I have had the pleasure of working with Tom Daly for 5 years and found him to be a strategic transformation leader. Part of Tom’s success is due to him being a good diplomat, listening to others and gathering data & insights before pitching his ideas. Transformation in a corporate global role within a regional business unit requires diplomacy plus a very healthy dose of tenacity to push things to completion.

Tom’s intellectual curiosity on how to leverage emerging technologies to drive business value made him the perfect person to lead two important areas on the Global Digital team: Mobile and Search. When I moved over to lead the Global Digital team, I saw that Tom’s strengths would be best leveraged by asking him to drive the coordinated adoption and optimization of paid and organic Search marketing, to not only yield the best search results at a lower cost, but also to collect data and insights about what consumers were looking for. Tom had proven education and influencing skills working with colleagues around the world, necessary to obtain the commitment, budget and participation needed.

Tom’s vision, expertise and influence not only delivered business value to The Coca-Cola Company, but he also played leadership roles on both the North American and Global Mobile Marketing Association and Global Mobile Congress.

Tom Daly continues to be a visionary thinker and transformative leader with the ability to get things done in a company; how to educate, get buy-in, and execute with cross-functional skills. And I look forward to seeing all the great work Tom continues to deliver!

Testimonial: Chief Communications Officer, Great Southern Wood Preserving

Tom’s a gifted collaborator. I think that starts with his ability to listen – he’s a great listener.  He is also a rigorous thinker, yet he has an intuitive feel for creative solutions to difficult problems.  That intuition is actually a combination of experience, intellect and determination to find solutions.  He’s a problem-solver extraordinaire.

Tom is ahead of the curve but has the intellectual disciplin to know what’s right for a brand – and not just what the latest new app or new technology might be.  He doesn’t just ask a lot of questions, he asks the right questions.  Many trends in our industry get their start outside the US, someone with Tom’s global point of view and international experience is indispensable, especially when coupled with his strategic vision.

While Tom is a visionary in the digital world, he combines that with his experience in traditional marketing so that he thinks holistically about brands. Today’s marketers are bombarded with so many options that it can become overwhelming.  I’ve yet to meet anyone who can be knowledgeable about all of those options or who has the answers to all the questions leadership within the organization is posing.  Tom condenses the overwhelming into easy-to-understand strategies that build confidence for making key decisions.

I first met Tom Daly at an event in New York City where I was a keynote speaker. I immediately ascertained through his questions and our discussions that he had grasp of some fairly abstract concepts and that Tom was sharp and on point. During that first meeting he was a pleasure to talk to and his wealth of experience and grasp of the shifting dynamics of the marketplace were obvious.

Tom and I kept in touch and he invited me to speak at a private gathering of Atlanta’s business leaders, allowing me to spend some more time with him. On this visit I realized that in addition to being skilled, Tom is an outstanding “people” person. Additionally, I learned that Tom is the rare individual who is just as comfortable in a large organization (through his years at Coca-Cola) as he is working as an entrepreneur. He has the respect of senior business leaders in Atlanta, as well as from the Georgia Technology Institute and Greater Atlanta startup community.

In addition to his mobile and marketing skills, I would recommend Tom for anything that requires creative and entrepreneurial thinking, influencing people and building long lasting relationships.

I have been privileged to know Tom Daly for the past 20 years. In that time he has been a brilliant marketer and communicator at one of the world’s largest companies (Coca-Cola), a highly successful children’s author (it’s much harder than it looks), as well as, an industry thought leader and innovator. Tom is universally respected and admired in the media and technology industries as both a highly regarded leader and executive, but also as a great communicator and highly personable friend.

Tom Daly’s great foresight and prescience is noted by how early he understood the potential of mobile communication to change the world. He made Coke an early leader in mobile and beyond his own company, he moved the entire industry to see the potential of the mobile Internet. While most of his high-level peers focused on the brand messaging for their own companies (and Tom was great at that), he also spoke for the entire media and marketing business.

A regular and popular speaker and thinker, his presentations raised understanding of mobile across the entire industry. He is regarded as a statesman and evangelist for mobile and other new technologies

I’ve had the privilege of pioneering measurement of digital marketing effectiveness since 1994. For the majority of the 25 years, I’ve had a front row seat to Tom Daly driving change within Fortune 500 companies.

I first saw Tom Daly turn a big ship in a small space at ING Direct, and wrote about his work in my book What Sticks, Why Advertising Fails and how to Guarantee Yours Succeeds. He helped the company get ahead of the curve on embracing digital advertising.

I witnessed Tom do this again for The Coca-Cola Company in both digital & social media, as well as, on a massive scale with mobile advertising, first in the US and then globally. I watched Tom take the learning industry wide and help accelerate the adoption of mobile marketing. In total, I have seen Tom influence changes amounting to over three billion in incremental profits across the five initiatives that I have directly witnessed him leading.

Tom achieved these bottom-line business benefits because Tom is a connector that brings the right people together. He is a thoughtful presenter, who strikes the right tone to encourage change. He is a thoughtful marketer that is ahead of the trends. Tom is a generous human being ready and willing to help others on their journey. He is a great collaborator that works hard to help others engage in the opportunity.

I am looking forward to hearing what he sees as the next frontier of marketing success to create the next billion dollars in incremental profit. I look forward to seeing Tom Daly take his leadership and collaboration skills to a broader set of marketers as a change agent. Tom’s practical solutions and collaborative nature make him the go to person when an organization is serious about adapting to the changing world around us.

Tom is an ideal partner as he is a very cerebral thinker with the drive to move the needle by any means necessary.  He was instrumental in providing me a ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at the ever-changing world of iMarketing and stayed in constant contact to ensure our frameworks could be implemented in real time throughout the business units.  Tom’s “string theory” attitude and willingness to lead by example was a good combination to allow us to bring together this framework that impacted 100+ agencies and at least $50million of annual spend.