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Brent Christensen / South Jordan, Utah, USA

Data & Marketing Technology Executive

I build teams and data platforms that reduce costs, improve decisions, and drive customer growth.

Led organizations of 30+, managed $150M+ in annual media spend, and replaced a $240K-a-year customer data platform with an in-house build. I still write the SQL.

View my workDownload resume (PDF)
$240K/yr
Customer data platform replaced with an in-house build on BigQuery
$150M+
Annual paid media budget owned at Overstock.com
30+
People led, including an eleven-engineer platform team

Selected work

Three things I built, and what they returned.

The brand was paying a third-party customer data platform a quarter of a million dollars a year to do three things: stitch identity, build segments and hand audiences to Braze. The CDP owned the logic, the data was a black box to the analysts, and every new segment was a ticket to the vendor.

The diagram shows what replaced it. Each project below has its own page with the full write-up.

Architecture: sources to BigQuery warehouse to segmentation layer to Braze and to an MCP server used by ClaudePOS, loyalty, app, web and Braze events flow into hourly BigQuery marts. A SQL-defined segmentation layer compiles audiences and syncs them to Braze for email, SMS, push and in-app. An MCP server exposes the same marts to Claude under least-privilege IAM so employees can ask questions and see the SQL.POSLoyalty (SessionM)Mobile appWeb (GA4 export)Braze events01BigQuery warehouseHourly marts, mapped IDsMetric definitions in GitLeast-privilege IAM02Segmentation layerSQL segment catalogReal-time triggers03MCP serverModel Context ProtocolVisible SQL, audited logsBrazeEmail, SMSPush, in-appTriggered journeysClaudeEvery employeewith an AI seatasks in EnglishThird-party CDPRetired. $240K/yr saved.
  1. 01

    CDP replacement

    Café Zupas, 90+ locations / 2024 to present

    Replaced a licensed customer data platform with a BigQuery warehouse, a SQL-defined segmentation layer that feeds Braze, and an MCP server that lets every employee with an AI seat ask questions of governed data.

    $240K a year in license fees eliminated; identified-customer revenue up 17.7% against 3.4% company growth

    Read the case study
  2. 02

    Identity

    Café Zupas, 90+ locations / 2024 to present

    Unified customer identity across the POS, ordering, and loyalty platforms with tiered matching, a documented survivorship precedence table, and source-and-timestamp provenance on every identity key.

    99.99% of 691,760 customer records carry sourced, timestamped identity keys

    Read the case study
  3. 03

    Metrics

    Café Zupas, 90+ locations / 2024 to present

    Ran the warehouse like a financial close: one definition per metric, assertions that fail loudly, lineage sweeps before retiring anything, and a decision ledger for every rule more than one project depends on.

    Roughly $750K in unflagged spend surfaced by unifying one metric across four POS generations

    Read the case study

Selected results

Results, not responsibilities.

CDP license fees eliminated with an in-house build
$240K/yr
Of 691,760 customer records in the identity model carry field-level provenance on every identity key
99.99%
Test cases passing on the company AI assistant: every answer checked against governed metric rulings and reference SQL, re-run on every change
49/49
Engineers led today (director, data, web, app, QA); 30+ people led at Overstock, 11 of them engineers
10
Identified-customer revenue growth vs 3.4% company growth
17.7%
Unflagged spend identified by unifying one metric across four POS generations
~$750K
Annual paid search budget owned at Overstock.com
$150M+
Customer profiles in the CRM platform I ran
100M+

Founder & builder, 2025 to present

Blync Digital

An AI-powered Google Ads platform for local service businesses. Connect an account, get an audit that puts dollar figures on wasted spend, then let an AI advisor that reads your real data run the account with you.

I built it solo, nights and weekends after bedtime, end to end: product, backend, billing, outbound. It is the clearest evidence I have that I can still ship.

  • Next.js
  • React
  • TypeScript
  • Tailwind
  • Prisma
  • PostgreSQL
  • NextAuth
  • Google Cloud Run
  • BigQuery
  • Stripe
  • Google Ads API
  • Claude
  • 01

    Blync, a Google Ads agent that monitors, analyzes, recommends and (with approval) performs changes to client accounts using natural-language system prompts and GAQL.

  • 02

    Offline conversion ingestion: success events pulled from BigQuery and pushed back to Google Ads through the ConversionUploadService, so bidding optimizes on revenue instead of form fills.

  • 03

    Multi-domain goal management and automated bid adjustments for underperforming keywords, with every change logged for audit.

  • 04

    A lead-gen website builder and site chatbot for local service businesses, with a weekly approve-by-email social posting workflow for clients.

Experience

Fifteen years of owning the stack and the number.

  1. Senior Director, Marketing & Technology

    Café Zupas · Sandy, UT · Fast-casual restaurant brand, 90+ locations.

    Own the data platform, customer identity model, governed metrics, analytics, and marketing technology. Lead the ten-person engineering team (a director of development, two data engineers, web, app, and QA engineers): set priorities, run the weekly standups and sprint reviews, review the roadmap weekly.

    • Own MarTech, CRM, loyalty, analytics, the data platform and attribution for an identified-customer revenue base in the tens of millions, through an agency-and-vendor operating model (Braze, SessionM, Optimizely, Google Ads, GCP).
    • Built the AI-assisted analytics layer: hourly BigQuery marts exposed to Claude via MCP under least-privilege IAM, with version-controlled metric definitions and visible SQL.
    • Set the company's measurement standards: influenced vs. incremental attribution, total vs. comp reporting, identity keyed on mapped IDs.
    • Replaced a third-party CDP with an in-house build, saving $240K a year, and rebuilt the pipelines behind real-time segmentation and triggered campaigns across email, SMS, push and app.
    • Grew identified-customer revenue 17.7% YTD against 3.4% company growth; active customers up 14.6% to 550K; repeat orders up 19.4%.

  2. VP of Marketing and Technology

    Billiards.com (Billiards.com, Pooltables.com, Darts.com) · Portland, OR (remote) · Multi-brand specialty retailer.

    First data and technology leader for three acquired brands, reporting to the CEO. Built the data platform from scratch on Google Cloud; implemented NetSuite and migrated 14 years of order history across the three entities.

    • Reported to the CEO as executive owner of marketing, eCommerce, data and IT across three acquired brands. Ran two agencies and a paid budget that scaled past $400K a month. Prepared board decks.
    • Built the data stack from scratch on Google Cloud (warehouse, ETL, CRM, Looker) at zero license cost, with GA4, GTM and cross-channel attribution tying paid media, CRM and lifecycle journeys together.
    • Migrated all three sites to Shopify, implemented NetSuite via Celigo across 50,000+ products and 14 years of order history, and moved email from Mailchimp to Klaviyo.
    • Grew Billiards.com revenue 24% year over year and the other two brands 10% each while lifting Google ROAS from 2x to 5x in a rising-CPC market.

  3. Senior Director of Marketing, Paid Search

    Overstock.com · Midvale, UT

    • Owned the $150M+ annual paid search and performance marketing P&L supporting $900M+ in revenue.
    • Sustained growth through record 100% growth periods, then beat plan after the company pivoted from growth to profitability.

  4. Senior Director, Product Marketing

    Overstock.com · Midvale, UT

    • Created and staffed a cross-functional product marketing organization; raised major campaign execution productivity 25%.
    • Integrated loyalty, financial services and CRM into the core marketing programs.

  5. Director of Email and CRM

    Overstock.com · Midvale, UT

    Hired and led a 30+ person organization, including eleven engineers (a director and two senior developers), that built and ran the CRM platform behind a 100M+ profile database; owned deliverability, suppression, and consumer deletion requests.

    • Ran the marketing cloud RFP and the Oracle Marketing Cloud (Responsys) implementation; delivered double-digit top and bottom line growth.
    • Led enterprise CRM strategy across a 100M+ profile database and 75+ lifecycle campaigns; managed 30+ people across software development, analytics and marketing operations.
    • Featured speaker, Email Insider Summit 2017.

  6. Manager, Data Services & ETL

    Graduation Alliance · Salt Lake City, UT · EdTech.

    • Managed the BI and ETL team delivering reporting and integrations (SQL, SSIS, SSRS) across disparate school district systems.

  7. Manager, CRM, Lifecycle Email Marketing & Analytics

    Overstock.com · Salt Lake City, UT

    • Ran lead generation, direct mail and email at $300M+ a year; managed 80M+ lead CRM segmentation, product recommendations, 50+ lifecycle campaigns and all direct marketing reporting and ETL.
    • Drove 72% of company growth in 2014.

Earlier

  • Data Engineer, Implementation, Domo (2012 to 2013)
  • Financial Reporting & BI Developer, Overstock.com (2010 to 2012): SQL behind month, quarter, and year-end close; SOX reporting.
  • BI Analyst, England Logistics (2009 to 2010)
  • Data Analyst, JetBlue Airways (2005 to 2007)

Education, credentials, stage time

  • MS, Information Systems, University of Utah, David Eccles School of Business (2014)
  • BA, Business Management, University of Utah, David Eccles School of Business (2008)
  • Braze Certified Technical Architect (2025)
  • Featured speaker, Email Insider Summit (2017)
  • English (native) · Spanish (professional working proficiency)

Toolkit

Executive on paper, engineer in the terminal.

Data platform & AI

  • GCP
  • BigQuery (scripting, transactions, partitioning, INFORMATION_SCHEMA forensics, authorized views)
  • Cloud Run
  • Cloud Scheduler
  • IAM
  • Looker
  • advanced SQL
  • Python
  • Node.js
  • R
  • Git/GitHub
  • Talend
  • SSIS/SSRS
  • Claude & MCP
  • versioned evaluation sets
  • decision ledgers

Identity, CRM & engagement

  • identity resolution
  • survivorship
  • field-level provenance
  • Braze (Certified Technical Architect)
  • Responsys
  • Klaviyo
  • Mailchimp
  • Salesforce
  • SessionM
  • GA4 BigQuery export
  • server-side GTM
  • Meta CAPI

Media, commerce & ERP

  • Google Ads & Google Ads API
  • Merchant Center
  • Meta Ads
  • Criteo
  • Shopify
  • NetSuite
  • Celigo
  • Stripe

Leadership & governance

  • data roadmaps
  • vendor RFPs and build-vs-buy
  • attribution and measurement standards
  • consumer deletion and CCPA handling
  • least-privilege IAM
  • P&L ownership ($150M+)
  • teams of 30+
  • board reporting

Off the clock

The person behind the pipelines.

I live in South Jordan, Utah with my family. They come first. Blync and the other side projects on this page got built after bedtime.

Brent Christensen
Home
South Jordan, Utah. Salt Lake valley, mountains out every window.
Family
Family first, always. Work is the thing I do so the people at home get the best version of me.
Side projects
I build things for fun: a college football stats hub, Blync, small tools for friends. If I am curious about something I usually end up shipping it.
Languages
English and Spanish, and I still use the Spanish.
How I work
I would rather show you the SQL than a slide about the SQL. I trust people who ship and I try to be one of them.

Contact

If you need someone who can own the number and the stack, we should talk.

Open to: Director or VP of Data, Data Platform, or Analytics Engineering; VP or Senior Director of Marketing Technology; Head of Marketing Operations, Customer Data, or Growth Engineering; Advisory work on warehouses, identity, and AI-ready data.

brentlchristensen@gmail.comLinkedInGitHub801-699-5272Download resume (PDF)