Kelly Gillease

About Kelly Gillease

I\'m currently excited to focus my expertise on driving growth & scale, building brands, and accelerating AI transformation in marketing in board, advisor, fractional, executive in residence, and consulting roles. I\'m also open to portfolio CMO roles at startup studios or VC firms.High-performing executive business leader with 20+ years of hands on marketing experience and innovation. Specialized expertise in direct to consumer, e-commerce, fintech and travel. Key contributor to successful NerdWallet IPO and strategic acquisition exits at Hotwire (IAC,$685M), Viator (TripAdvisor,$200M) and StudyBlue (Chegg,$21M) and member of the M&A team for KnowYourMoney and Fundera acquisitions at NerdWallet. Senior Board Advisor during Jackpocket acquisition (DraftKings,$750M). Passionate about driving growth, consumer value and delivering unparalleled results in a fast-paced, startup environment.Intensely results driven Agile-trained, technical and analytical marketer with active product development oversight in homepage, registration & CRM and SEO pods. Strong strategic planner, key corporate development contributor, company culture advocate and business line owner. Inspiring manager and cross-functional leader with strong team performance and retention, including remote and distributed teams. Experience with diversity, equity and inclusion (DE & I) work and employee resource groups for URMs, mindfulness, LGBTQ+, and women. Recognized as a 2020 \"40 Over 40\" honoree from Campaign US and \"Top 35 Under 35\" young professionals in the global travel industry and is a published marketing thought-leader and an advisor and speaker on brand, online travel, marketing trends and innovation.Specific expertise in performance and acquisition marketing (search engine marketing, SEO, affiliates, social), retention & loyalty (email/CRM, retargeting, mobile advertising and push notifications) awareness and engagement advertising strategies (digital display, content marketing, streaming video/OTT, TV, OOH, promotions/product marketing), PR/comms, brand positioning and development as well as national brand campaigns, data, analytics, measurement and attribution models.SDI 2.0 Core Strengths: HUBClifton Strengths: Learner, Achiever, Relator, Deliberative, Responsibility Personal interest in startup and early fund investments, particularly in Web3/blockchain, and how startups can use AI to accelerate their growth and do more with limited resources.

Experience

1. Ivp Paragon

   Ivp

   Jul 2025 — Present

   Advising growth consumer startups on their marketing strategy, AI adoption, and team development.

Education

• University of California, Berkeley

  BA, English, Economics

  1995 — 1998

Skills

• SEO
• Strategy
• E-Commerce
• Google Adwords
• Affiliate Marketing
• Online Advertising
• Digital Media
• Email Marketing
• Mobile Marketing
• Digital Marketing
• Sem
• Marketing Strategy
• Omniture
• Social Media Marketing
• Web Analytics
• Search Engine Marketing (Sem)
• Digital Strategy
• Online Marketing
• Social Media
• Start-Ups
• Marketing
• Ppc