Susan Henken-Thielen
Susan Henken-Thielen is the cofounder of Outsource Marketing. She has more than 25 years of management, marketing and strategic planning experience with companies in a range of industries and maturities - from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises. Her experience spans consumer and industrial products and services, including consumer goods, medical devices/health care,education, manufacturing, metalworking and plastics industries and includes work in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors.
As VP of Marketing at Slendertone Distribution, Inc. and Compex Technologies, Inc. Henken developed the launch plan for the North American market for the first Electro-Muscle-Stimulation medical device cleared by the FDA for consumer sales . Sales grew to $40 Million in five years.
As the first director of the Marketing Resource Office at Minnesota Project Innovation, Inc., Susan designed the strategies, processes, procedures and tools to provide marketing assistance to small and midsize manufacturers. Clients received assistance in strategic planning, business plan/marketing plan development, SBIR and STTR commercialization plan development and implementing a marketing discipline within organizations.
Henken also has worked for Cigna, Novartis and Gold’n Plump Poultry, creating and introducing new products and services. During her three-year stint at Gold’n Plump Poultry, where she led the company into the packaged goods arena and implemented a formal new product development process, she was awarded the President’s Eagle award for innovative leadership. While at Sandoz Nutrition, Inc., Susan managed the Featherweight®, Fiddle Faddle®, Screaming Yellow Zonkers® and Poppycock® brands, and introduced more than 40 new products and reversed a pattern of declining sales for the first time in five years.
In 2000, Henken was nominated for membership in Northwestern University’s Council of 100, which recognizes high achieving women graduates. Grinnell College’s Alumni Council nominated Susan to its select Grinnell Alumni Council, an alumni leadership organization, in 2009. Henken earned her Masters of Management degree at J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Evanston, IL, with concentrations in Marketing, Strategy and Industrial Relations. She graduated from Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA with a B.A. in Psychology, and earned membership in the Grinnell and Mortar Board Honor Societies and Phi Beta Kappa.
