GBK Employee Spotlight: Melanie oltmann
GBK Employee Spotlight is a series designed to surface the stories of the amazing individuals across our team and what makes them tick.
Today for our employee spotlight series, we chatted with Melanie Oltmann, who recently joined as Vice President based in our Austin office. Melanie brings a unique background, with more than 15 years of experience in marketing research, project management and research operations for domestic and international brands. Let’s learn more about her.
Q: Tell us a bit about yourself, your prior career and how you got started at GBK.
I grew up in Austin and graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in Food Science and Technology. Shortly after I started my career with Nestlé USA based in LA, where my role focused on sensory evaluation, training quality assurance staff in production facilities and in-house product testing. While this is a far cry from what I do today, I became intrigued with consumer research through my work at Nestlé.
Four years later, I decided to make the leap and moved on to a boutique consumer research shop in the Chicago-area specializing in central location and home-use testing of food, household and beauty products. A few years after that, I moved back to Austin and joined Millward Brown (Kantar) for an 8-year tenure where I served as a research operations leader and liaison between clients, technology teams, and sampling partners with a focus on online research.
Over the course of my career, I’ve had the honor to work with clients across a wide range of industries from consumer packaged goods, QSR and beauty/personal care products to companies in the technology, B2B and financial space. My biggest strengths have always been in planning, operations and project management.
I was first introduced to GBK Collective through Rebecca Szew and Samantha Hare who I worked with earlier in my career. After working on several projects with GBK as a consultant this year, the opportunity to join full time quickly materialized and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Not only is GBK one of the fastest growing research and analytics firms in the country, I’ve also been really impressed with the breadth of experience GBK brings to each and every client project - from academic leaders to real world-corporate expertise.
Q: What will your role at GBK focus on, and what are you most looking forward to?
My role as Vice President will primarily focus on operations and project management, establishing best practices with our internal team and research partners to streamline and maximize the value GBK delivers clients.
As GBK continues to rapidly grow, the firm is managing a variety of global research studies for brands across geographies and markets. In line with this, a big priority and focus for our team is ensuring operational excellence – making sure we have the right resources and budget in place to deliver the necessary results and outcomes for each client engagement, as well as investing in new tools, technology and processes.
I’ve already hit the ground running and am looking forward to partnering with the team across areas – from operational strategy and problem solving to project planning and execution.
Q: What are your hobbies outside of work? Or what’s a fun fact about you that many people may not know?
When I’m not working, one of my favorite things to do is hunt for and repurpose thrift store treasures. I love bringing new life to a unique piece of vintage furniture or decor.
I also like to spend time behind a sewing machine. An unexpected twist to this hobby was the creation of my own small business – Toodie Towels – where I make hooded bath/beach towels for kids. It started out with me making a few for my son when he grew out of his baby towels. One thing led to another and I was getting requests from friends to purchase for their kids. I’ve learned so much about running a small business - from designing a logo, to social media marketing and e-commerce. I’ve found that it’s a fun and challenging creative outlet for me after hours or on the weekends.
Otherwise, I’m spending my free time with my husband and our 7 year old son. We are lucky to live in one of the most beautiful spots in Texas and regularly take advantage of the many hiking trails in the area.