SHARON KLAPKA
Sharon Klapka was VP Business & Brand Development at Adore Me – the e-commerce lingerie startup acquired by Victoria’s Secret for $400M – taking the company from an unknown digital newcomer to a recognized consumer brand. She developed the brand story from scratch, catapulting the company and its founders to New York Times profile features, Forbes 30 Under 30, Oprah’s Picks, and Vogue features (without spending a dime in print advertising), and built a powerful brand that landed Adore Me in top U.S. retailer Nordstrom and a nationwide mall deal. Sharon ghost-wrote op-eds published in TechCrunch, Fast Company, and Fortune; built and delivered presentations to venture-capital investors and multi-billion-dollar strategic partners; and was invited as panelist and keynote speaker at AdWeek, eTail, and Web Summit’s Collision.
Prior to her startup experience, Sharon was a management consultant and earned her MBA from top European business school INSEAD.
Based in NYC, Sharon's ANYTHING BUT PLAIN VANILLA provides C-suite-level branding, storytelling and positioning services to high-growth startups, VCs, and consumer brands operating in the U.S.. The company specializes in pin-pointing brands’ competitive sweet spot; defining their strategic narrative; finding their brand voice; building a comprehensive brand story; defining their visual language; and building the holy grail of brand and marketing assets – a statement-piece website that’s enticing, memorable, and converts. ABPV also builds killer investor pitch decks and ghost-write op-eds published in the biggest tech publications in the world.