Wes Jakacki

at Christianity Today
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Contact Information
us****@****om
(386) 825-5501
Location
Greater Chicago Area

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Theresa H.

Wes Jakacki and I worked together for more than ten years at Christianity Today. During nearly six of those years, I had the privilege of being his direct manager. Wes is smart, quick, creative, strategic, a team player, and he leads those around him to greater effectiveness, even those who don’t report to him. His mind naturally understands systems and processes, and unlike some people, he sees the ways that systems are comprised of and enabled by people. With this awareness, he can then work with and through those people to make things happen. One area where I saw Wes grow and shine was in business and marketing analytics. While we were working together, he actively led the revenue projection process for several business lines and when questions arose that might have more naturally gone to a more senior member of the team, I would hear,

Sandra Hoekstra-Lower

Wes is a solution oriented thinker. He is able to understand a problem, identify solutions and evaluate vendors which is a valuable asset for any marketing operations team. He has strong project management skills and is able to lead a team through implementation. Wes also is a strategic thinker. He is able to process data and analytics and make decisions or recommendations for the organization.

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Credentials

  • Business Analytics Specialization
    Gies College of Business - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
    Jan, 2021
    - Nov, 2024
  • Value Chain Management Specialization
    Gies College of Business - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
    Sep, 2020
    - Nov, 2024
  • Evolving Manager Bootcamp
    HR Source
    Jun, 2017
    - Nov, 2024

Experience

    • United States
    • Book and Periodical Publishing
    • 100 - 200 Employee
      • Oct 2022 - Present

      I oversee and direct CT's operations team as well including shepherding a significant team and systems transition in our financial operations department. I continue to supervise the marketing operations, analytics, production, customer service, and fulfillment functions. I also oversee four annual audits, the corporate budget, cash management, internal fiduciary committee, and corporate insurance and benefits policies as well as accounts receivable, accounts payable, accounting, payroll, corporate expense, and financial planning and analysis functions. Show less

      • Nov 2021 - Oct 2022

      I was promoted to oversee our Marketing efforts for Christianity Today in addition to maintaining my oversight of business operations functions like analytics, fulfillment, and customer service. In this capacity, I led our team in YoY increases in our four main revenue sources in a challenging economic environment. In this year, following two years of research, I led a cross-functional team to migrate our payment vendor, ID management, and subscription platform to Piano, the first time in 33 years, through a complex project on deadline in 6 months. Show less

      • Oct 2018 - Nov 2021

      In this role, I oversaw our subscription fulfillment, product fulfillment, 3rd-party and bookstore relationships, customer service, analytics, and marketing operations functions. During this period, our marketing operations team carried out a successful print to digital transition for one of our publications, Church Law & Tax, which led to eliminating all print production, editorial, and fulfillment costs while maintaining our member base and increasing revenue.In December 2019, I also navigated a significant customer service crisis, scaling up our organization's response to handle a year's worth of customer service in a 2-week span.Amidst the pandemic, our organization moved fully remote from hybrid, and I successfully led our team through challenges around magazine and product shipment restrictions domestically and abroad, numerous supply chain complications, as well as problem-solve how best to serve churches with our content with churches having their doors shuttered.My team and I also executed a new subscription pricing strategy for our flagship publication, leading to annual increase in subscription cash flow of 18%. Show less

      • Mar 2017 - Sep 2018

      In this role, I continued to oversee marketing operations, fulfillment, analytics, customer service, and numerous vendor relationships, but also led a key project migrating 5 eCommerce stores, a combination of headless and stand-alone stores, from three different eCommerce platforms to BigCommerce as well as moving our email marketing automation platform to Klaviyo. I also transitioned our product fulfillment from a third-party to in-house via Shipstation. Through that project, we reduced cost of our product fulfillment by 33% and improved ship time by 65%, also leading to a 15% increase in product revenue from platform migration.Through quarterly goal setting and KPIs around first response, overdue tickets, and overall service time, we transformed the performance of our customer service team, cutting our service time by 50%. We also reached 98% customer satisfaction.I worked with our analytics team to streamline reporting and processes, creating data stories to coincide with our reports. I led our team to focus on key drivers of subscription revenue on each of our site channels, which led to a re-launch of one of our site channels, Christian History, which I co-led with our managing editor, becoming one of our top 3 performing channels in terms of converting subscribers. Show less

      • Aug 2016 - Mar 2017

      I manage the relationship between all CT brands and our various fulfillment services. I also supervise marketing operations staff in the daily activities related to resource fulfillment and customer service. I also act as a consultant for marketing teams on new projects and promotions helping execute marketing strategy, as well as co-leading our marketing enrichment group. In this role, I re-envisioned organization’s analytics reporting and dashboards for clearer focus on KPI’s and customer funnel and created more accurate subscription revenue models for annual budgeting and reforecasting. Show less

      • Jan 2016 - Aug 2016

      I manage the relationship between all CT brands and our various fulfillment services. I also supervise marketing operations staff in the daily activities related to resource fulfillment, customer service, and execution of marketing strategy. In this capacity, I helped reduce our overhead 50% related in marketing operations by streamlining systems integrations, reporting, and fulfillment.

      • Jan 2015 - Jan 2016

      In this role, I created marketing plans and led the team in implementation of those plans on multiple new sites, a new bi-weekly digital publication called The Behemoth, and played a key role in launching our podcast network and several of our podcasts including Quick to Listen. I also worked to continue to drive up engagement, acquisition, and retention for Christianity Today through our website, social media, search, and through partnerships. I also implemented one-click cross-sells and up-sells on acquisition pages and renewals, leading to increased customer lifetime value and boosting newly launched products. Show less

      • Feb 2014 - Jan 2015

      I develop, implement, and analyze marketing efforts for the Christianity Today magazine and Books & Culture. I also manage newsletter, site, and app projects. I ran numerous A/B tests, optimizing our subscription acquisition pages, renewals, website, email newsletters, and subscriber communications.

      • Feb 2013 - Feb 2014

      I transitioned from my team being split between the Advertising and Marketing teams, to fully Marketing as many of our efforts in the first year really began to gain traction. Our team doubled subscription revenue through pricing and promotion strategy bringing sustained growth following a 3-year decline. I also launched and tested numerous promotions including first ever Black Friday sale, which has become the largest annual promotion. I also created and executed social media plan on Twitter and Facebook with a focus on virality and engagement through organic and paid marketing, driving increases in audience engagement and reach. Show less

      • Apr 2012 - Feb 2013

      I produce e-mail newsletters, manage social networks, analyze search engine marketing, and formulate marketing strategies for Christianity Today.

    • Demand Management Analyst
      • Nov 2009 - Apr 2012

      Alongside the Demand Manager, I run the company's instrument allocation program, designing and maintaining an Access database of all US Instrument orders, credits, and budgets and track budgets vs. territory spending. Also, act as primary contact for all instrument order inquiries from all 40 US Sales territories. Utilizing all instrument data, I sent out sales, instrument orders, and inventory reports to sales territories, operations, marketing, and finance. Finally, I facilitate communication on all supply commits for new marketing product launches and missions donations. Show less

    • United States
    • Book and Periodical Publishing
    • 1 - 100 Employee
    • Marketing Intern
      • May 2009 - Aug 2009

      Assisted marketing team with all efforts including work in promotions, circulation, and social marketing. Developed and implemented a marketing plan with ideas for increasing site traffic and followers on all of RELEVANT's social networks. For the four years following my internship, I continued as a contributing writer at RELEVANT writing music reviews, blogs, and features for RELEVANT's print and web publications. Assisted marketing team with all efforts including work in promotions, circulation, and social marketing. Developed and implemented a marketing plan with ideas for increasing site traffic and followers on all of RELEVANT's social networks. For the four years following my internship, I continued as a contributing writer at RELEVANT writing music reviews, blogs, and features for RELEVANT's print and web publications.

    • United States
    • Real Estate
    • 700 & Above Employee
    • Accounting Intern
      • May 2007 - Aug 2008

      Worked two summers at SIRVA in the Revenue Accounting Department analyzing government move contracts for the necessary criteria with the help of a variety of programs. Contacted agents for necessary information. Worked two summers at SIRVA in the Revenue Accounting Department analyzing government move contracts for the necessary criteria with the help of a variety of programs. Contacted agents for necessary information.

Education

  • Gies College of Business - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
    Master of Business Administration - MBA, Specializations in: Business Analytics, Digital Marketing, and Value Chain Management
    2019 - 2020
  • Indiana University Bloomington
    Bachelor of Science in Business, Marketing, International Business, Music (minor)
    2005 - 2009
  • Danish Institute for Study Abroad
    Bachelor's degree, Creative Business Courses
    2008 - 2008

Community

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