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Barefoot announced today that it has hired Charlene Barnard of Chicago as a partner responsible for the firm’s brand strategy practice and new business efforts. Barnard’s career spans corporate, agency and management consulting roles, including chief marketing officer positions with Allianz Global Risks and Affirmative Insurance and head of global branding for Accenture.

“We came to appreciate Charlene’s exceptional strategic mind and her impressive communication skills when working as her agency at both Allianz and Affirmative Insurance,” said Doug Worple, Barefoot’s founder and executive creative officer. “There’s no amount of interviewing that can compare to what you see in someone while working with them, under fire as it were, in the day-to-day challenges of branding and marketing a major corporation.”

Barnard’s expertise spans both marketing and organization change management. Early in her career she developed a view that great brand strategies and marketing campaigns are undermined when customers’ actual experiences fall short of what was promised. For more than 20 years she has worked with CEOs and senior teams to pinpoint meaningful ways brands can be differentiated and to align company business processes, roles and metrics to execute the strategies effectively. Additionally, she has done extensive work in brand communications, honing verbal and visual identities, marketing campaigns and channel strategies for Fortune 1000 companies.

Prior to joining Barefoot, Barnard was chief marketing officer for Affirmative Insurance, a holding company pursuing a consolidation of the non-standard auto insurance business. She came to Affirmative from Allianz Global Risks, one of the world’s largest property and casualty insurers, where she served as chief marketing officer responsible for business strategy, branding and organization change.

Barnard ran a consulting company for seven years, doing strategy and branding work for global leaders in the automotive, professional services and insurance industries. Prior to then, she worked at Accenture as head of global brand and image development and as a member of the global leadership team for its change management practice. She was recruited to Accenture from Golin/Harris International, where she served as executive vice president and managing director of the firm’s corporate marketing and change management practice groups, working with such clients as Chrysler, Jeep, Michelin, McDonald’s, Glaxo and Dow Chemical.  Other agency experience includes roles with DDB Needham in Chicago and Cabot Advertising and Clarke & Company in Boston, where she began her career.

“Charlene has a wonderful mix of marketing experience that can be useful to our clients and prospects,” Worple added. “We also believe she will have a significant impact on Barefoot’s “Marketing the Pursuit of Happiness®” strategy, which is the linchpin of our new business efforts.”

“Over the years I’ve worked with many large and mid-sized agencies as a client or employee,” said Barnard. “From day one as a client of Barefoot, I have been impressed with the firm’s people and operating style. It’s a smart, nimble agency carving out a real niche. It was an easy decision to join their team at an exciting point in their growth in the market.”