Our Team
Eyal Danon, Founder
Eyal is responsible for Ignite’s unique approach to Customer Advisory Councils. A former Chief Marketing Officer for privately held and publicly traded software companies, Eyal has worked with innovative companies that experienced dramatic growth amid changing business environments. A recognized expert on customer advocacy, Eyal has appeared on CNN Headline News, CNBC, Forbes, Fortune, Wall Street Journal, and Business Week. Earlier in his career, Eyal worked as a leadership development expert for InterContinental Hotels & Resorts in Europe, where he honed his facilitation skills in a fast-paced and dynamic global environment.
Eyal received a Bachelor of Science in Hospitality Management (cum laude) from Florida International University in Miami, Florida, as well as an MBA from Boston University, and is a graduate of Columbia University’s Business School Executive Leadership Program.
Gavin R. Nathan, Senior Consultant & Partner
Gavin Nathan has extensive experience designing, managing and facilitating Customer Advisory Boards. He also founded the largest industry association for Customer Advisory Board managers, called CustomerAdvisoryBoard.org and chairs the annual industry conference. Gavin is well versed in engaging Fortune 500 executive decision makers from his career in technology sales & marketing, spanning financial software, cloud computing and document management systems, Gavin helped five pre-IPO technology companies grow their customer bases globally. Originally from the UK, Gavin has experience living and working in London, Europe and Asia, bringing a unique understanding of cultural differences in engaging executives worldwide. He now resides in Boston, MA
Tatiana Falconi, VP Marketing & Client Success
Tatiana Falconi is a strategic marketing professional with more than 12 years of customer advocacy and marketing experience. Prior to Ignite Advisory Group, Tatiana served as Director of Marketing for Deltathree, a leading VoIP service provider (NASDAQ: DDDC). Tatiana managed all aspects of customer marketing, including market research and voice of the customer initiatives. Prior to Deltathree, Tatiana served as a Marketing Research Manager for the Institutional Investor Research Group in New York, overseeing the Equity Research market and high-value customer programs.
Tatiana has worked on customer advisory programs for multiple companies, from Fortune 500 to high-growth professional services firms. Tatiana holds a B.S. degree in modern languages (cum laude) from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
Rob Jensen, Senior Consultant & Facilitator
Rob Jensen has spent over 20 years in marketing, communications and business development leadership positions with leading enterprise business-to-business (B2B) software and technology companies. Throughout his career, Rob has successfully overseen groups that generated global awareness, increased lead generation and enabled sales teams for EMC/Captiva, Kofax, Anacomp, TRW, HNC Software and AudaExplore.
In addition, Rob has specialized in initiating, managing and facilitating customer and partner advisory board programs for several of these companies in the U.S. and abroad. The most successful of these programs was at EMC/Captiva, whose board lasted 5 years and 9 in-person meetings. This successful council led to numerous product enhancements and customer service improvements, and expanded business opportunities with the executive council members.
Rob holds an MBA with an emphasis in marketing from San Diego State University, and a BA in management economics from the University of California, San Diego.
Nancy Trachtenbarg, Senior Consultant & Facilitator
Nancy Trachtenbarg is a strategic marketing professional with a wealth of knowledge and experience in leading high-profile customer engagement programs. As a senior consultant and facilitator, she is responsible for designing, managing and facilitating Customer Advisory Boards for Ignite clients across many industries.
Prior to Ignite Advisory Group, she led Customer Advisory Boards for AT&T. In that role, Nancy was responsible for managing and facilitating Customer Advisory Board Programs for strategic/C-Level executives from Fortune 1000 companies. She possesses significant expertise in building world-class executive, global and vertical Customer Advisory Boards.
Over the course of her career, she has specialized in voice of the customer and integrated marketing programs. Additionally, she has extensive experience as a product manager of software technology solutions.
She holds an Executive MBA from Rutgers University and a BA from the University of Maryland. Nancy currently resides in Wayne, PA.
Carolina Rodrigues, Senior Consultant & Facilitator
Carolina served as Director of Global Executive Audience Marketing at VMware where she led the development of the company’s global executive customer marketing advocacy and thought leadership programs. She launched the CxO Council, Security and Workspace executive CABs, and product strategy TABs, orchestrated the executive sponsorship program and annual hospitality engagement efforts.
Prior to joining VMware, Carolina held global marketing roles at Cisco focused on executive, industry, and small and medium business audiences. During her tenure, she created and launched multiple multi-million dollar advertising and marketing campaigns where she developed a passion for executive marketing, customer advocacy, and brand experience.
Carolina currently serves as a board member of the California Arts and Science Institute in Carmel, CA.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and International Relations from San Jose State University.
Bonnie FitzGerald Smith, Senior Consultant & Facilitator
Bonnie is passionate about the idea of possibility and believes that great leaps forward often start with the simple question “what if?”. Bonnie enjoys coaching teams through the challenging and transformative undertaking of creating and running impactful customer advisory boards.
Prior to joining Ignite Advisory Group, she headed up Akamai’s executive customer engagement programs where she launched and managed an 11-board, 150-member global customer advisory board program and created and led an executive briefing center program. Before this, Bonnie spent 15 years in customer facing senior leadership roles in sales engineering.
Bonnie holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science & Business Administration from Gordon College and is a graduate of the General Motors/EDS Systems Engineering Professional Development Program.
Catherine Gibson, Senior Consultant & Facilitator
Catherine is a strategic marketing professional, with extensive experience in the tech industry. Catherine spent over 20 years at AT&T Business, where she led the Global Customer Advisory Councils Program covering networking, cloud, cyber security, IoT, and collaboration, as well as leading Enterprise Industry Events and Executive Forums. Prior to Ignite, Catherine was the marketing lead for BT in the Americas, a VP of Events for a global telecom industry association and head of Service Provider Marketing for key accounts at Riverbed Technology. Catherine earned a BA in International Affairs from Lewis & Clark College and an MBA in Finance from Vanderbilt University.
Judy Davis, VP Client Engagement
Judy Davis is a strategic marketing professional whose expertise enables companies to maximize customer advisory boards and leverage industry analyst programs to expand the ways in which customers engage, innovate and grow with their businesses.
Judy led high profile customer and market-facing programs in a variety of sales and marketing leadership roles for technology and outsourcing firms. She successfully implemented and evolved the inaugural customer advisory board program for Convergys Corporation.
At Ignite Advisory Group, she has designed and expanded ongoing CAB programs for financial services and transportation businesses. The program mix includes vertical by industry segment(s) and horizontal for multi-industry focus.
Judy is active in her local community, Pinehurst, North Carolina. Most recently, she served as Mayor Pro Tem for the Village Council.
Judy holds an MA from The George Washington University and a BA from Winthrop College. Judy’s reunion class endowed a scholarship for first-generation college students and she continues as Gift Chair for Winthrop.
Julie Felgar, Senior Consultant & Facilitator
Julie has spent over 20 years managing high-level customer initiatives, with a focus on corporate alignment. As a Senior Consultant and Facilitator, she is responsible for designing, managing and facilitating Customer Advisory Boards for Ignite’s clients. She is a certified executive coach and a Professor of Marketing Strategy in UNC’s Kenan Flagler MBA program.
Julie worked for 15 years with Boeing in a variety of executive roles. As the Managing Director of Environmental Strategy and Integration at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, she led the team responsible for identifying opportunities to improve the company’s performance by working with a broad range of stakeholders across Boeing and in the industry. Prior to that role, Julie served as Director of International Operations in Washington, D.C., while supporting sales in the Americas and Asia.
She graduated with a Master’s degree in International Studies/Business from George Washington University and has a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from Florida State University.
Kevin Smith, Senior Consultant & Facilitator
Kevin joined Ignite Advisory Group as a consultant after a distinguished career in the telecom industry. At AT&T, he held leadership positions in marketing, finance, sales, international ventures, and network operations. Kevin consulted with hundreds of clients, helping to propel their success through the application of leading-edge communications technologies and managed several of AT&T’s key customer advisory boards in the B2B space.
Throughout his career, Kevin has volunteered in the community, serving at organizations such as the Boy Scouts, the University of California at San Diego, and the Project Management Institute. Kevin has a warm affinity with Latin America having lived in Argentina, and he continues to coordinate humanitarian and environmental efforts in Mexico. Kevin and his wife Laurie live in Encinitas, CA, where they raised five children and are now the proud grandparents of thirteen.
Recent Blog Posts
Five Tips for Establishing a Strong Foundation for your Customer Advisory Board Program from Industry Experts
Recently, we facilitated a session at the Customer Marketing Alliance (CMA) Summit in San Francisco about CABs. The session featured Lauren Johnson, Manager, Advisory Board Programs at Adobe and Rebecca Quinn, Manager, Events at Sunoco (formerly leading events at Uber...
Customer Advisory Board Conference Recap
The CAB Conference was back in person last week in Boston, co-located with CustomerXCon. We had an incredible day with close to 50 CAB practitioners and leaders focused on CABs and elevating B2B customer relationships. Attendees had the opportunity to connect, share...
Top 10 Elements to Include in Your CAB Meeting Report
So you’ve held your customer advisory board (CAB) meeting, and it seems to have gone well – congratulations! You probably (hopefully) have pages of notes from your meeting note taker. You've got sheets of marked up flip charts and whiteboards, and plenty of feedback...
![[Webinar] How to Recruit and Engage Executive Advisory Board Members](data:image/svg+xml;nitro-empty-id=Nzg0OjQ4OQ==-1;base64,PHN2ZyB2aWV3Qm94PSIwIDAgNDAwIDI4NCIgd2lkdGg9IjQwMCIgaGVpZ2h0PSIyODQiIHhtbG5zPSJodHRwOi8vd3d3LnczLm9yZy8yMDAwL3N2ZyI+PC9zdmc+)
