Horizon Media Launches New B2B Growth Practice -- Green Thread -- to Help Clients Establish Advanced Systems for Revenue Expansion

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Jul 06, 2022, 06:30 ET

Horizon Also Announces Acquisition of the Revenue Enablement Institute to Accelerate Green Thread's Ability to Drive Client Results with Specialized Offerings

NEW YORK, July 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Horizon Media, the largest U.S. media agency according to AdAge Data Center 2022, today announced the launch of Green Thread, an independent business-to-business practice under the Horizon Media umbrella, designed to help clients achieve consistent revenue growth through modern, data-driven strategies. The new practice will focus on improving financial performance at client companies by connecting their sales and marketing approaches and activities. Chris Hummel, a two-time Fortune 500 CMO and innovative operational executive, will lead Green Thread as President to design, orchestrate and execute impactful growth strategies serving the B2B customer segment.

In addition, Horizon Media acquired the Revenue Enablement Institute (REI) – an advisory and research firm, tailored to the next generation of growth leaders – to accelerate Green Thread's operational development. REI provides independent, credible research and thought leadership on the science of growth for boards, C-level officers, and other sales, marketing, and service leaders. Unique insights and an engaged community will serve as the key elements of Green Thread's new specialized service offerings. REI will move over intact as a part of Green Thread, and REI's Managing Director, Stephen Diorio, will continue to lead the Institute, now reporting to Hummel.

"Horizon is continuously evolving to meet the needs of our clients and of the changing media and marketing landscape, and now with Green Thread, we have a core capability that allows us to better serve a broader B2B client base with tailored offerings and capabilities," said Bill Koenigsberg, CEO and Founder of Horizon Media. "With our previous expansions into e-commerce, analytics, content, technology, sports marketing, and experiential, among other areas, we have created an independent ecosystem that enables us to be a full marketing solutions partner with the capabilities and reach to help companies of all sizes deliver positive business outcomes Chris Hummel has been a Horizon client on three separate occasions – so I am confident that his leadership, business acumen, global cultural fluency, and the world-class talent he brings to Green Thread will accelerate our clients' businesses."

The financial link between shareholder value and growth is well established, as revenue expansion represents the single largest source of shareholder return. To align all sales, marketing, and service functional activities around growth, enterprises must take a broader view of the customer journey – the full revenue cycle – extending beyond acquisition and transaction to include consumption and use. Green Thread will offer strategic advisory, program management and practical execution services to drive more strategic business outcomes by pairing new specialized B2B services and Horizon's existing marketing solutions.

Hummel joins Horizon and Green Thread having previously led sales, marketing, and product teams at world-class companies including Oracle, SAP, Schneider Electric, Siemens, and United Rentals. He and Diorio are the co-authors of the recently published Revenue Operations: A New Way to Align Sales & Marketing, Monetize Data, and Ignite Growth.

"Green Thread fills a gaping hole in the solution support ecosystem for most enterprises by aligning sales, marketing, and service strategy and by helping establish an operational blueprint for connecting commercial business processes, enterprise data, and other company growth assets," said Hummel. "B2B companies often have multiple consultancies, research institutes, and agencies simultaneously tasked with solving isolated go-to-market objectives. Unfortunately, that approach often fragments growth efforts into fragmented siloes. Green Thread will help marketing and sales leaders adjust to the realities of a more data-driven, capital-intensive growth strategy by aligning all stakeholders and connecting all company commercial assets, data, and business processes."

Among Hummel's career highlights, he tripled United Rentals' ecommerce revenue while overhauling the brand positioning; implemented a new demand generation model at Schneider Electric that helped grow company revenue by 13 percent; and led a complete commercial transformation of Siemens Enterprise Communications into a new brand, "Unify."

He holds a Masters of Arts in Law & Diplomacy from The Fletcher School at Tufts University and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from Tufts University. He also studied at the London Business School and Durham University in England.

About Horizon Media
Horizon Media, Inc, the largest U.S. media agency according to AdAge Data Center 2022, delivers data-driven business outcomes for some of the most innovative and ambitious brands. Founded in 1989, headquartered in New York, and with offices in Los Angeles and Toronto, the company employs 2,400 people and has media investments of more than $9.5 billion. Horizon Media's fundamental belief is that business is personal, which drives its approach to connecting brands with their customers and engaging with its own employees resulting in industry-leading workplace satisfaction levels (Glassdoor). The company is consistently recognized by independent media outlets for its client excellence and has earned several "Best Workplaces" awards reflecting its commitment to DEI and the life and well-being of everyone at Horizon Media.

About the Revenue Enablement Institute
The mission of the Revenue Enablement Institute™ is to educate and arm CXOs – a new generation of growth leaders – with the state-of-the-art management tools, skills, capabilities, and practices they will need to accelerate revenue growth and adapt to the new buying reality. Our faculty of academics and experts are actively working with owners, CEOs, and their growth leadership teams to develop research, education, and solutions to help them to blend their sales, marketing, and service teams into a high-octane growth machine. You can learn more about The Revenue Enablement Institute at www.revenueenablement.com.

About Green Thread
Green Thread is a B2B practice, under the Horizon Media umbrella, that helps companies achieve sustainable, scalable revenue expansion by aligning around a common purpose growth. Green Thread designs and operationalizes data-driven, capital-intensive commercial strategies that agilely adapt to changing customer buying behaviors across the full revenue cycle. Using deep research, unique business insight, and an innovative faculty of experts, our teams work with a new generation of leaders across all customer-facing functions – sales, marketing and service - to drive continuous corporate revenue by arming them with the state-of-the-art management tools, skills, advanced analytics capabilities, and best practices. To learn more about Green Thread, visit www.greenthread.com.

SOURCE Horizon Media