PDG Blog | Conferences

Driving Global Marketing Excellence at the ATD Conference

Posted by Amanda Holm on May 11, 2015 11:08:00 AM

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Join PDG and Pfizer at the ATD International Conference

When you work in the life sciences industry, change is a constant. And when you're one of the largest companies in that industry, change must be part of your strategy. That's exactly what was keeping the marketing excellence team at Pfizer up at night. In a world that shifts constantly, how do you keep the skills of your marketing team fresh and relevant? And how do you craft your message so it is practical and implementable for your marketing teams in nearly 100 countries worldwide?

In this Association for Talent Development (ATD) Conference session, you will learn how Pfizer created a global performance initiative to address these challenges, using key strategies such as bringing together top subject matter experts and finding ways to get them to create a cohesive and focused curriculum, using global learning archetypes to design for multiple global audiences, aligning the effort to Pfizer's business goals, and tying the curriculum to Pfizer's performance management strategy.

Application on the Job:

Determine the types of global market changes that require constant re-evaluation of employee skills and knowledge.

Identify how those changes can be translated into a flexible curriculum that addresses not only today's needs but needs for years to come.
Discuss strategies for bringing together a diverse team of stakeholders, subject matter experts, and learning professionals to create a consistent curriculum that can be deployed globally.

Find out more at the ATD International Conference & Exposition at, Driving Marketing Excellence Through a Global Learning Curriculum on May 19 from 1 - 2 PM.

Our Presenters

Robert Baker
Senior Director, Enterprise Training Strategy | Pfizer

Bob Baker is Senior Director, Enterprise Training Strategy at Pfizer. In that role he is responsible for improving the overall colleague learning experience. His 20+ years at Pfizer includes sales, marketing research, country and global brand management as well as new product development. In his last role, Bob developed Pfizer’s way of marketing that includes the standards of excellence, frameworks, tools and training that colleagues need to be successful. His team has also created a learning ecosystem with its 4,000 members of Pfizer’s Commercial Community to accelerate their professional development and collaboration abilities. Bob has a BA in Economics from the College of William and Mary, and an MBA in Marketing from Rutgers. Bob is currently the President of ATD NY.

Kim Robbins
Director, Change Management and Communications | Pfizer

Kim Robbins is Director, Change Management & Communications for the Pfizer Marketing Excellence Team. In this role she works with leaders to design change strategies and learning and development resources to develop and retain talent and support Pfizer marketing in meeting the needs of customers. Kim is a member of the Communication Leadership Exchange and the Association for Talent Development. She holds a Master’s degree in English from Rosemont College and is currently taking graduate courses in Organizational Dynamics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Jamie Rondeau
Principal Consultant | Performance Development Group

Jamie Rondeau is Principal Consultant at Performance Development Group. She is a visionary learning strategist with demonstrated ability to impact business performance through the development of human capability. With more than 20 years of experience in learning, sales, marketing, leadership development, customer satisfaction, organizational development, selection and assessment, Jamie draws on her combined expertise to build results-based solutions that are practical and measurably impact performance. A graduate of Arizona State University, Jamie has a Bachelor of Science in organizational communication with an emphasis in marketing.

Find more information on marketing and sales training at PDG Resources.

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Topics: Global Learning, Conferences, Sales Training, Life Sciences

Tomorrow’s Sales Training at the LTEN Conference in June

Posted by Amanda Holm on May 4, 2015 3:32:27 PM

Graphic_Novel_Example Is it difficult to get new behaviors from an experienced sales team? The tenured sales force responsible for Genzyme’s Multiple Sclerosis product (AUBAGIO®) had seen it all. The Genzyme learning team knew they needed to find an engaging, time-effective way of spreading best practices across the sales team to drive continued performance. Learn how Genzyme used both cutting-edge and well established methods to create a blended approach that feels fresh and new.

Using best practices from high performers with the greatest market share, Genzyme and their partner PDG created three methods for delivery of best practice: podcasts, graphic novels, and articles, all of which shared a similar look and feel.

Learning Objectives:

Determine how to motivate and grow a mature and high-performing sales force
Define the steps necessary to evaluate and benchmark best practices to drive up performance of all team members
Identify how to create a vibrant blended approach to gain and hold sales force attention.

Find out more at the LTEN Annual Conference at, Tomorrow’s Sales Training: Using a Multi-Modal Approach for a Tenured Sales Force, on June 2. Visit PDG staff in the LTEN exhibit hall at booth 139.

Our Presenters

David Barker

Dave Barker works as a Training Manager with Genzyme in Cambridge, MA. His over 15 years of Sales and Training experience includes work on three continents, in over a half-a-dozen countries, and in a variety of industries, working at all levels of organizations. He has a strong background in developing training strategy, curriculum/e-learning design and delivery.

Marcus Hswe

Marcus Hswe is the Associate Vice President, Business Development, Sales as well as a Consultant with Performance Development Group (PDG) of Malvern, PA. He has over 10 years of experience in design, development, and management of enterprise training initiatives. With a concentration in the life sciences arena, Marcus works directly with senior executives to determine effective and efficient solutions to their business issues.

Find more information on sales training at PDG Resources.

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Topics: Conferences, Sales Training, Life Sciences

Talk Global Learning with PDG at the ASTD International Conference & Exposition!

Posted by Rich Mesch on Apr 16, 2014 10:03:00 AM

Join PDG at the ASTD International Conference and Exposition in Washington, DC on May 6, 2014 for a presentation by Rich Mesch, Senior Director Customer Engagement and Stacie Comolli, Director of Solution Architecture. Stacie and Rich will be discussing Global Learning Archetypes, PDG's unique approach to

simplifying Global Learning, and providing a case study of how the methodology was successfully applied at a multibillion dollar global organization. Here's a summary of the session:

TU206 - Training the World: Using Archetypes to Create a Practical Global Learning Strategy

Date: Tue, May 06

1:30 pm - 2:45 pm

Location: 144BC

Description:

Virtually all large organizations are global, and facing the challenges of creating learning interactions that are beneficial and comprehensible to diverse audiences all over the world. Some organizations take the "pray" approach, by creating learning for one geography and praying other audiences will get something out of it. Other organizations burn through huge amounts of money creating custom learning for every different geography. Isn't there a better way? Can't effective global learning be created in a way that doesn't break the bank?

This session focuses on a pragmatic and reasonable approach to global learning design that utilizes archetypes, focusing as much on the commonalities between learning styles as on the differences. The Global Archetype approach adapts well-established cultural preference models and combines them with insightful learning models. The result is three primary Global Learning Archetypes and six secondary archetypes that allow training to be designed once and used around the world.

This session focuses on how:

the Global Learning Archetypes were created
the Archetypes can be translated into design specs that any learning team can use
organizations are using the Archetypes to deliver globally while controlling cost
to apply a vetted, model-based strategy for designing global learning rollout
to integrate a well-established cultural preferences model that can be applied to learning best practices to create Global Learning Archetypes.

Speaker biographies:

Rich Mesch has been working in the field of experiential and contextualized learning for over 25 years. He has desi

gned and implemented solutions for dozens of Fortune 1000 companies in all industries. His projects

have won multiple Brandon Hall Excellence Awards, the New Media InVision Award for Simulation, the

New York Festivals Silver Medal, and the HR Executive Top 10. He is a frequent conference presenter, having spoken at the ASTD International Conference, ASTD TechKnowledge, TechLearn, eLearning Guild, SPBT, Training Magazine Conference, and the Linkages Conference on Leadership. He is the co-author of the Pfeiffer/ASTD book, “The Gamification of Learning and Instruction Fieldbook,” and has published articles

in Training Magazine, Focus Magazine, and Technology for Learning. His is currently the Senior Director, Customer Engagement at Performance Development Group in Malvern, PA.

Stacie Comolli is the Director of Solution Architecture for Performance Development Group of Malvern, PA. She has more than fifteen years of experience in instructional design, simulation design, project management and performance consulting. She holds an M.Ed. in Instructional Systems from Penn State University. As the Director of Solution Architecture, Stacie sets the strategic direction of the team and aligns that strategy with the overarching organizational goals and values. She has designed interactive multimedia-based learning solutions, engaging instructor-led workshops (including interactive media when applicable) and tools and job aids to anchor new skills to the job. Stacie works with clients to learn as much as possible about the nuances of their business and needs, so every solution leads to performance improvement.

To learn more about PDG's approach to Global Learning, try these links: