WELL-ROUNDED – The SKM Group runs so smoothly because of Sue’s passion and understanding of the importance of a well-rounded life. While her company is incredibly important to her, so too is her personal life. She brings that strategy into her employee’s working environment, giving them a company with an upbeat, positive and life-sensitive atmosphere. Her philosophy, in turn, affects the dedication that her employees lend to their careers and gives our clients a thoughtful, dedicated relationship with people who have the energy to care deeply about their business. Sue’s unwavering focus on delivering results and providing clients with a high level of service filters through the entire agency – that’s why our clients rave about the results we bring them.
Sue’s years of passion for sales and marketing led her to put her initials on the door of the SKM Group in 1986. She expends her considerable energy developing business opportunities for the agency and for our clients, maintaining solid account relations and providing general agency management.
She has led the agency through a number of mergers to make the SKM Group the integrated communications agency it is today. A well-respected integrated marketing professional, Sue has been an active member of the Direct Marketing Association since 1990, serving as chair of the Direct Marketing Agency council in 2002 and 2003 and as a judge for the 2002-2005 International ECHO Awards. She also represents the SKM Group as a partner in the international network of agencies, ICOM. This network allows SKM to bring international marketing expertise to our clients.
Sue’s altruistic spirit has led her to volunteer the agency’s resources to help many charitable organizations such as Roswell Park Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, Junior Achievement, the United Way and more, creating results and winning awards for these projects along the way.
Among honors bestowed upon Sue is Junior Achievement’s Entrepreneur of the Year award and finalist status in Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year competition. She is a board member of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership and Amherst Chamber of Commerce.
Sue enjoys golf, traveling, decorating and spending time with her family.
FOCUSED – When Steve sets his sights on a goal...whether it’s on behalf of The SKM Group or its clients...nothing stands in his way. His customary approach is to zero in and solve the problem at hand with laser-like precision.
As an accomplished and results-driven executive, Steve brings 18 years of progressively successful marketing experience to The SKM Group. He is a versatile and collaborative problem solver whose strategic business solutions have turned around underperforming operations and created new opportunities for growth.
Before joining SKM, Steve worked as the Division Vice President, Marketing & Sales at Time Warner Cable. During his tenure there, he achieved unprecedented customer growth and high customer satisfaction levels. In the process, he also built a positive and dynamic internal working environment. Prior to that, he was Director, Partner Marketing for America Online, Inc. and AOL Canada, Inc.
When Steve was with E. James White Company, he led the agency’s primary account team in managing the Amtrak account, helping to significantly grow the client’s travel agency business.
Steve graduated from the University of Scranton with a bachelor’s degree in communications. He studied for his MBA at Marymount University, and he has completed executive management programs through the Cable Television Marketing Association and Harvard Business School.
Steve lives in East Amherst with his wife, Suzanne, and their four children. He enjoys trying to play golf, coaching youth sports and following Notre Dame football.
GREGARIOUS – Marty is a gregarious person by nature. Whether working with clients or on agency management issues, his energy and enthusiasm make him an important member of the leadership team.
With more than 20 years of direct marketing experience, Marty is a recognized and avid proponent of the marketing discipline’s ability to achieve measurable results. He is an acknowledged expert in the marketing field and speaks at many conferences and professional organizations on the benefits of direct marketing. He has also authored numerous articles on clutter-busting direct marketing segmentation techniques.
Marty has been with the SKM Group for 14 years, providing expert council for clients across a wide range of industries, including financial services, telecommunications, insurance, education, and energy. Well-disciplined in both consumer and business-to-business applications, Marty serves as the keeper of the direct marketing flame at SKM and oversees the agency’s DM efforts. He is an active member of the Direct Marketing Association and the Upstate New York Direct Marketing Association; and enjoys hockey, watching his daughter dance, and spending time with his wife of 25 years.
CAPABLE – Ask any SKM employee and the one word they would use to describe Jim is capable – a necessity in managing the operations of an agency. It takes an incredibly capable individual to keep the agency ship running smoothly, in both calm and rough seas.
Jim is the man who keeps things moving at the SKM Group. From establishing workflow procedures to providing interactive and multimedia insight, Jim oversees and makes sure that projects run smoothly through the creative, production and traffic departments. In addition, he also manages the finance, media, public relations, human resource and administrative departments.
After graduating from Ithaca College with a Bachelor’s degree in Communications, Jim has spent over 20 years in the marketing communications business, previously heading the interactive services department at Gelia Wells & Mohr. Jim was also previously with the Schutte Group Interactive as President of Web and Multimedia Development.
Also experienced working for radio and television stations in New York, Virginia and Connecticut, Jim’s roles have included announcing, sales, production, promotion and management. Ask him about his interview with Ted Turner sometime.
Jim enjoys carpentry, cooking, landscaping and photography – as well as his volunteer efforts with the Boy Scout Troop 440 and Youth Ministry at St. Gregory the Great Church.
ATTENTIVE – Micky’s one goal is to ensure that SKM team members consistently exceed client expectations. She understands that attentiveness to a client’s business and needs not only increases the likelihood of delivering results, but also directly impacts the agency’s health and reputation in the market.
Micky joined the SKM Group in 1991 and has in-depth experience working with clients in many industries and contributing toward the development of successful marketing campaigns for both consumer and business-to-business clients. Her skills offer clients strong support in the areas of strategic planning, integrated marketing campaign development, project implementation, customer service and budget management. She is also responsible for managing the account service staff and overseeing their growth and development.
Micky spends her free time with her three girls and husband. (Enough said about free time!)
DYNAMIC – Ralph believes that there is nothing more important than giving people an edge. With his dynamic approach, he strives to assure that the SKM Group will go above and beyond to give our clients an edge above their competition.
Ralph brings more than 30 years experience to the SKM Group. With his extensive background in strategic planning and development, marketing, media, communications and sales training, Ralph is instrumental in guiding the development of our clients though innovation, seeing-around-the-corner thinking and strategic planning.
In addition to his position at SKM, Ralph is a nationally recognized sales, marketing, communications and team-building consultant. In this capacity, he conducts leadership, marketing, sales, communication and training programs for audiences ranging from marketing professionals, banking, credit collections, retail, business-to-business, and not-for-profit organizations. He has published articles on a wide variety of topics and has received numerous awards for innovation in advertising, marketing and sales.
Dom Cimei Executive Vice President, Chief Creative Officer dcimei@skmgroup.com
PASSIONATE – Dom has always been fervent about developing solutions to clients’ marketing communications problems that are relevant, surprising and particularly results-driven. With more than 30 years of comprehensive experience at driving brand strategy through all media channels, both new and traditional, he has developed, written and managed campaigns for a broad range of consumer and business-to-business products and services. Using that knowledge and experience, he oversees creative services at SKM Group. He is also a part of the agency’s overall leadership team and is involved in many aspects of the agency.
Dom’s work has been honored with awards from the American Advertising Federation, the Direct Marketing Association, the John Caples International Awards, the Summit Creative Awards, and the Annual Telly Awards, as well as numerous other direct marketing awards. In addition, he has served as a judge for the ADDY awards, as well as the International ECHO awards.
Dom is a former President of the Art Directors/Communicators of Buffalo, and a former co-chair of The Western New York Awards for Creative Excellence. In 1999, his service to the creative community was honored with the prestigious Lifetime Service Award from the Art Directors/Communicators of Buffalo. Dom has been married to his wife, Norma, for 32 years. Their daughter, Caroline, practices law in Miami, Florida. An avid fan of blues music, Dom has been playing guitar for nearly 40 years, and recently released a CD of original material.
TRUSTWORTHY – In both her role as Human Resources Manager as well as her role at home as a mom, Kelly Grochowski can be trusted with the best secrets. Handling sensitive, confidential employee documents requires discretion be her top priority.
Kelly joined SKM in March 2002 as an Executive Assistant and was promoted to the position of Human Resources Manager. In her position, Kelly is responsible for all areas of employee relations including updating, preparing and implementing procedures and policies as well as payroll services. She maintains relationships with outside human resources contacts to monitor and implement the best benefit package possible for SKM employees.
Kelly has many years of human resource and executive experience, and was previously employed as an Executive Assistant at Sunpark, Inc., and as Office Manager and Executive Assistant at Creative Concepts of WNY, Ltd. She enjoys gardening, reading, cooking and spending time with her two children.
WIRED – Aside from living and breathing all things interactive, Sam is known for thinking – and talking – a mile a minute. Whether it’s from his daily doses of espresso or his honest love of the job, Sam is truly ‘wired’.
At the SKM Group, Sam has dual responsibilities: he develops interactive strategies that drive ROI for our clients’ online solutions, and engineers the tmSuite™ of technologies that powers our online marketing initiatives. Sam also travels extensively as a featured speaker at Internet conferences where he discusses interactive solutions and trends, including social media, mobile and digital marketing, loyalty programs, and more.
Sam has played an integral part in the planning and execution of Web-based projects for clients around the world, including several “firsts.” He led the development of the first totally Web-based reservation system for campgrounds, and the first Web-based airport crisis communication service. In addition, he architected the world’s only fully interoperable suite of marketing technologies: the tmSuite™.
Sam has worked for a variety of clients including governments, Fortune 500 companies, and many small and medium size businesses across the travel and tourism, financial services, hospitality, manufacturing, retail, and healthcare industries.
Previously, Sam worked for the consulting firm General Content Corporation as Vice President of Online Customer Strategies. Before that, he was Director of Marketing at a database development firm, Telus Enterprise Solutions (formerly Daedalian e-solutions).
We believe that Sam had hobbies once – which may have included skiing and reading – but then he found the Internet. It’s also rumored that Sam took a day off once in June 2006...it was a Sunday.
ADAPTABLE – Bryan views life as too short to be narrow-minded. That viewpoint is helpful as he oversees the media development of SKM’s clients. Nothing is ever black and white in the media world, and our clients benefit from Bryan’s abilities to plan, manage and execute creative media strategies.
Bryan is responsible for strategic media planning for all agency accounts and supervision of the media department personnal and workflow.
Bryan has a bachelor’s degree in communications arts and a minor in advertising communications from Gannon University. He also has a master’s degree in media management from Syracuse University.
Bryan brings a wealth of knowledge to the SKM media department. He worked as Media Manager at The Partnership Ltd., Amherst, NY and Bensur Advertising, Erie, PA as well as working in Broadcast News Production at WICU-TV in Erie, PA. He also worked in Corporate Communications Production at Live Wire Media Productions in Erie, PA.
In his spare time, Bryan enjoys spending time with his wife and kids, playing softball and golf, and maybe playing general contractor around the house.
COMPETITIVE – Having a competitive nature is not a bad thing when your daily work is a battle of juggling many variables to produce a quality product, on time and within budget. Chuck is up against the odds every day – racing deadlines, quality and cost. Being competitive gives him his edge.
Chuck joined SKM in August 2002 as Production Supervisor. In his position, he oversees all print production for the agency’s clients. Chuck was previously print production supervisor for the Wolf Group Buffalo. And prior to the Wolf Group, he was print production manager for Design for Industry, Inc. Chuck is a graduate of the State University of New York at Geneseo where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business economics with a minor in computer programming.
He enjoys playing hockey and spending time with his family and dog.
DEPENDABLE – Ellen can be depended on for all financial matters at SKM. She is responsible for overseeing the entire development process and implementation of methods and procedures for the preparation of financial reports. She manages payments to our vendors as well, so that we can continue to serve our clients to the best of our abilities. Thank goodness we can depend on Ellen!
Ellen joined SKM in December 1994 as Controller and has grown into the position of Senior Vice President of Finance.
In her current position, Ellen manages SKM’s accounting staff, banking relationships and the preparation of all financial reports. She assists the Leadership Team in analyzing our business to ensure that we remain financially healthy at all times.
Prior to joining SKM, Ellen was employed as the Director of Financial Services at Shea’s Performing Arts Center. She enjoys hiking and skiing in her free time.
