Dana Theus

Principal

With over 22 years’ professional and executive experience in high-technology strategic planning, marketing communications and product management, Dana Theus offers a high-impact combination of strategic insight and operational street smarts to clients in the for profit and non profit fields. As Principal of Magus Consulting L.L.C., Ms. Theus helps organizations refine and improve their strategic market positioning.

Working with clients seeking to solidify stakeholder relations while introducing new business and technology initiatives, Ms. Theus facilitates client executive teams in creating motivational vision, mission and values statements; refining their strategic marketing focus through marketing product and partnership initiatives; and developing communications plans to implement their vision with the involvement of employees, partners and customers. She has also led the launch of new web, software and services initiatives in the business-to-business market. Tactically, Ms. Theus supports clients in the following areas: developing product plans and business cases; branding architectures and launch communications plans; sales and distribution strategies; and partnership development strategies. 

Prior to founding Magus Consulting in 2001, Ms. Theus held executive positions for technology startups Bantu Inc. and CareerBuilder, Inc., overseeing all aspects of marketing and product management for these enterprise software and web application companies. As Vice President of Marketing at Bantu (a developer of secure instant messaging solutions) she spearheaded the company’s initiative to penetrate corporate and federal government markets and managed brand development, marketing communications and public relations efforts resulting in steady press coverage (including Time Magazine, Red Herring, L.A. Times and CNETNews.com) and multiple analyst mentions (including Gartner Group, IDC and Forrester Research). Ms. Theus gave press and analyst interviews and regularly spoke at Internet, Unified Communications and Wireless Communications conferences. As a member of the executive team, she was instrumental in developing the business strategies at the heart of the company’s first successful funding round. At CareerBuilder (an Internet job board), Ms. Theus managed the company’s entire product line during 500% growth cycle as firm grew from $3 to $16 million in revenue and went public. In addition to managing Careerbuilder.com (a top 3 career site at the time), she was responsible for the launch of its Web-based recruiting software and services product line, a tele-sales channel, advertising business line and a partner affiliate network infrastructure supporting more than 25 sites. In support of the direct, inside and distribution partner sales teams, she implemented pricing strategies that increased average revenue per customer over 60% while reducing sales channel discounting over 40%. 

At Tele-TV (a joint venture of Bell Atlantic, Pacific Telesis and NYNEX) Ms. Theus ran a product management team for the interactive and digital television service offered over the MMDS technical platform. At Bell Atlantic Information Services, she oversaw product strategy and market research for the first server-based, ADSL video-on-demand market trial in the U.S. At EDS, Ms. Theus initiated the company’s first technology policy initiative, representing EDS to U.S. Federal and State governments, and building the company’s government affairs presence in the European Union. Ms. Theus was a member of an Executive Task Force assigned to assess EDS Europe’s organizational effectiveness and business practices, reporting to the Chairman.

Ms. Theus is an Assistant Professor at George Mason University School of Management teaching a graduate course entitled, "Marketing in the High Tech Age". She received a bachelor’s degree in communications from UCLA (1983) and a master’s degree in communications from the University of Southern California (1985). An accomplished speaker, Ms. Theus has presented at numerous conferences and seminars. Ms. Theus is an active volunteer in her local community as a Commissioner on the Arlington Commission for the Arts (Chairwoman, Marketing Committee) and sits on the Board of Bowen McCauley Dance. She is a member of the American Marketing Association and a Principal and co-founder of B2B Marketing Excellence, a professional development training and web resource for B2B and B2G marketers.

Dana Theus (.pdf)

“Dana [Theus] has done a masterful job helping our department heads agree quickly on a common vision, mission, values and core strategic initiatives.”

Andy Feldstein, Ph.D., President  & CEO, Innovative Concepts Inc.