Sean Connolly is a marketing leader and innovator with over 18 years of experience in marketing strategy, branding, advertising and digital/traditional media.  Sean is considered a thought leader in communications and media and has led the development and execution of several breakthrough campaigns from the Client and Agency sides, spurring brand and business growth for a myriad of consumer and B2B companies and receiving numerous industry accolades along the way.

Mr. Connolly was most recently the VP of Marketing for XM Satellite Radio in Washington DC, where he played a leadership role in all aspects of corporate marketing, in particular Brand Management, Advertising and Media.  Sean was responsible for the strategy and creation of award winning advertising, innovative broadcast and interactive media promotions and highly successful direct sales programs. He also directed XM’s Corporate Marketing Partnerships with companies such as JetBlue, Starbucks, Avis and United, driving additional brand and business growth at minimal expense.  He lead the development of XM’s rejuvenating brand campaign in 2006, an award winning campaign that helped grow XM subscriptions by 30% in under 2 years and was voted one of the Top 20 consumer ads of 2006 (in a USA Today nationwide poll).

Mr. Connolly was recruited to join XM in 2006 for his brand and communications expertise from Intel Corporation, where he served as Worldwide Director of Consumer Advertising and Integrated Communications.  During his tenure of just over seven years at Intel, Sean oversaw the development of corporate advertising and integrated communications campaigns for numerous consumer and B2B products, including the worldwide launch of the Pentium III and Pentium 4 processors (“Blue Man Group”) and Centrino mobile technology (“Unwire”), as well as integrated campaigns for Intel’s Xeon and Itanium2 server technology.  In addition, a head of the WW Advertising team, Sean directed Intel’s corporate communications initiatives such as Intel’s science fairs, community affairs and brand development in developing markets.  Under Mr. Connolly’s supervision, Intel’s brand advertising achieved all time highs for recall and persuasion and received worldwide recognition for its creative innovation and global success.

Prior to joining Intel in 1999, Mr. Connolly had nearly ten years of Advertising Agency experience.  He drove global campaign and agency coordination as the Global Account Director on 3Com for the Foote Cone & Belding, San Francisco technology group and before to that he set up and ran an interactive team that helped grow regional business, including key clients AT&T and 3Com, by over 200% as Managing Director of Integrated and Interactive Marketing of FCB Hong Kong.  Sean also served as an Account Manager and Director for FCB in New York, working on marketing leaders like Nabisco and AT&T and he began his advertising career in Media Planning for Grey Advertising in New York.

Sean attributes his success to a relentless passion for crafting great marketing and executing it flawlessly.  His ability to effectively create, communicate and sell new ideas and his great leadership in taking them to market has resulted in some of the breakthrough creative and media programs on this site.  As a result of this work, Sean is frequently quoted in the marketing and advertising press, asked to participate in industry panels and speaking events and even featured in trade ad campaigns.

Mr. Connolly has been a member of the ANA New Technologies and TV Advertising Committees, as well as the International Advertising Association.  He received his bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Colgate University and he now lives in Potomac, MD with his wife, daughter and twin boys.  Sean can be contacted at seantconnolly@gmail.com or via LinkedIn or Twitter.