Who is Vince Hudson??

Vince Hudson hails from Shreveport, Louisiana and attended Dillard University in New Orleans. While he credits Dillard, his mentor Henry Sullivan, and the Inroads program for preparing him for “Corporate America”, he credits nearby Xavier University for the Procter and Gamble opportunity. He proudly admits that he sneaked into Xavier’s career fair, which subsequently led to the P&G job offer.

Vince joined Procter and Gamble in 1993 in the brand management function as a brand assistant on the Fixodent brand where he learned marketing from the ground up – targeting a niche market of consumers in the 50+ age group. His next move took him from Oral Care to Respiratory where he worked across the NyQuil, DayQuil and Vicks brands. His first Brand manager assignment took him into the internet space (pre-bubble-burst), where he led efforts in e-commerce and consulted with on-line retailers on marketing and promotions.

The next brand manager move for Vince paid off big for P&G shareholders as he developed and launched the record-setting Crest WhiteStrips brand. He spent his last brand manager assignment expanding that brand globally. His success on that brand led Vince to be promoted to Marketing Director of the gastrointestinal (or GI) category in 2002, where he revamped the Metamucil brand equity, boosted Pepto Bismol with the “dancing symptoms” campaign, and managed P&G’s largest brand “launch” ever – Prilosec (which topped the largest brand previously launched: Crest WhiteStrips). These back-to-back successes set the stage for Vince to assume the Marketing Director job on the Costco team, one of P&G’s top customers, where he marketed to the “shopper” versus the “consumer”. Most recently (just this month), Vince moved from Seattle (where Costco is based) to the east coast to serve as marketing director of CoverGirl - North America. He is looking forward to this challenging role in the heavily competitive world of beauty.

Vince has earned the respect of his colleagues with several internal marketing awards, and his accomplishments have received national accolades, including Brandweek’s “Marketer’s of the Next Generation” and, most recently, Ad Age’s “Top 40 Marketers Under 40”. He has also been spotlighted in Fast Company magazine.

Vince’s personal passions are marketing (of course), hip-hop music (he’s Jay-Z’s #1 fan), and discussing and writing about “Love and Relationships” . His passions have led to national TV exposure on the Today Show for P&G and a brief appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show -- “talking relationships”. He recently facilitated a “Relationship Symposium” at the National Black MBA association’s national convention in Orlando, FL.