Ellen Naylor, principal, brings 25 years of marketing experience, including sales, across many industries. She initiated a competitive intelligence (CI) department at Verizon where she built a process to capture competitive information, especially from Sales.  Her analyses helped management make the right decisions that made/saved money, while sales were won through her timely competitive intelligence. Ellen conducted financial competitive analysis and economic forecasting at Northwest Airlines where she created an exhaustive quarterly forecasting report on key competitors.

Ellen thrives on creativity in projects whether they involve facilitating a competitive intelligence (CI) process, finding hard-to-obtain data, jumpstarting a company’s early warning process, capturing CI from Sales, or coaching customers to select and implement CI software. Ellen’s clients benefit from her passion, active listening and ability to work effectively within each company’s unique culture.

Over the past 10 years, Ellen has been a sought after public speaker on competitive intelligence and marketing. She has been a regular contributor to SCIP’s (Society of Competitive Intelligence) Competitive Intelligence Magazine, and is now a columnist on Cooperative Intelligence, which helps CI professionals develop the right people skills to run a dynamic CI operation: leading, connecting and communicating.  

Ellen has held leadership positions at SCIP—on the board of directors and with the Minnesota and Rocky Mountain chapters—over the last 16 years. Ellen is a SCIP Fellow and Catalyst award winner.  She is also active in the Association for Corporate Growth, the Association of Independent Information Professionals, Special Libraries Association and Stellar Connections.

Ellen was raised in Japan and spent an academic year in France. She is fluent in French and has a working knowledge of Japanese. She earned a BA at the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from the University of Virginia’s Colgate Darden Business School.

Alliance Partners