TED Community » Shannon Downey

About Me

Shannon Downey is a connector.

With an instinct for people and a passion for what's new and next she has built a career innovating new techniques to communicate in an increasingly complex and ever expanding universe.

With over thirteen years experience in the marketing world, Shannon has developed a unique understanding of traditional and innovative marketing strategies and techniques. As the first E-Commerce Manager for Spalding Sports worldwide, she brought a global company to the online market. Her passion for staying ahead of the curve has never waned.

Shannon launched Pivotal in 2007 in response to the need for a responsible, transparent, forward thinking and agile marketing company. Pivotal embraces what’s known and what’s next, because it is not either/or. Traditional media is not dying. It’s evolving. And while it’s true that organizations that do not evolve will die, any marketer who does not embrace the bedrock principles of smart, time-tested, brand-building, classically-modeled methods will be left on the side of the digital road.

This is the Pivotal difference that Shannon has created.

Pivotal is both a certified B Corporation (triple bottom line business) and a WBE.

Over the past year, Shannon has trained hundreds of top-level marketers at Leo Burnett, DDB and the Omnicom agencies in digital and social media marketing as a Digital Trainer with The Knowledge Engineers.

Shannon believes in the power of doing good, spreading happiness, sharing a good laugh, and in living the adage, “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.”

In her spare time, she sits on the Board of Directors for the Firebelly Foundation and is an adjunct faculty member at DePaul University in the School for New Learning. Shannon is also a regular blogger on topics of Women in Entrepreneurship for Crain’s Business Chicago. Shannon also had the privilege of doing a TED talk at the 2012 TEDActive Conference in Palm Springs.