Principals
Susan Spaulding
CEO
Susan is CEO/President of Market Directions, a brand performance consultancy. She, first and foremost, brings an entrepreneurial mindset to her work with clients and staff that allow her to see and communicate new possibilities that lead to great outcomes. Susan and her team help clients build solutions based on understanding and ideas that renew, realign and reposition organizations. Susan has a talent for quickly framing even the toughest issues to make them newly accessible from multiple perspectives.
Susan takes deep pride in making a difference for Market Directions’ clients. Her longstanding client relationships are a testimony to the enduring legacy of trust she and her team build in each engagement.
Over the past 17 years, Susan has built and renewed the focus of Marketing Directions as a strategic brand performance company. The company’s uncommon hands-on approach enables top leaders to put even the most challenging puzzle pieces together to find the best strategic path for delivering tangible end results – ones that will reposition their companies for new business realities.
Susan’s 30-year agency history in marketing, communications and market research brings together her hallmark curiosity about how things work and her savvy about human behavior and the marketplace. She has published numerous articles, spoken at many industry conferences and been a guest instructor, locally and virtually. Susan is a highly active and visible member of the marketing community, currently serving on a number of Boards including Association for Corporate Growth Kansas City (ACGKC), Council of Survey Research Organizations (CASRO) and International Business Marketing Association (BMA).
Susan is a recognized business leader. She was honored in 2007 by The Kansas City Business Journal as a Women Who Means Business. In 2006 Market Directions was recognized by the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce as a Top Ten Small Business in Kansas City.
Time with family, a cross country drive in a 1967 Austin Healey 3000, barnstorming in a Piper Cub, a good book, a glass of wine and a nap are Susan’s pleasures outside of many hours at work.
