Not in his right mind and not in his left. This would best describe Jim Ebel. A unique combination of natural creativity and acquired strategic thinking developed from running businesses at Kimberly-Clark, Bristol-Myer’s Squib, Rhone-Poulenc-Rorer and the Iams Company led Jim to form CenterBrain Partners in 1991, at age 32. Jim pioneered a number of approaches designed to utilize the consumer to stimulate and shape creative positioning. These approaches have been formalized as part of the many products CenterBrain Partners offers today.
To date, Jim’s creative leadership has resulted in over 160 new product and repositioning successes for categories from tuna to tires, power tools to pregnancy test kits, insoles to insulin monitors and a wide range of products in between. Jim still leads all creative initiatives for CenterBrain and works from his hometown of Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Jim has recently become an Executive-in-Residence at the College of Business at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. In this teaching role he is helping shape young minds to develop a “Passion for Positioning” and enter their careers not just academically prepared but also work-world ready.
Carla brings a unique combination of skills and talents to CenterBrain -- both left brain and right brain oriented. After a successful career managing a major Cincinnati based market research firm specializing in national and international qualitative and quantitative pharmaceutical, consumer healthcare, and business-to-business research, Carla joined CenterBrain in 2005. Carla has a wide breadth of experience leading all aspects of marketing research from recruiting, study design, data base management, and of course impeccable client service. Carla leads our in-house recruiting team “CenterSearch” and is responsible for all study execution.
True to the CenterBrain model, Carla also has a strong creative side. With a B.S. in Applied Sciences and Graphic Design and extensive art direction and graphic design experience, she is responsible for developing the visual creative that supports the positioning communication generated by the CenterBrain process. Carla works from our Cincinnati office.
Tom has thirty-two years of marketing and general management experience building consumer packaged goods businesses with Kimberly-Clark and Colgate-Palmolive. He also started his first company at 25 manufacturing underground mining equipment. During his twenty-two years at Kimberly-Clark, Tom served as Vice President of New Business Development (new products, acquisitions, brand licensing); President of the global Adult Care Sector (Depend® and Poise® brands), President of the global Feminine Care Sector (Kotex® brand) and Business Manager of wet wipes (Huggies® baby wipes). As Marketing Director of Huggies diapers, he introduced the Huggies Ultratrim with year 1 sales of $575 million (now over $1 billion). It became IRI's #1 largest non food product ever.
Cindy is located in Waco, Texas and is our Southwest Partner.
Cindy brings to the team both a practical and academic background. After operational running one of Kimberly-Clark's emerging business divisions, she moved into marketing, launching several new products in the healthcare and sports categories. She has also served on the faculty at Baylor University, helping her students grasp the real-world applications of their marketing education. And like all CenterBrain Partners, Cindy has owned a successful business.
In her role with CenterBrain Partners her task is to maintain flow during the Triad Process in what can often be a very creatively charged arena.
Jim brings over 25 years of experience in the areas of advertising claim compliance, product development and consumer response, having served as Corporate Officer (Global Safety, Quality and Regulatory and North American Consumer Services) and General Legal Counsel for Kimberly-Clark’s consumer products businesses. His review of all creative developed for CenterBrain clients helps insure that what we produce for you are claims that can be used to drive your brand sales.
Jim, like all CenterBrain Partners, has a firm grasp of the pragmatics of running a business. He helped form and startup The CareGiver Partnership™. He manages partnership relationships with key vendors and marketing partners. In this new role he often refers to himself as a “recovering lawyer.”
Michael is located in Chattanooga, Tennessee. After working in sales with General Mills Corporation, Michael earned his Doctorate in Business Administration from the University of Alabama. He joined the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, as the Alan S. Lorberbaum Professor of Marketing. Michael fits the CenterBrain model perfectly with a blend of real-world experience and academic excellence. Michael is regarded as one of finest quantitative analysts, and is making a name as an academician with the publication of several cutting-edge research articles on financial services and retail marketing.