JoshCherfoli
Marketing Executive · Brand Builder · Growth Leader
Helping organizations create the clarity that drives growth. I work alongside leadership to align brand, positioning, customer experience, and marketing—turning complex business challenges into confident decisions and measurable results.
Effie Award Winner
Porsche Campaign
Ways I Work
Marketing leadership, shaped by the challenge
From long-term in-house leadership to fractional, advisory and agency partnerships, the goal is the same: lasting business impact.
In-House Leadership
Executive Leadership
For organizations seeking a senior marketing executive to lead from inside the business, build high-performing teams, and own brand, growth, and transformation over the long term.
- Executive team partnership
- Marketing organization leadership
- Brand & growth strategy
- Transformation & integration
Strategic Marketing Leadership
Fractional CMO
Executive-level marketing leadership without the full-time commitment. I embed with your team to develop and execute strategies that drive measurable growth.
- Marketing strategy development
- Team leadership & mentoring
- Performance optimization
- Brand positioning
Executive Counsel & Transformation
Strategic Advisory
Focused strategic counsel on brand, growth and transformation, grounded in decades of executive experience across complex organizations.
- Digital transformation
- Customer journey optimization
- Revenue growth strategy
- Market expansion
Full-Service Marketing Agency
Cherfoli Marketing Group
CMG delivers integrated marketing solutions that blend creative storytelling with performance marketing. We build brands that connect and convert.
- Integrated campaigns
- Brand development
- Digital marketing
- Content strategy
25+
Years Experience
197+
Dealerships Supported
45+
Global Events
23
Sites Unified
Experience
A career built on transformation
From luxury automotive to aviation, entertainment to retail, I've led marketing transformations across diverse industries—always with a focus on data-driven strategies that deliver measurable ROI.
Education
M.S. Communications
Purdue University
B.A. Marketing
Michigan State University
Precision Aviation Group
2022 - PresentVice President, Marketing
Led digital transformation, unified 23 websites, and directed 45 global trade show activations
Georgia Aquarium
2016 - 2022Senior Director, Marketing
Drove record-breaking visitation through data-driven digital marketing strategies
NC State & University of Wisconsin
2018 - 2022Adjunct Professor, Digital Marketing
Educated future marketing leaders on integrated communications, social media, branding, and data-driven strategies
The Home Depot
2015 - 2016Senior Manager, Marketing
Developed marketing services driving revenue growth and customer loyalty
Porsche
2006 - 2015Marketing Manager
Effie Award-winning campaign; led digital initiatives for 197 dealerships nationwide
BBDO Detroit
2001 - 2006Sr. Vice President
Directed comprehensive marketing for major automotive clients
About
Marketing that moves people
I'm a marketing leader who believes that the best brands don't just sell products—they create connections. Over two decades, I've had the privilege of building marketing engines for some of the world's most recognized brands, from Porsche to Georgia Aquarium.
My approach combines creative storytelling with rigorous data analysis. Every campaign, every strategy, every touchpoint is measured against real business outcomes. This balance of art and science is what separates good marketing from transformative marketing.
My work spans executive leadership, strategic advisory, brand transformation, and hands-on experimentation, always with the same goal: creating clarity that drives growth.
"The best marketing doesn't feel like marketing. It feels like a story worth telling."
— Joshua Cherfoli
Core Expertise
Brands I've Elevated
Educator
Adjunct Professor of Digital Marketing at NC State University, University of Wisconsin, and SNHU (2018-2022).
The Cherfoli Method
Clarity that drives growth
A six-step approach to helping leadership cut through complexity—aligning brand, positioning, customer experience, and marketing around what genuinely makes the organization valuable.
Six interconnected disciplines. One continuous commitment to clarity and growth.
Listen Deeply
Understand the business before recommending solutions.
Distill the Truth
Identify what genuinely makes the organization valuable.
Make the Choices
Help leadership make the strategic decisions that shape the brand.
Build the Brand System
Turn strategy into something people can use.
Activate the Experience
Show how the strategy comes alive.
Learn & Strengthen
Continually improve through observation, feedback, and leadership.
Side Projects
Projects, Experiments & Stories
Side projects, books, and experiments I build outside my executive work, usually because I can’t resist seeing whether an idea can become something real.
The Rip Table Chronicles
A memoir, a mythology, and a lifelong table of stories — real stories first, mythology second. An ongoing archive of friendship, adventure, and growing up without growing old.
Open the Archive
Good Friends Good Times
A long-running personal project about stories, memories, family adventures, and the moments that make life worth remembering.
Visit Site
Ballpark Buddy
A game-day utility for travel sports families, helping parents find better information about parks, fields, arrival times, and local tips.
Visit Site
Calvin Cherfoli Baseball
A dedicated college baseball recruiting home for my son Calvin, Class of 2028, featuring his player profile, game schedule, highlights, and videos.
View Recruiting Profile
Darwin Party
A launching pad for silly games — three experiments built for people who probably should know better.
Visit Site
Happy Tomorrow
Personalized bedtime stories that help kids put today to rest and look forward to tomorrow.
Visit Site
The Pony Cycle
A playful idea turned into a real product experience — built to explore how nostalgia, utility, and a little absurdity can become something people want to share.
Visit Site
Boy Class
My wife often jokes that I must have learned that in 'Boy Class' that girls aren't allowed to take...this is a way to share some of those things. - 100% a work in progress, but it's functioning, so add your thoughts.
Visit Site
Books & Writing
Apparently I write books now. Children's stories inspired by my kids, a retail merchandising book my dad started and I helped finish, and most recently, a 700+ page memoir about the questionable decisions my friends and I made growing up.
Case Studies
Proven results across industries
Real challenges, strategic solutions, and measurable impact.
Porsche
Modernizing a Revered Icon for the Digital Customer
Challenge
When I joined Porsche in 2006, the brand's digital presence didn't reflect the depth of the brand or expectations of a changing customer. There was no coordinated social media strategy, digital marketing efforts were fragmented across channels, and customer engagement remained traditional. Porsche needed a more connected and modern relationship with customers to support the repositioning of the 911 from a 'weekend toy' to a high-performance car engineered for everyday driving.
Results
Built multi-million-follower social communities (reaching milestones of 1M, 2M, and 5M followers), established unified digital brand presence across channels, expanded email and relationship marketing capabilities, stronger alignment between brand marketing and 197 dealerships, and increased relevance among broader audiences. The 911 repositioning campaign was recognized with an Effie Award for marketing effectiveness.
Georgia Aquarium
Building a Modern Revenue Engine Around the Guest Experience
Challenge
When I joined Georgia Aquarium in 2016, it was one of the most visited aquariums in the world with an extraordinary in-person experience, but the digital and lifecycle marketing ecosystem hadn't caught up with modern guest expectations. Ticketing, communications, and marketing systems operated in silos, lifecycle marketing was limited, and data was under-leveraged. In a nonprofit environment where every dollar matters, we needed to build a more connected relationship with guests while improving revenue predictability and efficiency.
Results
Shifted the business to ~80% online ticket sales, improved lifecycle engagement and communication relevance, strengthened membership and repeat visitation pathways, increased marketing efficiency and attribution clarity, built a more predictable revenue model, and earned an Iterable EXPie Award for customer activation. Marketing became a more integrated and trusted partner in revenue planning and guest experience, with initiatives like whale shark license plates still resonating years later.
Precision Aviation Group
Modernizing Global B2B Marketing in a Complex Aerospace Environment
Challenge
When I joined Precision Aviation Group (PAG), the company was a global leader in aerospace maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) with technical expertise and global scale, but lacked a modern, unified marketing engine to support growth across brands, regions, and customer segments. Marketing had historically been decentralized, tactical, and relationship-driven—effective but difficult to scale in a digital-first world where customers increasingly research and engage before speaking to sales.
Results
Established a clearer, more cohesive global brand presence, improved digital visibility and inbound engagement, strengthened alignment between marketing and sales across regions, positioned marketing as a strategic growth partner, and built scalable systems to support continued global expansion. Marketing shifted from reactive support to proactive growth enablement, improving lead quality and credibility across a 24+ location portfolio.
Get in Touch
Let's build something remarkable
Whether you're building a leadership team, navigating a transformation, looking for strategic counsel, or tackling a complex marketing challenge, I'd love to learn what you're working on.
Connect on LinkedIn