The core proBRAND team is highly experienced at brand development. We are particularly skilled in assisting companies who are fairly new to branding as a strategic business issue. We are all passionate about branding and chronic over-achievers when it comes to tackling the daunting challenges companies face building and leveraging their brand assets.

• Martin Brandt - President and Founder
• Lisa Wachtell - Project Director and Senior Consultant
• Christine Lindholm - Senior Consultant
• Nikki Tanis - Research Director and Senior Consultant

Martin Brandt
President and Founder

Marty has been involved in positioning, marketing, and advertising major brands and technology products for nearly 25 years. Marty founded proBRAND in 1993 to help technology companies better understand, manage, and leverage brand equity for competitive advantage.

His clients include global firms such as Dell, Hewlett Packard, Acer, Deloitte Consulting and Intel as well as Internet economy companies like Bigstep and AristaSoft. Marty is the author of PowerBranding: Building Technology Brands for Competitive Advantage and is often a featured speaker at brand related conferences worldwide.

Prior to founding proBRAND, Marty was the senior marketing communications and advertising executive at Sun Microsystems and managed Sun’s global brand and advertising strategy. His background includes 13 years at advertising agencies; Chiat-Day, Ketchum and Campbell-Mithun, working for major packaged goods, technology and direct marketing clients.

Marty has a BA in Journalism/Mass Communication from the University of Minnesota.

Lisa Wachtell
Project Director and Senior Consultant

Lisa is a business strategy and marketing specialist with more than 10 years of experience building brands and developing integrated marketing programs.

Before joining proBRAND, Lisa was director of marketing for two Bay Area-based Internet ventures, where she developed the corporate marketing strategies and led all marketing team efforts. She also worked at Deloitte Consulting as a senior consultant to Microsoft, Intel and Ascend Communications.

Lisa’s prior experiences include stints at Intel Corporation in their Internet Marketing and E-Commerce group and as a senior media planner on the Lexus and Honda accounts at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising.

Lisa holds an M.B.A. from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, and a B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania.

Chris Lindholm
Senior Consultant

Chris is a brand and marketing specialist whose skills include developing and implementing marketing strategies, performing analyses related to branding, identity and communications and conducting market research. Her 16 years of experience include working in a variety of different environments: as an independent consultant, as a partner in a management consulting firm, as the director of research/strategic analysis at an leading identity firm and at an advertising agency.

Chris was also the director of research and strategic analysis for Landor Associates, a leading identity and branding firm. Her role was to develop branding and identity strategies based on an understanding of consumer perceptions. In this position, she conducted consumer research and developed recommendations for positioning, brand extension, naming, identity development and identity evaluation.

Chris began her career as a research supervisor at Foote, Cone & Belding/SF. She holds a B.A. degree in government from Smith College.

Nikki Tanis
Research Director and Senior Consultant

Nikki joined proBRAND in 1997 with more than 13 years of experience building global brands and integrated marketing communications programs for technology companies.

Nikki’s corporate background provides a balanced perspective between strategic thinking, practical implementation and organizational realities. As a former marketing executive at S3 Incorporated and NEC Electronics, Nikki spent several years leading teams in the redefinition of brand identity, image and communication strategies in the United States, Europe and Asia. She also has significant experience in communications and public relations for high technology companies in Silicon Valley.

Nikki has been a key member of the proBRAND team in developing brand strategies for Chordiant Software, Logitech, Plantronics, Synopsys, IDC, Neurotek and Eletter.

Nikki holds a degree in journalism and psychology from San Diego State University.