Kay Madati
Vice President
Marketing
Community Connect, Inc

Kay M. Madati is currently, the Vice President of Marketing at Community Connect, Inc., a top 50 social networking web publisher, and category leader for building online community destinations for U.S. ethnic groups and other communities of interest. With more than 20 million registered members across its five sites -- AsianAvenue.com, BlackPlanet.com, MiGente.com, GLEE.com and the recently launched Faithbase.com, Mr. Madati is responsible for the overall branding, positioning and marketing of these sites, as well as defining and articulating the core member/user experience. This includes leadership/stewardship of all member acquisition and retention efforts, site programming, public relations, events, sponsorships, marketing partnerships and content/campaign deals with major brands and/or organizations/institutions. All towards the end goal of providing members with the opportunity to interact with people of similar backgrounds and interests while establishing meaningful relationships, and finding out about the latest news in politics, culture, music, entertainment and the job market.
Prior to this role, Mr. Madati was the Director of Multicultural Marketing at Octagon, a worldwide sports, events, entertainment and lifestyle marketing company, where he was responsible for starting and building a new division/area of competency focused on multicultural programming/marketing. Over his tenure he was integral in leading the agency, and subsequently account teams, in the development and execution of effective/engaging ethnic marketing strategies for key clients. Generating 2 million+ in incremental revenue for the agency, while executing forward thinking marketing projects that highlighted the innovative integration of media, entertainment, sports and events for brands/companies like Sprint/Nextel, Home Depot, Unilever, NASCAR, BMW, Crown Royal, and the USTA.
Prior to this role, Mr. Madati was the Regional Marketing & Operations Manager at BMW of North America, LLC, responsible for a $36 million dollar budget and managing brand visibility and marketing activities in the Southern US. In this role he provided marketing support to the region, the dealers and the dealer groups as it pertains to brand related sales and marketing activities for both BMW and MINI products. Mr. Madati served as the regional contact for advertising, media, and event marketing agencies, providing creative direction and ensuring brand consistent focus on all regional and national sponsorship/promotions. He was responsible for monitoring and analyzing market share performance as well as competitive advertising throughout the region, and assisted in the development of marketing plans for all BMW Group products. Over his tenure in this role BMW Southern Region sales increased 9% and market share increased 5%.
Additionally, Mr. Madati oversaw BMW’s Group-wide multicultural marketing and diversity initiatives, working diligently to champion BMW’s belief that diversity is not only a moral imperative, but also a business imperative that ultimately adds value to the bottom line. In this role he is responsible for promoting diversity as a core value and attribute of BMW’s marketing strategy, executing programs and sponsorships that emphasized cultural and gender diversity and aligning BMW with various social and political organizations that hold leadership roles in the multicultural arena.
Mr. Madati began his career at BMW nine years ago in a management-training program that exposed him to a wide array of disciplines and departments ranging from Corporate Communications and Professional Development to Sales Operations and Financial Services. From there he moved on to become Sales and Marketing Manager of the mid-Atlantic region of BMW’s field force. During his tenure in the field, his market area exceeded annual sales objectives by more than 28% and the 16 dealers in his market area experienced an unprecedented period of success and profitability. After that role Mr. Madati was the Relationship Marketing Manager at BMW’s Headquarters, responsible for conceiving and implementing BMW’s consumer relationship marketing strategy and integrating it with the company’s customer-focused Champion Strategy. With the use of innovative and sophisticated technology, he helped BMW facilitate an on-going and mutually beneficial one-to-one dialogue with its consumers.
Mr. Madati, considered to be a leader in executing effective marketing strategies, is frequently asked to speak and present at direct marketing and marketing communications conferences on key accomplishments and successes in the areas of one-to-one marketing, multi-channel marketing, brand marketing and multicultural marketing.