Jeff Zabin

Research Director

A bestselling business author, influential research analyst and former technology marketing executive, Jeff Zabin serves as Principal Analyst and Chief Research Officer (CRO). Until December 2009, when he committed to making his vision for Gleanster a reality, Zabin served as vice president and research fellow at Aberdeen Group.

At Aberdeen, Zabin built the Customer Management Technology practice, led various strategic initiatives and hosted the annual CMO Summit. He is the author of two bestselling business books: The Seven Steps to Nirvana: Strategic Insights Into e-Business Transformation and Precision Marketing: The New Rules for Attracting, Retaining and Leveraging Profitable Customers. He has written more than a hundred influential articles in trade magazines like Brandweek, Computerworld, CMO, CRM Buyer, Multichannel Merchant, Chief Marketer, Target Marketing and DIRECT as well as dozens of popular industry reports. His research has also been published in top academic journals, including the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. 

Zabin has served as a trustee of the Marketing Science Institute and has advised numerous technology solution providers and consumer brands. He has also lectured at top-ranked MBA programs and keynoted dozens of industry conferences, including The iMedia Brand Summit, The Conference Board Marketing Conference, The Euroecom Internet Conference (Spain), and The New England Direct Marketing Conference.

He is frequently quoted in top-tier media like Forbes and Fortune. Prior to joining Aberdeen in 2007, Zabin headed up product marketing and led the thought leadership program for the Global Marketing Solutions division of Fair Isaac (FICO) and served as vice president of marketing at Seurat Company, which was acquired by FICO in 2003. His previous startup companies include Digital Knowledge Assets and nMinds. Zabin began his career in educational publishing, at Houghton Mifflin, and later served as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Bolivia. He has served on the advisory boards of several nonprofit organizations, including the Taproot Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation's New Options Initiative and CZB Community Development, and he recently advised Pearson on an educational technology venture. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

He can be reached at jz (at) gleanster (dot) com.