Entrepreneurship

Chris Marentis – Chris Marentis is the founder and CEO of Surefire Social, the leading local online marketing technology and services company in North America. Surefire Social provides a personal, coaching-centric approach to local digital marketing offering results-driven strategies and consultation. Driving quality leads to local businesses, while creating a predictable asset for business owners, Surefire Social raises local businesses visibility through hyper-local search, display, social and mobile marketing strategies. Founded by a senior team that has built successful leading media brands, the company has a distinct understanding of local businesses and their marketing needs.Marentis has been prophetic in identifying the best ways to leverage and harness breakthrough technologies, platforms and new media to drive sales growth for companies ranging from startups to billion-dollar organizations.Marentiss storied career runs parallel with the evolution of the Web from Web 1.0 to 2.0. As Senior Vice President of America Online’s (AOL) Interactive Marketing group, Marentis was a key force in creating the foundational blueprint for online marketing, e-commerce and content branding. While CEO of Clearspring Technologies, he developed one of the most widely adopted venture-backed Web 2.0 technology platform companies in the world.For nearly three decades, Marentis has driven, innovated and created some of the largest media and e-commerce brands by leveraging transformational technologies and understanding the needs of a constantly changing marketplace. He offers a unique perspective on local small business marketing and what it takes for businesses to succeed and thrive in todays evolving environment.Specialties: Business strategy (particularly around technology, media and marketing) that will maximize enterprise value/revenue, Creating high performance teams and local marketing experts, Identifying and forging strategic relationships, Local online marketing