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About
Sue Brelus, Chief Marketing Officer
Professional Experience
Sue oversees Thompson Hine’s Marketing and Strategy group. She reports to the managing partner and works with the firm’s leadership on strategic planning, market position and growth.
Sue has considerable experience in the areas of general management, strategic planning, product management, sales and marketing. Her responsibilities include working with firm leadership to create and implement practice, industry and office plans, as well as manage associated budgets; assist and counsel lawyers on business development strategies; develop and implement branding strategy; manage all aspects of personnel, infrastructure and budget to support market position and top line growth efforts; and establish tracking mechanisms to measure performance and department metrics.
Prior to joining Thompson Hine, Sue served for 11 years as chief development officer at AmLaw 50 firm Squire, Sanders & Dempsey L.L.P., where she led the global business planning and marketing efforts of the firm and also played a key role in the firm’s acquisitions and integration efforts, including 125-lawyer Graham & James and 100-lawyer Steel Hector & Davis.
Sue’s career has spanned general management, marketing and sales, and supply chain management. Her roles have included general manager of the Dekoron business unit of Furon Company, a publicly traded global materials and industrial components company, where she helped establish a product management infrastructure and successfully managed the turnaround and sale of the Dekoron business. She co-founded and built a startup e-business in Silicon Valley including acquisition of angel funding, establishment of a management and operating team, launch of initial services and early revenue build for the company. Sue was vice president of marketing and research for Christian & Timbers, then ranked one of the top 10 national executive search firms. She held various management positions with the General Electric Company including a lead role in the integration of its Canadian operations into its North American operations in the Lighting business; various commercial, industrial and consumer product management positions; and a significant role leading supply chain management for 50 percent of production and inventory for Lighting. She began her career working in sales for NCR Corporation, where she earned several sales achievement awards.
Sue has been a featured speaker at the Legal Marketing Association’s international conferences on the topics of CMO best practices in legal marketing, client and enterprise relationship management, and cross-functional collaboration, as well as other conferences including the Marketing Partner Forum and the Wicker Park Group Symposium.
Education
- Case Western Reserve University Weatherhead School of Management, M.B.A.; Dean’s Award for Academic Achievement; Graduated First in Class
- The Pennsylvania State University, B.S., Marketing
Professional & Community Associations
- Legal Marketing Association
- Team NEO • Member, Marketing Advisory Committee
- Executive Marketing Forum • Advisory Board
- Practice Development Roundtable • Invited Legal CMO/CIO Member
- Cleveland CMO Roundtable
- Hubbard One • Global Client Advisory Board
- ContactNet • Client CMO Advisory Group
- Cleveland Hillel Foundation • Former Board Member
- ON Search Partners • Former Advisory Board