Marketing & Sales:

Warren Donian / Lead Marketing Consultant 

Warren Donian is a marketing professional with nearly a decade’s worth of experience including two years in sports and entertainment. Marketing has always been the focus of Warren’s career with an emphasis on developing, launching and marketing innovative products and services. Prior to becoming a consultant for the San Francisco Small Business Development Center (SBDC), Warren was leading sponsorship sales for Hearts & Helmets, a major Super Bowl XLII related charity event. He managed a team that sold over $130,000 in sponsorships with Aetna, Coors Light and the Fairmont Hotel.

Throughout his career, Warren has successfully built and enhanced strategic relationships with well-known Fortune 500 brands. This includes Aetna, Wells Fargo Bank, Honeywell, John Deere and Kodak. Warren has established critical competencies in market research, sponsorship, event marketing, new concept validation, customer requirements identification, product development and product /service marketing. Marketing plans that Warren has developed for SBDC clients have generated $750,000+ in new revenue.

Warren earned his MBA at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management with an emphasis in marketing and entrepreneurship. He then completed a Master in International Management at Thunderbird School of Global Management with a focus in brand management. Warren graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Cum Laude from the University of California, Davis.


 

JP Collins/ Internet Marketing & Web Design: 

JP Collins is the Internet marketing adviser at the SF SBDC. JP started Pylon Studios in 1997 with a brief hiatus during the dot-com bubble to start again in 2001. He has shared his extensive experience with clients at the SBDC for over nine years.

JP helps clients at the SBDC with internet marketing, brand identity and marketing collateral. While reviewing web sites JP guides clients through the issues of usability, basic Search Engine Optimization and maximizing their message with a clear voice and a great look and feel. JP also offers his expertise in email marketing and now in Social Networking. He also assists clients with developing their logo and brand identity, business cards or brochures acting as a soundboard or unofficial "art director" to give clients a second opinion and direction for an important component of their marketing mix.

When not on a bicycle or in the office, JP is in the garden growing things that are nice to look at or nice to eat. JP's been a resident of San Francisco for nearly 25 years. 

 

Luis Mendoza/ Internet Marketing & Web Design:

Luis Mendoza is the Internet marketing adviser for the Hispanic community. Luis started two Internet Marketing companies: TicketFiesta in 2003 and Montuno Productions in 2008 where he promotes online sales and management of Latin music events.

Luis is bilingual English/Spanish.
 

Michael Neuendorff / Marketing & Sales (San Mateo):

In a professional capacity Michael provides coaching and consulting services in the areas of business planning, sales, marketing and public speaking. Through his services Michael guides business owners, their key managers and professionals to take their businesses and careers to new levels of success. He has 15+ years of sales and marketing experience; extensive team building and leadership experience; teaching, training and mentoring experience and a proven ability to think creatively and listen deeply.
 
Formerly Michael was a marketing director at Oracle where he worked for 10 years.
 
Michael gives back to the community by volunteering with Junior Achievement, Rotary and City Team Ministries.


Fashion Retail and Manufacturing:

Paula Mattisonsierra / Business Consultant

Paula Mattisonsierra has more than 21 years experience in the fashion industry. Mattisonsierra has always had a sense of style having watched her mother design custom garments while she was growing up. When Mattisonsierra decided to enter the fashion business, she first enrolled at the Fashion Institute of Design and merchandising to pursue a degree in Product Development; “understanding how to mass market is very different than customizing a garment for one person.”

While attending FIDM, she began a career as a fashion stylist. Realizing the need for contemporary maternity clothes, Mattisonsierra began making preparations for her own company. In the fall of 2000, she launched Maximum Mama Maternity in San Francisco.

Mattisonsierra graduated from Bernard Baruch College in New York with a degree in International Marketing. Paula also holds a degree in Product Development from Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in San Francisco.
 

Business Planning:

Charles Spencer / Business Consultant:

Lawrence Liu /  Business Advising in Chinese

Lawrence joined the SBDC in December, 2009. Originally from Hong Kong, Lawrence is fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese and English and has a solid background in finance and business management for 20 years. Before joining SBDC, Lawrence was a loan consultant with Asia Pacific Groups specializing in commercial and mortgage lending. His trilingual capacity has rendered him an excellent tool in his outreach services in the Chinese communities in San Francisco.

QuickBooks & Financial Analysis:

Ted Hilliard / Accounting, Bookkeeping, Quickbooks

Ted has over thirteen years of experience as the managing consultant for Hilliard Management Group (HMG), www.hilliardmg.com. HMG helps small businesses increase profits and succeed through effective financial accounting and bookkeeping consulting and training. Ted is highly skilled in using financial analysis, budgeting, and cash flow forecasting to improve profits and business performance. He brings to every assignment strong organizational and technical skills, thorough computer knowledge and mastery of many accounting applications, including all versions of QuickBooks. Ted works with the U.S. Small Business Administration and other small business development organizations to expand their training programs in QuickBooks and bookkeeping.
 
In 2005, Ted served with the US Army in Iraq. While there, he was instrumental in the revitalization and reorganization of the Kirkuk Business Center. He worked with the executive director to develop a wide range of programs and services to enable the business center to become self‐sustaining and better serve the local province. He also trained the staff in business management and how to conduct trainings for Iraqi business men and women. In 2009, Ted returned to Iraq and worked with the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to support businesses and further economic development in the region. He advised local community partners, private industry, and government officials to develop international trade, tourism, and investment in Iraqi businesses.
 
Prior to his founding of Hilliard Management Group, Ted spent six years as the financial manager for the Institute for Law & Policy Planning (ILPP) in Berkeley, California.  Ted received his bachelorʹs degree in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1992 and has taken extensive graduate accounting and finance courses at UC Berkeley and California State University East Bay.

Tom Camerato / Financial Analysis & Modeling:

Restaurant & Specialty Foods:

Susie Biehler / Restaurant Marketing

Susie has represented select restaurant, food and hospitality clients for the past 25 years.  Susie’s philosophy has been to creatively provide the vision and strategy necessary to distinguish and leverage clients in the media and the marketplace.  Her mission has always had an educational emphasis with her involvement in the production of restaurant marketing conferences and speaking and lecturing at seminars produced by the City of San Francisco’s Mayor’s Conference, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, the California Restaurant Association, the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau,  the Hospitality Department at the University of San Francisco and SF Small Business Development Center.  She has served on the boards of the University of San Francisco, Juma Ventures, San Francisco Food Society, Food Runners and is a past president of Les Dames d’Escofier, an international food society, devoted to educational excellence in food, wine and hospitality.  Susie has worked as a Restaurant Marketing Consultant with SBDC clients in San Francisco for 4 years.

Merril Gilbert / Lead Restaurant Consultant:

Merril Gilbert is the newest member of San Francisco Small Business Development Center as the Lead Restaurant Consultant.   In 1994, she founded Restaurant Operation Strategies, a full service hospitality, retail, and specialty food consulting firm.  Merril’s clients are both start-up and established businesses in the restaurant, hotel, and specialty food manufacturing industries.  Merril has a double B.S Degree in Anthropology and Geology from Northern Arizona University.  Her love of the food and beverage industry led her to a career developing people and businesses for growth in an ever changing environment.
 
Merril has over 15 years of operational experience in the restaurants, hotels, and food manufacturing.  Her hands-on experience covers everything from fine-dining to quick service restaurants, launching new businesses, or getting products into local and national distribution.  She is a member of Chef’s Collaborative, and involved with many local and national “farm to table” initiatives. 

 

David Blackford / Bar and Nightclub Management

Anni Minuzzo / Specialty Foods:

With over 30 years experience in the specialty food and beverage industry, 20 of which were spent owning a wholesale baking company, Anni Minuzzo has a broad network of professional associations and a long lens on the culture of food & beverage.  Her products achieved international sales with a customer base that included Williams-Sonoma, Dean & Deluca, Neiman-Marcus, Whole Foods, and 1-800-FLOWERS.
 
For the past 10 years Minuzzo has been sharing her expertise through start-up and expansion workshops for food entrepreneurs in several northern California Small Business Development Centers.  She also provides one-on-one counseling through this program as well as coaching and consulting on a private basis.
 
Minuzzo is proud of several success stories within her client base:  Peas of Mind, Core Foods, Ancient Organics, and Tropical Traders.   Her commitment is simply assisting clients in the realization of their dreams.


Procurement:

Bob Lane / 8(a) Certification and Govt. Contracting:

As an SBDC advisor, Bob helps clients with Government Contracting & Certifications. After 33 years of federal service, Bob Lane retired from the the Defense Logistics Agency where he served as Deputy for Small Business. He recently did some work with the Commission on Economic Development for the State of Nevada. Bob has also taught at West Valley College, DeAnza College, and Skyline College, and for the past few years he has been a Procurement Specialist and Marketing Director helping small businesses compete for government contracts. He received a Bachelor of Arts from California State University, San Francisco.
 

Visual and Performing Artists:

Martha Zlatar / Art Business, Visual & Performing Arts Consulting: