Lora Kratchounova
Lora knew she would be a marketer since she seriously started thinking about what she wanted to do with her life. Around 1990 she was lucky enough to be among the first generation of Eastern Europeans who attended the American University in Bulgaria. She likes to think that it was more than luck that got her the job of marketing director for Shell Oil in 1994, overseeing all aspects of the company’s B2B and B2C marketing for the country.
Since that important stint at Shell, Lora has had various marketing roles on this side of the ocean (in Boston and Toronto) – increasingly more digital (and strategic) in nature as the world around her embraced Web 1.0. Lora loved her gig at Modem Media (now Digitas), building the first e-commerce site for Fairmont and figuring out how to sell good fast food to Wendy’s customers. Then she caught the start-up bug and joined VacationCoach.com (now part of TripAdvisor) as its marketing coach, helping the company secure deals with the travel pros of the time such as Travelocity. She couldn’t say no to American Express when they approached her in 2002 to help manage the corporate Platinum and Gold cards and the lead generation activities for Amex’s mid-market sales force.
But once with a start-up bug, always with a start-up bug. So she joined OurStage.com in 2006 as its head of marketing, helping the new music discovery site grow to 120,000+ artists and 1.5 million members. While it was definitely fun at Bonnaroo, SXSW and Sundance, Lora felt it was time to help more than one company at a time. In 2009, she started Scratch Marketing + Media consultancy and spiced it up with some serious social media and SEO sauce. She and her team continues to help OurStage, and have also worked with great companies like Saladworks, NaviNet, Decas Cranberry, Currensee.com, FashionPlaytes.com, Pixability, MaYoMo.com, Michael Palmer, The New York Times best-selling thriller author, to name just a few. A passionate supporter of the MIT Forum of Cambridge, Lora is now part of its Board and helps with the marketing for the organization, including being part of the MIT Forum start-up committee.
Lora has a Bachelor of Arts in journalism and mass communications from the American University in Bulgaria and a master’s degree in advertising and consumer relations from Emerson College. Among other things, she is a Six Sigma Green Belt, so watch out. Lora currently serves on the Executive Board of the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge and heads up the Marketing Committee – join the MIT Forum on Facebook and follow the MIT Forum on Twitter at @Mitefcmb.
