Rodrigo Espinoza

Rodrigo leads business development and marketing for Groove 11, a brand experience agency with offices in New York, San Francisco, Portland Or, and San Rafael CA. He has 15 years of experience in sales management, integrated marketing, business development, alliances, strategic planning, global programs, sponsorships, and brand development. He’s worked with; Cisco, IBM, Clorox, General Motors, Rim/Blackberry, Apple, Starbucks, Dell, Intel, HP, Adobe, Google, NetApp, VMware and Citrix among others.

Rodrigo has held management positions at; Ziff-Davis, Gartner, MediaLive International, George P. Johnson, Maritz, and at wireless software start-up Brience.

At Maritz he was responsible for developing the experiential marketing practice, folding the travel and production divisions into one business unit offering strategic marketing services to fortune 500 companies. He spent 5 years at George P. Johnson, creating the global sponsorship sales and partner marketing practice, leading business development efforts and managing the client services team. While at MediaLive International, he built the proprietary sales and marketing team, won key partnerships with Minolta/Konica, Canon and HP. At Gartner he introduced integrated event services, and at Ziff-Davis, he managed a bi-coastal sales and marketing team selling integrated sponsorship programs to Fortune 100 companies.

Rodrigo was instrumental in creating gorilla and ambassador marketing programs in the mid-1990’s, and he grew a business from the ground-up, servicing the high school and college markets and securing sponsorship from Vans and Billabong.

Rodrigo holds a Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communication with a Concentration in Journalism from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and a Master of Science in Integrated Marketing Communications from Golden Gate University, San Francisco.

He has chaired the Advisory Council for the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Recreation, Parks, & Tourism Administration department. He’s been a featured speaker at marketing conferences and has guest lectured at the University of California at Berkeley, San Francisco State University and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. He’s taught Integrated Marketing at the University of California at Berkeley Extension, International Diploma Program and authored marketing and management white papers.