Andy Warner

Ecommerce Director

CDK Global

- Lead a team of Customer Success Managers.
- Team is responsible for over 1,300 accounts and over $50M TCV

Manager, Customer Success

- Responsible for leading the strategy to grow the company’s impact as a strategic partner to over 1,500 minority automobile dealer accounts.  
- Responsible for engaging and growing market share with OEMs, minority dealer associations and other industry partners.  These groups include: National Association of Automobile Dealers (NAMAD); General Motors Minority Dealer Association (GMMDA); Chrysler Minority Dealer Association (CMDA); Ford Minority Dealer Association (Ford MDA); and Toyota Lexus Minority Owner Dealers Association (TLMODA).
- Partner with CDK's Diversity and Inclusion division to support CDK's inclusive culture, including talent identification, community engagement, and CDK's supplier diversity programs.  This includes the Fueling Careers Scholarship Program, a collaboration between CDK Global and NAMAD.

Partnership Development Executive, Minority Dealers

- Supervised a team of  Customer Success Advocates aligned to the east, midwest and southern regions of the United States.  
- Trained and developed Customer Success Advocates to promote retention and loyalty.
- Worked closely with customers to ensure they are satisfied with the services they receive and to improve upon areas of dissatisfaction with the goal to increase revenue and retention.

- Advised Nissan Motor Company on their lead management strategy and digital sales operations at Tier I.
- Consulted with Nissan dealerships on developing digital training objectives for Market Areas and Regions at Tier III.
- Responsible for increasing internet sales for assigned areas in Nissan’s dealership network.
- Advised CDK Global’s SEO team on improving their customer retention and sales processes.
- Created consulting product packages for CDK Global’s digital retailing and digital operations product offerings.

Performance Improvement Consultant

- Led a national team of 30 automobile dealership consultants.  The team drove the utilization of internet leads, lead response time, sales close rate, and digital marketing/advertising training for Ford and Lincoln Dealers for the United States.
- Advised key business partners at Ford Motor Company and Ford Direct on digital marketing KPIs.
- Worked with regional and market area Sales/Parts/Service Field Teams coordinating site visits, e-business updates, conducting regional symposiums and executing national training projects.

Sr Manager, Ford / Lincoln Consulting & Training

3 Birds Marketing LLC

Helping the automotive industry improve their email, social, search and other digital marketing strategies.

Director, Automotive

Tonkin Family of Dealerships

Managed internet sales processes for 17 store dealer group.  
Ward's eDealer Top 10 group

LorMar Auto Group

• Manage 2 Ford, 1 General Motors franchised and 1 used internet sales departments 
• Manage internet sales strategy (sales, service and fixed operations)
• Coordinate all internet promotions, marketing and communications 

Accomplishments: 
• Digital Dealer magazine cover story March 2008 
• Speaker at Association of Automotive Internet Sales Professionals (AAISP)'s national conference, April 2008
• National Top 60 Ford e-dealer
• National Top 100 Ford dealer

Digital Marketing Director

Dealer Specialties, Inc.

• Key contact for company’s 2000+ website partners (i.e.Autotrader.com, Cars.com, Cobalt, Reynolds Web Solutions) 
• Managed team of developers responsible for internal technical enhancements requested by business partners
• Responsible for aligning company's technical roadmap with website partners and OEMs’s product roadmap 
• Managed compliance standards based upon licensing agreements with website partners

Accomplishments:
• Assisted in creation of GetAuto.com Used Vehicle Index measuring trends in national automotive market
• Facilitated business development focus groups for sales managers 
• Led team that decreased export process from 4 hours to 30 minutes

Data Partner Manager

Procter & Gamble

Contractor

Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center

Business Development Associate

Strategic SaaS leader with success growing marketing, sales, customer success & operations teams 💻 | Expect content to help you start your day awesomely 😊 & education for SaaS professionals to grow in your career 💡

I am an experienced strategic SaaS leader with success growing customer success, operations and sales teams.  The majority of my career has been in the automotive software and digital marketing verticals.  

Currently, I have national responsibility driving the sales and marketing for ethnic minority-owned automotive dealerships at CDK Global.  This represents over 1,500 customers across the United States.  In addition, I drive advocacy, education, support and training for our ethnic minority dealer associations.  

Previously, I have:
- led national consulting teams advising automotive dealerships on sales best practices;
- advised automotive manufacturers on Tier II and Tier III digital marketing strategies to increase lead generation;
- led national top 20 automotive dealer group's digital marketing and digital sales operations;  
- led development teams that managed B2B data transfer feeds;
- published in automotive digital properties and journals regarding automotive retail best practices;
- featured speaker at several national and regional automotive industry events.   

I am highly skilled in relationship building among business partners, customers, and all levels within an organization.  

Also, I have a passion for delivering diversity and inclusion results that drive key business performance metrics.  

Specialties: Automotive retail, CRM management, Customer Success, Internet marketing, lead generation, mobile marketing, sales management, sales operations, SEM, SEO, social media marketing and website development and management

- Responsible for leading the strategy to grow the company’s impact as a strategic partner to minority automobile dealers.  
- Responsible for engaging over 1,500 accounts while maintaining partnerships with OEMs, minority dealer associations and other industry partners.
- Partner with CDK's Diversity and Inclusion division to support CDK's inclusive culture, including talent identification, community engagement, and CDK's supplier diversity programs.

Transforming executive expertise into synchronized, searchable presence | Brand & AI Visibility Strategy Leader | GTM Advisor | Speaker | Author, Theatre of the Mind | Founder @ The Borden Group

Visibility isn’t luck — it’s strategy.
I build visible leaders and trusted brands that drive credibility, opportunity, and growth.

Hi, I’m Melanie. Not too long ago, everyone around me was losing their job, and I didn’t know where I’d turn if I lost mine.  So, I turned online. 

I've been recognized on Favikon’s Top 200 LinkedIn Creator List and Sales Intel’s Top 300 Women Making an Impact in B2B SaaS. Seen in places like Entrepreneur, LA Weekly, New York City Biz List, New York Weekly, and The Wall Street Journal. 

I’d spent years in sales and marketing building for tech companies, retail brands, and high-growth startups, so I leveraged those same frameworks to build my own. It worked. 

I grew my visibility, reach, and revenue — and discovered that building an executive brand isn’t about vanity. 

I help founders and executives turn real expertise into searchable, trusted authority by structuring their thinking so it’s understood by both people and AI.

I partner with executives, founders, nonprofits, and leadership teams across industries — from emerging tech to investor-backed enterprises — to build executive visibility systems that generate measurable business outcomes. 

What we do at The Borden Group goes beyond ghostwriting or positioning. It’s a full-scale visibility and go-to-market strategy — grounded in lived experience — that combines strategy, creative, and execution.

Today, visibility is decided by both people and machines. I integrate an AI-first layer into every engagement so your expertise is findable wherever decisions start. We partner best with teams ready to move fast, stay consistent, and translate brand presence into pipeline results. 

Our work helps leaders and organizations:

-Generate new pipelines & accelerate go-to-market traction
-Amplify executive visibility across tech & business media
-Create credibility that supports board seats & advisory roles
-Launch books that open doors to authority & revenue
-Scale internal marketing & content systems
-Unlock new revenue streams tied to business growth

If you’re a founder, operator, or investor ready to grow your company and your credibility, let's connect. 

My book, Theatre of the Mind, is a playbook for leaders navigating mindset, visibility, and influence.→  Link to order in featured section. 

Connect with me here or at www.humantobrand.com
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter: humantobrand.com/newsletter

Gain actionable insights to elevate your personal brand, amplify influence, and future-proof your leadership impact.

Melanie Borden

I will be your yes woman.


Yes, you should talk about that meeting on LinkedIn, especially if it changed how you think. 

Yes, you should go on that podcast even if your voice shakes a little.

Yes, you should accept the panel invite even if you think someone else is “more qualified.”

Yes, you should update your LinkedIn headline to reflect who you’re becoming, not who you were.

Yes, you should ask for the introduction.

Yes, you should post the opinion you’ve been editing down for three days. 

Yes, you should tell the real story.

Yes, you should pitch yourself.

Yes, you should start before you feel ready.

Yes, you should build the thing that keeps tugging at you and keeps you up at night.

Yes, you should say what you actually want.

If you’ve been waiting for someone to tell you it’s okay and give you permission… you are not late. 

I’m telling you. Yes!! Go!

If you’re building something bigger this year,  I want to work with you:
https://lnkd.in/gfHaKiAB

Melanie Borden, executive personal branding strategist, Founder of The Borden Group, LinkedIn visibility expert, and author of Theatre of the Mind, photographed in a luxury car during business travel. She holds a smartphone while seated confidently in a cream leather interior with polished wood details and an urban skyline in the background. Wearing a structured beige blazer, white blouse, blue jeans, and neutral heels, the image reflects executive visibility, female leadership authority, founder brand positioning, strategic mobility, and AI-era discoverability. The photograph reinforces themes of Searchable Leadership, executive presence, premium positioning, and modern business influence.

You know that advice people love to give?

“If you don’t ask for what you want, you won’t get it.”

Okay. Sure. I give that advice too. 

But I've realized that’s not the real problem.

The real problem is that most people I speak to don’t actually ask for what they want, and it is reflected in their brands and business. 

They hint.
They hope.
They polish their LinkedIn.
They post “valuable” content.

But they never clearly say what they want. 

At the end of last year, I made a decision.

I’m promoting my book Theatre of the Mind. One of the ways I’m doing that? Podcasts.

So I said it out loud. 
I want to be on 30 podcasts.
I’m open to interviews.
Here’s what I speak about and why your audience will benefit from it. 

Since January? I’ve been invited to appear on 25 podcasts.

Nothing magical happened.
I didn’t suddenly become more qualified.

I just got specific and made the ask.

If you’re not telling the market exactly what you want, whether it's a stage, an introduction, a client, a board seat etc — you’re making people guess and that won't help you. 

So try this instead:
-Include an ask once a week in your posts or in your newsletter.
-Include an ask in the comments of your post.

You don't need to ask in every single piece of content that goes out, but do include it in your tactics. 

Busy people don’t guess and cannot read minds. They respond to direct asks. 

What are you not asking for right now?

Melanie Borden, founder and personal brand strategist, sits in the back seat of a luxury car holding an iPhone as if filming a short-form video or recording a podcast update. She wears a cream blazer over a lace camisole with blue jeans and heels, styled with soft glam makeup and shoulder-length dark hair with bangs. A grey quilted designer handbag sits beside her on the white leather seat. The scene communicates executive visibility, self-promotion on social media, and building a thought leadership platform—promoting her book Theatre of the Mind through podcast interviews and consistent, intentional personal branding.

When I met “Revenue,” I thought it would look like likes, comments, and reach.
It didn’t.

I thought the metric stick for  personal brand revenue would be based on traditional KPIs. Impressions. Engagement rate. Follower growth. Calls.

But the more podcasts I talk on, and the more founders + executives I support over time, the more I realize I need to normalize/keep saying this out loud:

The KPIs that create revenue from your personal brand are rarely the ones you can screenshot or that you find in a dashboard.

Early on, I measured the obvious things mentioned. 
Then I started paying attention to repeated things of what started happening after the post.

The quiet signals.
The “did you see that?” 
The “I’ve been watching you for months/years” 

Here’s what being an active creator on LinkedIn (and a marketer) taught me:

People rarely buy from your posts.
They buy from the patterns your posts create over time.

And those patterns aren’t built on LinkedIn alone, they’re built across podcasts, speaking, newsletters, blogs, and the ads/press hits that keep your name in motion.

They see you in one place…
then again in another….
then again when they’re finally ready.

And the conversion signal shows up like this:

➡️Someone calls you off-hours because they saw your ad on another platform.
➡️You get a DM that says: “I don’t know why this hit me, but it did.”
➡️A text from a friend-of-a-friend: “My CEO keeps talking about you.”
➡️A prospect references your newsletter — not your sales page.
➡️An email that starts with: “We’ve been following your content on LinkedIn.”
➡️A connection request comes in: "I heard you on x podcast."
➡️Someone in the office started talking about your content 
➡️On a call prospects say: “I feel like I already know you”
➡️A prospect references a specific sentence you wrote three weeks ago
➡️A recruiter / partner asks, “Are you open to...?”
➡️An event organizer says, “You were recommended more than once.”
➡️A silent follower turns into your highest-paying client.
➡️You hear, “You’re everywhere lately” 
➡️Your inbound calls get shorter because trust was built before the meeting.

Those are KPIs. 

So yes—track what you can. Document all the basics. Data will tell you a story, but it is only part of it.
Don’t let traditional metrics be the only data point to convince you nothing is working.

Because no matter how many KPIs you report, one thing stays true:
Virality ≠ Revenue. 

When was the last time a “small” signal proved your marketing was working—
even if the post didn’t perform?

Hi, I'm Melanie Borden. I build revenue engines around executive visibility across multi-channel positioning. 👋🏻

Self-portrait of Melanie Borden, executive personal branding strategist and founder of The Borden Group, photographed in bright natural window light. Close-up headshot with an approachable, confident expression; shoulder-length dark brown hair with soft layers and bangs; green eyes; minimal, polished makeup. She’s wearing a neutral taupe knit turtleneck sweater, creating a modern, professional, elevated look suitable for LinkedIn and thought leadership content. The background is a clean, dark interior that increases contrast and keeps attention on her face, conveying credibility, warmth, executive presence, and leadership in personal brand strategy, visibility, and multi-channel marketing (LinkedIn, podcasts, newsletters, speaking).

This is the personal branding hill I will die on. Personal content is the ultimate differentiator and disruptor...and fear is often the only thing standing between people and showing up fully as themselves (myself included, once upon a time). Inspired by my conversation today with Amie Milner. 

Do you agree?

Impacting at scale means being direct and letting people know how you can help them. You never know what it could lead to.

If you don’t put yourself out there and ask, people won’t find you and you’ll mistake silence for lack of interest when it was really your lack of visibility.

The right people will assume you’re not available. And someone else will get the yes you didn’t give yourself a chance to earn.

So shoot your shot.
19/30 podcasts booked YTD

The loudest voice in the room is usually the one in your own head.

That feeling isn’t self-doubt. It’s 100% growth. When you change that voice everything else around you changes too.

Your story is your strategy. When it is seen online, your market responds.

What story are you telling right now?

Words I know you need to hear...

LinkedIn has become part of the AI search layer in 2026, whether you’re thinking about it that way or not.

The headlines are all pointing in the same direction: AI agents are increasingly filtering what humans see. Platforms are under pressure over moderation. “AI slop” is eroding trust. Bots can mimic humans at scale.

Put simply: your leadership voice is no longer just competing in a feed. It’s competing inside an AI-filtered layer where systems decide what gets summarized, what gets suppressed, and what gets repeated.

That changes executive visibility.

The question isn’t “How do I get more reach?”
It’s: “Would an AI confidently pass my voice through to the people I want to reach?”

This week’s issue of my newsletter breaks down what this structural shift means for leaders who don’t want to become full-time creators, but do want to be findable and credible:

Why LinkedIn is increasingly treated as an authority record
Why attention depth now matters more than surface engagement
Why structured, long-form thinking is becoming evidence—not just content
Why conversation and proof outperform lightweight posts
How to think about being summarizable and citable, not just scroll-stopping

If you lead a business or a category, this isn’t a creator conversation. It’s a reputation conversation.

What’s one thing you could start documenting once a month that would help your next client, candidate, or investor see how you lead without having to take your word for it?

View newsletter: Executive Visibility Brief

Every issue: one headline, one lesson, one tool you can use now to strengthen your visibility. LinkedIn isn’t just a social platform anymore—it’s beco

Open article: Why Your Voice Must Be Strong Enough to Survive The AI Filter Era by Melanie Borden • 6 min read

Why Your Voice Must Be Strong Enough to Survive The AI Filter Era

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The Battle

Andy Warner

Melanie Borden

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The Battle

Andy Warner

Melanie Borden

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Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Melanie Borden's LinkedIn Performance

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