Grad Conn
General Manager B2B Marketing, Microsoft

Grad Conn

As General Manager for the Microsoft U.S. Central Marketing Organization Grad leads a team of 21st-century marketers and data professionals who drive B2B revenue marketing activities for the $35B Microsoft commercial business in the United States. Core areas of responsibility include content marketing; marketing automation; BI & reporting; event marketing; social command center; social selling; account-based marketing; and centralized operations.

Grad is a classically-trained packaged goods marketer with a passion for technology and people. Previously, he worked in Microsoft Research where he led the creation and launch of Microsoft HealthVault and drove the implementation of SQL-powered unified patient discharge reports at academic medical centers such as New York-Presbyterian Hospital; Johns Hopkins Medicine; and the Mayo Clinic.

Prior to joining Microsoft in 2006, Grad spent nine years in product management at Procter & Gamble on brands like Tide, Cheer, and Downy. He left P&G to become a Web entrepreneur and over the next dozen years he led five start-ups as either CEO or CMO, including OpenCola (named by Fortune as “…one of the 25 coolest technology companies”) and Points.com where he built and launched the industry’s first loyalty point exchange and created Audience Rewards, the official loyalty program of Broadway.

Grad holds a Bachelors of Commerce degree from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He is a Microsoft Founders Award winner and Circle of Excellence Platinum Club recipient and has been awarded multiple creative awards and technology patents. He is known for his innovative perspectives on technology marketing which he shares on his blog at copernicanshift.com and in his YouTube Web series “Wonderful World of Marketing” (youtube.com/gradconn). 

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