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  Marketing.  Strategy.  Leadership.

Professional Experience


​Senior Director, Social Media, Influencers & Partnerships, Northwestern Mutual, 4/2024 - present

  • Lead and activate the brand partnership strategy, including deals with the Milwaukee Brewers, Milwaukee Bucks, Green Bay Packers, and TED conferences, resulting in 2X return on partnership investment and double-digit gains in key brand health indicators
  • Delivered 20%+ year-over-year growth in social engagements for four straight years, exceeding our main team KPIs and industry benchmarks, all with a flat social budget
  • Built a highly successful always-on influencer program that has become our most cost efficient traffic-driving media tactic across the enterprise, despite tough industry regulations
  • Manager of managers across a distributed, diverse, multi-generational team


​Senior Director, Social Marketing, Northwestern Mutual, 5/2021 - 4/2024

  • Drove the creation and execution of multiple award-winning social and influencer campaigns, including campaigns featured in trade publications such as AdAge, Digiday, and SocialMedia.org.
  • Developed and deployed a comprehensive brand social playbook including defining Northwestern Mutual's social personas, brand voice, channel strategy, content pillars, measurement framework, and more, resulting in 20%+ increases in brand social engagements and 80%+ increases in traffic.
  • Oversaw the rollout of the Sprinklr distributed platform for our field, which led to industry-leading advances in engagement, platform participation, and content distribution.
  • In September 2022, launched our brand's TikTok channel, which quickly rose to become the most followed traditional financial services brand on the platform (and still is to this day!)


​Senior Director, Head of Social Media, Hilton, 11/2020 - 5/2021

  • Responsible for global social media strategy, execution & leadership across Hilton's entire portfolio, Hilton Honors loyalty program, 18 sub-brands, and more than 6,000 Hilton properties globally; including content development, paid media, & social customer care.
  • Member of the Crisis Communications Rapid Response team, which helped craft Hilton’s public response to events like COVID-19, BLM, Lebanon explosion, and the Capitol unrest. Our response to COVID, and subsequent marketing pivot to "Hilton at Home", was recognized as the "Best Storytelling Campaign" for 2020 by Ragan PR Daily's 2021 PR Awards.
  • Led the creation of an overarching channel strategy across owned, earned, and paid marketing channels as part of HIlton’s first-ever full-portfolio Go To Market strategy.


Senior Director, Enterprise Social Media, Hilton, 5/2019 - 11/2020

  •  ​Drove the social strategy and execution of the Effie Award winning "Expect Better, Expect Hilton" campaign featuring celebrity spokesperson Anna Kendrick, including the creation of social-first creative and media targeting that resulted in a 47% improvement in ROAS year-over-year.
  • ​Oversaw a complete transformation of social media requirements for our brick-and-mortar locations, resulting in the publication of social media brand standards, rollout of Sprinklr social media management tools to more than 5k properties, plus auditing and sunsetting thousands of dormant and non-compliant social channels.
  • Manager of managers, including 4 direct reports, and a total organization of 22 global individuals.


Global Head of Social & Influencer Marketing, IBM Systems, 11/2016 - 5/2019

  • Responsible for the overall global social media strategy and overseeing social execution across 11 individual brands and hundreds of product offerings within the IBM Systems group
  • Oversaw the most successful social launch of a product in IBM Systems history, the most successful social event in IBM Systems history, and the creation of a first-of-its-kind external influencer outreach program that has since become the model for IBM company-wide
  • Recipient of the 2018 Outstanding People Manager Award, as well as hiring, onboarding, & skills development focal across the wider marketing organization


Sr. Social Strategist & Social Media Team Leader, IBM Systems, 8/2015 - 11/2016

  • Within one year of hire, increased social visits to IBM Systems web properties by +318% year-over-year and received multiple industry-wide awards for social media campaign execution
  • Revamped social analytics and metrics reporting, implementing an approach connecting social activity to revenue and measuring overall awareness, engagement, sentiment, and market influence through monthly C-level reports and on-demand dashboards
  • Launched first-of-its-kind for IBM internal social employee advocacy program to get IBMers more active on social media; ensuring an additional 5M in social media impressions each month


​​Director of Digital & Content Marketing, Spredfast (now Khoros), 10/2014 - 6/2015

  • Responsible for total brand marketing strategy and creation, including corporate website, social media, blog, thought leadership, video, and all paid/earned/owned media
  • Within first 90 days, increased web users by 18%, social media engagement by 49%, and blog sessions by 118% as compared to the previous 90 day period
  • Oversaw the brand’s first traditional advertising campaign including digital and out-of-home elements
  • Implemented complete ROI and metrics tracking, including introducing advanced Google Analytics, Salesforce, and Marketo integration in a marketing-wide dashboard
  • Led a six person team of community managers, social strategists, and web developers


Global Program Lead - Google Local Guides, Google, Inc., 3/2014 - 10/2014

  • Responsible for overall product and marketing strategy, including launch and go-to-market positioning, plus localization efforts across 22 countries and 7 languages
  • Developed and launched multi-page marketing microsite with full backend CRM data management system resulting in a 23% increase in program conversions within one month
  • Project lead for cross-functional workgroup of more than 25 people across 4 offices
  • Managed global team budget of $12M annually, including preparing quarterly and annual strategy and finance presentations for senior executives


Community Management Team Lead - Google Local, Google, Inc., 12/2011 - 3/2014

  • Developed and implemented global social media strategy, growing 46 local social channels to more than 2.74M followers in less than 1.5 years
  • Introduced and implemented email marketing strategy across six countries, including content planning and creation, segmentation strategy, and A/B testing strategy
  • Directly managed ten community managers across eight remote offices


Social Media Community Manager - Google Local, Google, Inc., 3/2011 - 12/2011

  • Orchestrated more than 70 highly branded offline events that helped generate more user generated content, social followers, and power users in Austin than in any city worldwide
  • Produced content for 10+ social platforms, resulting in more than 7K Twitter followers (a 900% increase in just two quarters) and 1M+ unique online interactions per quarter
  • Helped locally monetize Google Offers, directly responsible for more than 3K online transactions/quarter as well piloting CRM-managed email segmentation and A/B tests


Co-Founder & Chief Marketing Officer, The National Karaoke League, 1/2008 - 3/2011

  • Grew startup from idea to acquisition in three years time; helped take company through two rounds of funding and managed all business development and marketing
  • Executed a growth plan that expanded our customer lists from 30 people to more than 25,000 qualified leads in less than two years using a mix of public relations, social media, SEO, influencer marketing, and paid online marketing


Public Relations Assistant, RIESTER, 12/2005 - 5/2006

  • Created and executed total marketing and public relations strategy for clients including McDonald’s, Gold’s Gym, Veterinary Pet Insurance, and the State of California


Education

The University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

  • Bachelor of Arts – Public Relations
  • May 2006, Magna Cum Laude


The University of Texas, School of Law, Austin, TX

  • Juris Doctorate – Corporate Law
  • May 2009, with Honors​


Industry Awards

Shorty Awards 2022

  • Finalist - Instagram
  • "Northwestern Mutual's Museum of Recent History"


Brand Innovators 40 Under 40 Class of 2021


Effie Awards 2020

  • Gold Award Winner - Travel & Tourism Campaign
  • "Expect Better, Expect Hilton"


Hermes Creative Awards 2016

  • Platinum Award Winner - Integrated Communication/Marketing Plan
  • "Transforming the Buyer Experience: IBM Systems’ Journey from Product Centric to Buyer Centric Marketing"


AVA Digital Awards 2016

  • Gold Award Winner - Online Marketing Strategy
  • "IBM Systems Digital Launch"


MarCom Awards 2017

  • Platinum Award - Integrated Marketing Campaign
  • "IBM Systems Point of View 2.0"


Professional Associations & Volunteer Work

ANA Reggie Awards Jury Member

SocialMedia.Org Board Member 

Brand Innovators' Marketers Circle Member

USC Alumni Club (Former Regional Club President & Board Member)


Skills 

Digital Marketing, Advertising, Brand Marketing, Brand Partnerships, Team Management, Project Management, Social Media, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, SEO/PPC, Retargeting, Campaign Management, Coaching, Conversational Spanish, Event Planning, Agency/Vendor Management, Finance/Budgeting, Agile Methodologies


Interests

Travel, Fitness, Food & Wine, Gardening

About Whitney Magnuson

I'm a strategic marketing professional (and former attorney and entrepreneur) with 20+ years experience working for Fortune 100 brands, high-tech startups, and top-tier agencies.  With a passion for digital marketing, social media, brand partnerships and full-funnel campaigns, I excel in bringing a data and revenue focus to marketing teams for both B2B and B2C companies.