ole Appoints Connie McNaughton Senior Director, Brand Management

TORONTO (CelebrityAccess MediaWire) – ole is pleased to announce the appointment of Connie McNaughton to the newly created position of Senior Director, Brand Management.

"Connie will be responsible for the care and stewardship of the ole brand through a wide variety of programs that cultivate, grow and leverage the brand," says ole President Michael McCarty, to whom McNaughton will report in Toronto. "This includes securing sponsorship for, and overseeing, ole's event-based marketing initiatives; finding placement opportunities for ole's catalog and songwriters via branding association; securing grants; creating PR opportunities; fostering a culture of sales excellence; and coordinating ole's web presence and branding in all media for both the company and individual writers."

McNaughton has distinguished herself in the fields of brand management, e-commerce promotion and media sales. A proven "closer," she has worked closely in the past with such major corporations as Coca-Cola, McDonalds, General Mills, Hewlett-Packard, P&G, CIBC and Ford. Prior to arriving at ole, McNaughton worked as Account Manager at Marketwire, a full-service newswire service. She maintained progressively senior roles afterwards with Yahoo! and Tribute Entertainment Media Group as well as The Outdoor Broadcast Network (OBN), a Toronto-based media company for which she helped establish a national network.

In 1984, under her maiden name of Connie Fitzpatrick, she was crowned Miss World Canada and subsequently was voted the first runner-up for the Miss World title, the highest finish ever by a Canadian. She later took on the duties of President/CEO of Miss World Canada, a position she held for eight years.

In her position at Yahoo! Canada in the late '90s, McNaughton teamed up with ole CEO Robert Ott, then head of BMG Music Publishing Canada, to create a very successful Yahoo!/BMG branding initiative in the form of an online song writing contest sponsored by Ford.

"At the end of a couple of years, I'm hoping that I will have achieved a number of fiscal targets and contributed to the bottom line by really helping to make the ole name more well known in Canada and around the world," says McNaughton. "It's a Canadian-founded company with some awesome talent and I just think it's a fantastic opportunity." –by CelebrityAccess Staff Writers