Lara Abrams Communications

Lara is what Malcolm Gladwell (Author of “The Tipping Point”) would call a ‘connector’ — her real strength being her enthusiasm for, and strategic ability to open doors for others, serving as a bridge to new opportunities and growth. This is a strength that creates tremendous opportunities for Lara’s clients.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Lara Abrams Communications, LLC consults with companies on go-to-market strategies and market development issues, business development & lead generation strategies, competitive & market analysis, helping them to define and develop strategies for success. Clients work with Lara directly on business development and strategy projects, with Lara herself working with clients to identify, target, and attract new clients.

Her experience straddles the worlds of international business development, marketing, communications and technology. While grounded in the disciplines of international advertising, pr, and marketing, Lara also has a unique perspective on cleantech as well as internet-driven business models and technologies, and her ability to quickly grasp new business and technology concepts, coupled with her networking finesse, and her very personalized approach to executive-level business development make her an invaluable asset to her clients.

Lara has advised countless companies and their executives - across industries and product categories - on go-to-market strategies and competitive positioning, and has authored white papers and market impact assessments for her clients, developed messaging and partnership strategies, assessed and critiqued business plans, and provided due diligence for top tier Silicon Valley vc’s. She has in turn also pitched and sold products and services - from cleantech to enterprise logistics software to consumer products, and research services.

One of the software industry’s first technology analysts to cover online marketplaces and e-procurement technology vendors, Lara’s familiarity with internet technologies and business models in such areas as e-procurement, Master Data Management and item master management, enterprise logistics, spend management, supplier enablement, sourcing, content management and catalog hosting and management is unusual. Her technology clients while a Senior Analyst for Aberdeen Group included companies such as Perfect and Commerce One (now Perfect.com), Ariba, Rightworks, and Calico Commerce (acquired later by PeopleSoft). She has been quoted in numerous publications - InfoWorld, Information Week, Red Herring, Construction.com, Internetnews.com, Darwin Magazine, Line56 and Radio Wall Street and also appeared on PBS’ CEOWatch.

She has a Master’s Degree in German from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Bachelor’s degree in International Studies/German Studies from Northwestern University. Lara began her professional career in Germany interning with Deutsche Bank, while at the same time studying business management (Betriebswirtschaftslehre) in German for a year as the first American recipient of the Madison-Freiburg Sister City Partnership Post Graduate Fellowship program. She was later hired by the Managing Director of the Frankfurt, Germany offices of Leo Burnett as a key bi-lingual American hire on Leo Burnett’s team of client services advisors to client Philip Morris International, for whom she managed a range of advertising activities. She was instrumental in the launch of a Philip Morris clothing line in Austria and France, coordinated agency activities with Leo Burnett Israel, Moscow, Turkey, Dubai, and Poland, and handled execution of advertising activities across a portfolio of Philip Morris brands, spending a large part of her time on Philip Morris EEC, Formula 1, and pan-EEMA advertising promotional activities.

In 1996, Lara joined the U.S. start team of one of the first ecommerce storefront technology providers, Jena, Germany headquartered Intershop Communications, where she spent two+ years focused on executing a successful pr launch and communications strategy for the company. In 1998, Lara joined CommerceNet , which lead business development and fund-raising efforts to seed e-commerce pilot project and test bed activities while facilitating business networking opportunities for early-stage technology companies working on e-commerce standards development and internet technologies at the time. Her last venture as an ‘employee’ was with G-Log, where she was hired by the then Chairman, and served several roles. While at G-Log, she led lead generation activities for the firm’s worldwide sales organization, developed an analyst relations program for the firm, and spent time developing a strategic partnership for the firm.

She is a volunteer member of the Steering Committee for the MIT Club of Northern California’s Clean Tech & Renewable Energy Entrepreneurship Program Series, and the Club’s Director of Business Development. Remaining true to a lifelong love of and respect for the outdoors, Lara devotes a significant portion of her time to researching sustainability topics, technologies, and organizations, with an eye on the ‘influencers’ and technologies shaping clean tech in the U.S. She writes a blog called ‘The Abrams Clean Tech Report’ on her site which as she says is, “my own brain dump on what I find out there on the web” and reviews ‘green’ companies and news of interest. Lara Abrams Communications contributes to organizations such as Leave No Trace and Defenders of Wildlife and Acterra, and Lara herself is a contributing writer for Greener World Media. She is also the co-author of an Aberdeen Group report “Internet Incubators: A New Value Proposition for Entrepreneurs and Investors (April, 2002, Aberdeen Group).

Lara can be found spending as much as her ‘off time’ as possible outdoors, often cheering on her husband in his street and ice hockey matches. An avid skier, she also paints in her spare time. She and her husband reside in the Bay Area.