Sandra Kresch is the retired President of PSD International, a boutique-consulting firm focused on providing media and entertainment industry clients address high impact strategic business issues. She has more than 40 years of experience in managing businesses and consulting with clients on issues related to implementing strategic change, combining strategic vision with operational skills to help companies grow in a more global and technologically driven marketplace. Her particular expertise lies in developing strong brands based on intellectual property and then leveraging those brands across multiple businesses to achieve continued growth and increased profitability.
Prior to founding PSD International, Ms. Kresch was a partner of Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Inc. responsible for managing hundreds of assignments related to new product development, corporate and business unit strategy, marketing strategy and tactics and organization design for an international clientele in the consumer products, financial services, media, entertainment and communications industries as well as for professional service firms and not-for-profit organizations. She has specific expertise in managing the interface between technical and marketing functions in the process of launching new products and has done extensive research on the successful management of innovation. In addition, Ms. Kresch has dealt extensively with issues of corporate and not-for-profit governance addressed through both strategic and organizational initiatives.
Ms. Kresch has held a number of senior management positions at Time Inc. where she developed and launched a series of electronic publishing ventures in the Video Division, as well as working in Home Box Office and Time’s Cable Division (ATC) in a variety of new product development and marketing positions. Also at Time, Ms. Kresch created and managed the first strategic planning and development unit in the Magazine Group’s history and was responsible for all Group and Operating Unit strategic planning activities.
Ms. Kresch established her own consulting firm in 1988 in response to the unique business needs of creatively driven companies. After ten years of serving the industry as a boutique firm, she folded PSD International into Price Waterhouse as the base from which to build a global strategy consulting firm serving the Media and Entertainment industries. Serving as the lead Partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ EMC (Entertainment, Media and Communications) practice in New York, Ms. Kresch was responsible for developing and managing consulting engagements in all media and entertainment sectors.
Beyond her commercial consulting clients, Ms. Kresch has had extensive experience in bringing strategic and organizational skills to not-for-profit organizations. She has worked on issues related to growth strategy and operational effectiveness in large and small mission-driven organizations, helping to assure compatibility between mission and service delivery, identifying new policy and program directions and in developing strategies for financial stability. Ms. Kresch also has been an adviser to the European Commission on the emerging information society and related businesses, helping them to understand how the U.S. environment can serve as a model for jump-starting innovations in the media and information industries in Europe.
In addition to her consulting practice, Ms. Kresch has served in leadership positions on both for-profit and not-for-profit Boards of Directors and as a Managing Director of Golden Seeds, an angel investor in women-owned and managed start-up companies.
She was Vice Chair of the Board of Theater Development Fund and Chair of their Program/Policy Committee. Formerly, she also served as Chairman of the Jose Limon Dance Foundation, a founder and President of the Board of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the YWCA of the USA, as well as in leadership positions on the Boards of Directors of Spence Chapin Services to Families and Children, the YWCA of the USA, Utopia Parkway Arts and Ascent Capital Management, a for profit asset management firm. She also has been a Director on the Boards of several start-up companies.
Ms. Kresch holds a BS from the University of Pennsylvania. She has written and lectured on market segmentation, competitive structure, strategic planning, the management of innovation and issues related to corporate and not-for-profit governance.
