With over 25 years of marketing experience, Banks has held a number of leadership roles focusing on insight, market research, brand/product management and innovation. In his career, he worked for such CPG companies as Coors Brewing, Sara Lee and Meadwestvaco and was responsible for creating proprietary tools and approaches to assist with short/long term business strategies, customer targeting and sales forecasting.
Banks also has over ten years of flavor and fragrance experience working for such companies as Givaudan, Mane and Kerry, where he served as its director of market research and consumer insights. Most recently, he served as Aimpoint Research’s VP of global strategy, innovation and food and beverage, where he connected consumer insights to the agriculture industry.
His LinkedIn profile says more:
My family calls me Willy Wonka. In my world the consumer is the Golden Ticket.
I am a consumer behavior and insights expert with proven experience translating the voice of the consumer into successful sales and growth for products and services.
After 25 years I continue to work alongside stellar leadership in strong companies revolving around my passion for food and beverage. I collaborate with exceptional colleagues and continue to strategically construct and deliver business and marketing plans that produce rewarding results benefiting both the company and the consumer.
I’m continually asked the question 'If you had it to do over again would you choose a career in food and beverage?' Each time the answer is a resounding, yes.
I love people. I love to observe and get down to the core of what makes us all tick. I’m a popular culture anthropologist, a storyteller, blender of data using technology and market research methods to build fact-based platforms to help businesses grow. Every day it's about going beyond the data and answering the question of why we do the things we do. Answering the ‘What's Next?
If you can identify what drives the consumer success and results are inevitable and predicting the ‘What's Next' sets you apart from your competition. I help companies achieve this.
I've led teams and initiatives for numerous Fortune 500 companies and worked with over 100 major brands solving complex problems around product sourcing, manufacturing and go-to-market strategy.
While implementing
✔️Ideation & Innovation
✔️Consumer Insights & Analytics
✔️Brand & Product Management
✔️Sensory Analysis
✔️Sales Strategy Development & Execution
✔️Predictive Analytics (AI)
✔️Market & Competitive Intelligence
The majority of these platforms have led to product and service concepts exceeding $100M in sales and are still on the shelves and in place today simultaneously delivering over 400 million smiles to date.
