Industry Eye: DMEF to Honor Rising Stars

Next month, the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation will honor four winners of its 2009 Rising Stars Awards, as well as credit card payment management platform provider Litle & Co. as its Corporate Commitment award winner.

The rising stars winners include Michael Becker, executive vice president of business development for iLoop Mobile. He’s being honored for his work as a leader in the mobile marketing community, assuming roles of entrepreneur, volunteer and academic.

Gretchen Littlefield, president of Triplex Direct Marketing, an infoGroup company, who was chosen for her use of social networks in fundraising, also will be honored.

Another winner will be Chuck Sharp, managing director of analytics and business intelligence at Web development solutions firm iCrossing. Sharp founded his technology startup, Sharp Analytics, in 2001, later selling it to iCrossing in 2007. He currently leads iCrossing’s analytics organization.

David Ventresca, president of MAGHOUND Enterprises, Time Inc., is an 11-year veteran of Time Consumer Marketing. He’s led the end-to-end development of MAGHOUND for the past four years. He’s a former chairperson and regular contributor to the Magazine Publishers of America’s Internet working group.

As for Litle & Co., led by industry veteran Tim Litle, it dedicates itself to education, which begins internally with its own Litle University that trains recently hired employees on premises.