People

Who’s behind this company?

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Bryan Mattimore

Bryan W. Mattimore specializes in ideation and innovation process, front-end marketing research, branding, creating and developing new products and services, and innovation strategic planning.

 

He is Cofounder and “Chief Idea Guy” of the Growth Engine Company, a sixteen-year old innovation agency based in Norwalk, Connecticut. Prior to cofounding Growth Engine, he was president of the Mattimore Group, a twenty-year-old ideation facilitation and creativity consulting company.

 

In his business consulting career, Mr. Mattimore has facilitated over a thousand brainstorming sessions, moderated over five hundred creative focus groups and consumer ethnographies, and managed over two hundred successful innovation projects, leading to over $3 billion in new sales annually for a wide variety of Fortune 500 clients.

 

Companies that Mr. Mattimore has worked with include: Accenture, AstraZeneca, ATT, Black & Decker, BNY Mellon, City of New York, ConEdison, Danaher, Dun & Bradstreet, Eaton, Esselte, Essilor, Ford, Grumman Data Systems, IBM, ITT, Johnson and Johnson, Lexis-Nexis, Lockheed Martin, Lucent, LVMH, Microsoft, Pepsi, Philips, Pitney-Bowes, Procter and Gamble, Sony, State Farm, Time-Warner, United Technologies, and Unilever.

 

He speaks frequently to organizations and associations on innovation processes best practices. He has addressed or co-chaired conferences for the Industrial Research Institute (IRI), Product Development Managers Association (PDMA), American Marketing Association (AMA), American Society of Training and Development (ASTD), Vistage, Young President’s Association (YPA), and the World Innovation Forum.

 

Mr. Mattimore has authored dozens of published articles and webinars, and three books on business creativity and innovation process: 21 Days to a Big Idea, Creating Breakthrough Business Concepts (Diversion Books, Fall 2015), Idea Stormers, How to Lead and Inspire Creative Breakthroughs (Wiley Jossey-Bass, 2012), and 99% Inspiration, A Real World Guide to Business Creativity (Amacom, 1993), selected as the American Management Association’s membership offering/book of the year.) A cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College, with a major in psychology, he is also the inventor of the creativity training game, Bright Ideas.

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Gary R. Fraser

Gary R. Fraser is a marketing and innovation specialist and a well-known expert in brand strategy, innovation and consumer understanding.

 

Mr. Fraser is the President and “Chief Strategist” of the Growth Engine Company, an innovation agency he co-founded in 1999.  Growth Engine’s mission is to apply creative approaches to marketing & strategic issues to drive top-line revenue growth. Clients include Armored AutoGroup, AT&T, Danaher, Dun and Bradstreet, Energizer, Essilor, Honeywell, IBM, Kraft, LVMH, Merck, Pfizer, and Unilever.

 

Mr. Fraser is a thirty-year veteran of Brand Management, starting his marketing career at General Foods and then moving into personal products at Chesebrough–Pond’s (later acquired by Unilever) where he spent 14 years marketing skin care and oral care brands. As Category Director of Oral Care, he was responsible for the development and launch of Mentadent toothpaste and the ancillary products of mouthwash and toothbrushes.  In three years, he built Mentadent into a quarter billion dollar business.

 

He also led the Marketing Services group for the combined $4 billion Unilever Home and Personal Care business in the US. His responsibilities included Market Research, Creative Services, Promotion, PR, media planning, marketing training, as well as interactive/relationship marketing for the enterprise.

 

Mr. Fraser has received two Golden Effie Awards for effectiveness in advertising and was named “Marketer of the Year” by Brandweek Magazine.  He is also a board member for Phoenix Brands, owned by Lincolnshire Management, a private equity company. He is a graduate of Middlebury College and the Wharton Business School.

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Robert Taraschi

Robert Taraschi is the former Founder and President of Milestone Ideas, a strategic innovation and facilitation company.  In the past 20 years, Bob has led innovation consulting assignments for more than two-hundred fifty Fortune 500 clients.

 

Bob’s professional background includes leading strategic marketing consulting assignments for Regis McKenna Inc. where he was group head, creating award-winning copy for the advertising firm of Hill, Holiday, and writing comedy for Saturday Night Live.

 

Bob graduated with honors from Villanova University, studied psychodynamic theory at Smith College of Social Work, and psychoanalytic theory at Psychoanalytic Institute of New England.  He is also a Certified Group Relations Consultant in the Tavistock tradition and Board-Certified as a New Products Development Professional from PDMA.  Bob lives in Washington, DC. and NYC with his dog Connie Mack.

  • Hiring The Growth Engine Company as our Innovation Agency of record has been strategically important to us. We now have a wealth of ideas in our innovation pipeline that will help us grow. What’s more, their constant presence and coaching have helped my staff become excellent innovation practitioners and the entire organization more innovative.

    Senior VP BBU (Thomas', Sara Lee, Arnold's, etc.)

  • Growth Engine was phenomenal: so professional, so open to questions - really focused on getting the best out of each individual and making them feel valued.

    LVMH

  • We have all been impressed with the Growth Engine process…they helped us move from the impossible to the possible.

    J&J

  • Bryan Mattimore has helped me create breakthrough new products for Godiva, generate innovative promotions for The Food Network, and lead an ideation session to re-position Good Morning America. I know firsthand that the ideation techniques in Idea Stormers work, and that they can unleash the creative potential of any team. Idea Stormers should be required reading for anyone on the front lines of marketing innovation.

    Adam Rockmore, CMO Fandango; Formerly Senior Vice President Marketing ABC Daytime and News

Our Extended Team

Over the last twenty years, we have built working relationships with a diverse and highly talented group of specialists including:
  • Business Strategists
  • Package Designers
  • Industrial Designers/Structural Engineers
  • Copywriters
  • Qualitative and Quantitative Researchers
  • Trend Experts
  • Consumer and Trade Promotion Specialists
  • PR Experts
  • Freelance Ideators
  • Creative Consumers
  • Ideation Facilitators
  • Technographers