frame cabin, he is as hands on as they come. True to form, he sweats the details and plays an active role in each and every one of our commerce engagements – as a strategic advisor and stakeholder through every phase.

His broad background has given him experience in a wide range of experiences and technologies, from online to in store – and his ability to understand how they all work in concert with each other is a rare and beautiful thing. Jeff’s client work includes both CPG and onmnichannel retail companies such as Orvis, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters / Keurig and Hershey Chocolate Company, as well as manufacturer sector / B2B channel models in the alternate energy and manufacturing sectors.