Zachary Lyons
Strategy Adviser, Strategyn Consulting
Locale: San Diego, California
Biography: Zac helps clients apply Outcome-Driven Innovation theory to their marketing and new product development efforts. His clients include Microsoft, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, H&R Block, Toronto Dominion, and other firms in the information, technology, and financial services industries.
Zac has a proven track record in growing revenue and profits through strategic market positioning, new product innovation, and business development. A Strategyn thought leader, he has a blog called Positioning Innovation: Using Customer Needs to Find a Unique and Valued Opening in the Customers' Mind, and he is the author of the white paper, Outcome-Driven Market Positioning.
Zac has a marketing and product management background with broad analytical problem-solving and business leadership skills developed through years of diverse work experience. His expertise is in the software, e-commerce, and the financial services industries.
Prior to Strategyn, he worked in new business and product development at Intuit's Consumer Tax Group. He was also responsible for Internet marketing at PeopleFirst.com (now Capital One Auto Finance), Cooking.com, and GazelleLab, an Internet incubator. On the financial services side, he was an organizational change and strategy consultant at Deloitte Consulting and PricewaterhouseCoopers, and was responsible for marketing and operations at Signet Bank (now part of Wells Fargo).
He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in systems engineering with high distinction from the University of Virginia and an MBA with honors from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.
Last Great Read: I have two children under age four, so I don’t get to read a lot of books anymore. I do keep up with 30 or so blogs. Of course, my favorite ones are about market positioning and innovation.
Hobbies: Changing diapers, filling milk bottles … and occasionally blogging, skiing, surfing, jogging and lifting weights.
Big Accomplishment: Other than buying and selling a home and having two children, I’d say working on 36 different projects across clients over four-plus years.
One Thing People Don’t Know About Me: That I’ve traveled to five of the seven continents. I haven’t been to Antarctica or Asia yet, but both are on my list.
Quote: This is on my desk: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead