Leaders

A pioneer in the digital marketing space and marketing professional with more than 20 years in the industry, Daina Middleton is the CEO of Performics, the performance marketing division of Publicis Groupe. As one of the largest and oldest search and performance media agencies, Performics delivers performance marketing solutions and solid results for a list of blue chip clients through smart innovation and solving complex challenges.

Daina believes marketing and consumerism are undergoing a transformational change. She is known for thought leadership in the social marketing space – creating a new marketing lexicon including “participant marketing” – and has developed several ground-breaking market intelligence tools where brands can utilize social listening to effectively compete in the world of conversational marketing. Participant marketing shifts the philosophy about how brands and people connect, creating new roles and equal status. Through her many years of client experience, she is also driven to redefine marketing to focus on performance, where agencies are compensated for the results they deliver for brands. Daina rallies her team to provide strategic insight and leadership with an intense concentration on client success, and willingness to put skin in the game to prove it.

Prior to joining Performics, Daina served for two years at Moxie Interactive, another Publicis Groupe agency, as senior vice president of Sunao, a division comprised of four departments: participant insight, emerging trends, analytics and market innovation.

Daina spent 16 years working at Hewlett-Packard in key marketing communications positions across most of the core segments in the company’s printer businesses. She worked on a number of digital projects for HP in the early 1990’s, including the first cross-IPG printer chooser tool for HP and was involved early in exploring the marketing impact of the then unknown phenomenon called the “Internet.” At the time of her departure she was the director of advertising for HP’s $28 billion global Imaging and Printing Group, managing both digital and traditional mediums through integration and establishing global standards for traditional and digital activities, including SEO, SEM, social marketing, web site development, and cross-media effectiveness and measurement.

Daina currently sits on the Board for the Digital Place-based Advertising Association (DPAA) and was a former Standards Board member for the Social Media Advertising Consortium (SMAC). She is a regular industry speaker with appearances at Conversational Marketing Summit, ad:tech, WOMMA, and VideoNuze, to name a few.

Daina has a Bachelor of Science in technical journalism, and a minor in fisheries and wildlife sciences, from the College of Liberal Arts at Oregon State University. She lives on a horse ranch outside of Boise, Idaho where she raises Andalusian and Lusitano horses.

Michael Kahn leads a group of Performics’ dedicated account teams, who provide strategic vision, campaign management, quantitative analysis and ongoing optimization for clients’ digital performance marketing programs. He directly oversees a number of strategic account relationships as well as the agency’s SMB (growing advertiser) client group.

Michael leverages a career in traditional and digital marketing, both as an agency representative and marketer, to fulfill his mission to drive client revenue growth, improve campaign performance, deepen relationships and help differentiate Performics in the marketplace. He formerly led Performics’ marketing practices as the Senior Vice President of Marketing, reinforcing the company’s leadership position among clients, prospects, media, analysts and the internal agency team across all offices.

Prior to Performics, Michael served as Director of Consumer Marketing for Socrates, an e-tail/retail publisher of do-it-yourself legal forms and software. While at Socrates, he led rebranding of the company via its own Website and through the office product superstores. During the last “digital” decade, Michael also led marketing and sales efforts at VisaNow.com, TruePoints and Art.com.

Michael began his career in the traditional agency world in various account management leadership roles, working at agencies Ketchum, J. Walter Thompson, Campbell Mithun Esty and DDB on accounts including Citibank, Discover Card, 7-Eleven, Miller Brewing Company, Kroger and McDonald’s.

Michael earned a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Dona Ross leads Performics’ dedicated account teams who provide the strategic vision, project management and analysis of clients’ performance marketing programs.

Upon joining Performics in 2006, Dona served as a Group Account Director focused on multi-dimensional, strategic accounts. She oversaw various Hewlett Packard paid search account teams within the United States and interacted with programs across multiple HP regions around the world.

Dona brings more than 20 years of marketing experience from global advertising agencies and complex client organizations including McCann Worldgroup, Ogilvy & Mather, Publicis, SBC Communications (now AT&T) and Microsoft. In her various roles, she has led integrated marketing teams across various disciplines to build brands, launch products and drive sales.

Dona earned both a Master of Science and a Bachelor of Science in communications from the University of Oregon.

David Fischer is responsible for the direction and management of all sales operations and business development at Performics.

David utilizes his years of online media and sales experience to lead the national sales team in acquiring new marketer relationships. Under his direction, the team has partnered with dozens of top brand clients including 1-800-Flowers, AOL, Armani Exchange, Barnes and Noble, Citibank, CNN, Comcast, GNC, Polo, Research in Motion, Timberland, Under Armour, Virgin Mobile and XM Radio.

Prior to joining Performics, David was part of the National Accounts team at Yahoo!, Inc. His responsibilities included all aspects of increased revenue growth and partner development. David spearheaded partnerships with major brands including Pfizer, EMC Corporation, Liberty Mutual and Sony Corporation.

David began his career in online media as the Director of Advertising Sales at the Talk City Marketing Group. He managed a sales team focused revenue generation for all Talk City social networking and business collaboration services as well as advertising sales responsibility for the Talk City Consumer Network, helping take the company from early stage development to an initial public offering.

David earned a Bachelor of Arts in city planning from the University of Rhode Island.

Craig Greenfield leads a team responsible for sales, marketing, product development, operations and customer service for Performics, the performance marketing arm inside Publicis Groupe’s VivaKi Nerve Center.

A proven marketing and communications professional, Craig is skilled in the introduction, development and application of customer marketing information to achieve continued growth and advantage.  In 2005, he was a member of the team that introduced account planning to Performics’ account management practice.  As an account director, Craig was responsible for leading multiple client assignments with a focus on integrated demand generation. 

Prior to Performics, Craig served as management supervisor at Jacobs & Clevenger where his responsibilities included multichannel marketing communications planning, execution and response analysis.  He has extensive automotive experience as a planner on the Ford account at J. Walter Thompson.  There he was the direct marketing lead on a cross-functional team focused on customer acquisition and retention. 

Craig has spoken at numerous industry conferences including Search Marketing Expo and has been a contributor to a variety of online publications including DMNews, eM+C and Online Media Daily (a Media Post publication).

Craig earned a Master of Science in integrated marketing communications from Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Iowa.

Matt Miller leads the Planning & Analytics group which is responsible for developing client strategies through consumer research, marketplace insight and quantitative analytics.

In his five years at Performics, Matt has worked in a variety of capacities, including co-founding the local search practice at Performics where he launched the program management team designed to optimize paid search programs for small marketers. Matt is an experienced manager and planner at Performics’ and has established and maintained day-to-day client relationships, developed client-specific and company-wide best practices, as well as implemented scalable strategies for countless search programs.

While at Performics, Matt has worked closely with the search engines and clients to test new products and develop innovating marketing search strategies to improve ROI. As a program manager, Matt managed day-to-day search marketing campaigns for numerous blue chip clients including United Airlines, Hewlett Packard and Verizon.

Prior to joining Performics, Matt was a manager of customer acquisition at uBid.com where he planned and executed direct marketing campaigns resulting in long-term, profitable customer relationships. Matt has also served as a strategy analyst at iFulfillment, Inc. where he was responsible for managed competitive benchmarking, marketplace insight and direct marketing campaigns.

Matt earned a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

Eric Papczun leads the optimization services group, which includes search engine optimization (SEO) and feed marketing. Responsible for product evolution, operations and service delivery, his group specializes in increasing visibility and traffic to large retail, publisher, lead generation, pharmaceutical, and financial Web sites for Performics.

In his previous role as vice president of client services, Eric led a number of Performics’ dedicated account teams in strategy, project management and analysis of clients’ performance marketing programs. He was also the architect of Performics’ modern day SEO practice and assembled the experts who identify important technical, content and linking roadblocks that impede the navigation and ranking of a Web site and its relevant content. His experience managing interactive marketing programs – both on the client and service provider side – uniquely positions him to deliver results, while being respectful of a company’s distinctive culture.

Prior to Performics, Eric founded and served as vice president and chief financial officer of Golf Links to the Past, Inc., a golf art and collectibles company with an online and offline presence. He started his career as a management consultant and corporate trainer for companies including CUNA Mutual Group and Ohio Credit Union League.

Eric frequently speaks at industry conferences such as SES, SMX and Pubcon. He is a regular contributor to Search Engine Land with a monthly video search column and has been featured in DMNews and other publications.

Eric earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in finance from Kent State University.

Patricia (Tricia) Powell is responsible for all internal Accounting and Finance functions at Performics.

Since joining Performics in 2008, Tricia leads the way for the company’s annual budgeting process, provides monthly forecasting updates to the leadership team, and oversees revenue recognition, client profitability and Performics’ pricing. Additionally, she closely manages the accounting team on client invoicing for fees and media and the monthly billing process. As part of Publicis Groupe, Tricia ensures Performics meets corporate accounting policies and compliance with the Groupe’s policies, procedures and reporting requirements.

Prior to joining Performics, Tricia held finance positions at Leo Burnett and Digitas. She has extensive experience in financial turnaround and restructuring consulting from her tenure with Huron Consulting Group.

Tricia is a CPA who earned a Master of Business Administration with concentrations in finance, media management and strategy from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Science in accountancy from the University of Illinois – Urbana / Champaign.