Lauren Hirsch-Williams has a unique blend of backgrounds – from being a Fortune 100 corporate executive to entrepreneur and consultant. Her expertise lies in understanding the creative path to  best reach consumers and motivate them to action. With over 30 years experience of brand strategy, creative execution and production excellence, she brings a wealth of knowledge to consumer driven projects. 

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After starting her career in the advertising agency media world, Lauren became a Worldwide Director of Advertising and Consumer Communications at PepsiCo. This role has only been held by a handful of people. She was accountable for overseeing brand and corporate advertising on Frito-Lay’s 15+ brands, including Doritos, Tostitos, Lays, Ruffles and Cheetos among dozens of other brands. This role included strategic and creative work in over 40 countries. 

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In that role, she was part of the team that pioneered product placement in the entertainment industry as an innovative alternative to traditional advertising. This began with her Hollywood studio-related work on high profile, Oscar-nominated films such as Rainman, featuring Cheetos (Dustin Hoffman’s ‘crutch’ in the film), and Back to the Future, which featured Pepsi and Doritos products throughout. 

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She was responsible for over $250M dollars in production budgets that supported $1B+ in media spending and spearheaded a massively successful creative advertising platform that was credited with an increase of 11% on a billion dollar brand: Doritos. In addition, Lauren was responsible for creating aggressive and innovative marketing campaigns on other large-scale and small-scale businesses via stellar execution in consumer communications, including packaging design, PR, and outdoor media on top of traditional TV, print and radio. 

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Lauren was also part of a pioneering group of entrepreneurs creating online crowdsourcing sites. She created and founded MovieHatch.com in 2007 to fill a much-needed solution to the film - entertainment industry problem of using a “ gut guess” as its method for decision-making on original content. MovieHatch secured audiences up front – prior to investment in production – with both online and offline marketing promotions and events to improve a project’s ROI and to build a strong digital following. MovieHatch now boasts over 10 training programs to help aspiring artists learn the business side of the entertainment industry. 

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In an entrepreneurial role, Lauren has consulted on consumer insights and communications in a vast range of industries in both the online and offline world, including online gaming, consumer packaged goods, consumer services and B-to-B services. During the Internet boom of the late 90s, Lauren began working as a strategic marketing advisor for tech focused companies from home goods to artificial intelligence technology.