Stephen Monaco – Biography

For 30 years, Stephen Monaco has been known and respected for his strong acumen as a senior-level strategic marketing and management executive. He has tremendous intellectual ability, remarkable creativity, and vision. He enjoys serving as a mentor to members of executive management teams, their staff, clients, and colleagues seeking guidance from someone who keeps their finger on the pulse of a number of issues.

Monaco is ranked in the “Global Top 100 Chief Marketing Officers to Follow on Twitter” and ranked among the “Top 10 Strategy Consultants to Follow on Twitter.”

Integrated Marketing Expert and Business Strategist

Stephen Monaco is the founder of FutureNow. He provides executive-level strategic and functional marketing consulting services to organizations from funded startups, early-stage companies, small-medium-sized businesses, to the Fortune 50.

Futurist / Thought Leader

Futurist is not a title Stephen gave to himself.

It was bestowed upon him when he was hand-selected by IBM to be part of their group of VIP Futurists in 2015.

Monaco is one of the original 24 people IBM designated as a Thought Leader for their Commerce team, and he collaborates regularly with other members of this Think Tank about the “New Way to Engage” on The IBM Future Project: 2025.

Developed Global Brand

Stephen Monaco held the positions of co-CEO and Vice President of Marketing for Datastorm Technologies, Inc. – a leading software developer and publisher in the highly-competitive fields of data communications and Internet software. His creative marketing prowess is the driving force behind the world’s best-selling PC data communications software of all time, the global brand, ProComm. ProComm was published in 11 languages. After its original release in English, the second language ProComm was published in was Japanese – via the joint venture with IBM Japan that Monaco negotiated for Datastorm at age 26.

Monaco defined company strategies and successfully built Datastorm from a raw start-up to $50 million in annual revenue with over 70% global market share, through its acquisition by a publicly-traded company, which was then purchased by Symantec.

While Stephen was at the helm at Datastorm, the company experienced 40 consecutive profitable quarters of growth!  Monaco led a team of over 350 employees in the United States and Europe; and simultaneously held the position of Managing Director at their international company, Datastorm Technologies, Ltd. in Cambridge, England.

Early Marketing Career

In Stephen’s early career, he held marketing positions at Warner Bros. Television – International TV Distribution in Burbank, California, and Creative Communications Group in Dallas, Texas.

Media Appearances

Monaco had the honor of being a special TV guest on “Panel of Pundits,” part of TechTV’s “Silicon Spin” television program hosted by PC Magazine’s, John C. Dvorak. He has also been the featured guest on the “Buzz Marketing” episode of the radio program, “The Brand Show.” Additionally, Stephen has been an on-air guest with Rick Dees on the internationally syndicated radio program, “Rick Dees and the Weekly Top 40” and on The Bob Pritchard “No BS Business” radio show on the VoiceAmerica Network, The Brand Show, etc.

In addition, Stephen hosted his own 60-minute weekly talk radio program, “Rockin’ Marketing” on the Houston-based Everything Talk Radio Network.

Since 1988, he has been interviewed by the news media numerous times and has been the topic of feature articles in daily newspapers, as well as in business journals and industry trade publications. He’s been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc. Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, InfoWorld, PC Magazine, etc.

Best-Selling Author / Columnist / Public Speaker

Stephen’s business strategy book, Insightful Knowledge: An Enlightened View of Social Media Strategy and Marketing, was published in hardback in February 2013 and quickly became an Amazon best-seller.

He has written articles published by IBM, BusinessWeek, American Marketing Association, Marketing Daily, iMedia Connection, MarketingProfs, SCORE, B2B Marketing, Business 2 Community, Pragmatic Marketing, Soshable, and many others.

Some of what he writes is posted in his blog.

He is a public speaker on topics including strategy, marketing, innovation, and entrepreneurship; and can be booked for public speaking, contract training, on-site workshops, and seminars.

In early December 2012, Stephen spoke on digital strategies at the Digital Summit at Union Station in Dallas, where he shared the stage with executives from Google, YouTube, IBM, Twitter, Reddit, Pepsi, Dell Computers, Travelocity, Intuit, Huffington Post, etc. Following his speaking engagement, @StephenMonaco  “trended” as one of the Top 10 names on Twitter.

Education

After more than 20 years of success in the business world, Monaco decided to pursue an MBA for the intellectual stimulation. In 2008, Stephen graduated with an MBA from the University of Wales, Cardiff in the United Kingdom with concentrations in both Marketing and eBusiness.

The topic of his Master's Dissertation was a prophetic analysis of the impact of the Internet and social media on mainstream media.

The conclusion of his Master's Dissertation includes recommendations of best practices for utilizing social monitoring and listening platforms to engage customers via direct dialogues, provide exceptional customer experiences, and empower brand ambassadors.

Miscellaneous

Stephen’s successful positioning and pricing strategies from Datastorm Technologies are utilized as curriculum for graduate-level marketing courses.

Over the past few decades, Monaco has had the privilege to serve as a director on numerous corporate boards and several advisory boards and currently serves on a handful of boards.

Random Notes

The passion Monaco exudes is the reason people say he has the charisma and working style that evokes confidence and creates clarity of purpose in executive teams and focus throughout organizations. He is known for being a strategic thinker and a very effective communicator with a wide breadth of knowledge and wisdom who achieves extraordinary results.

Monaco is well-known for maintaining impeccable standards of ethical conduct and refuses to do anything to compromise his personal integrity. While he is a private person, at the same time his life is an open book. You can ask Stephen anything; just be prepared for an honest answer. He’s no ‘yes man’ and will not tell you what he thinks you want to hear – you’ll get the truth.

Personal

Due to his intellectual curiosity and insatiable thirst for knowledge, Stephen is a voracious reader of non-fiction. He is particularly interested in tracking trends where business and technology intersect with evolving consumer sentiments. Monaco is a freelance record producer, plays electric guitar, is an avid concert-goer, and ‘classic rock’ music trivia buff. His favorite spectator sport is college basketball.

He is married to Michele, the wonderful lady he met during the '80s while he was an undergrad student in Los Angeles. They have two adult children.

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