Greg Parsons | Transformational CMO and Brand Strategist

GREG PARSONS

I help companies uncover their greatest promise – and build the business to deliver on it.

Business leaders turn to me for brand, product, and go-to-market experiences that ignite demand and unlock enterprise value.

Combining the imagination of a designer and the discipline of a business strategist, I shape ideas that are as creative as they are commercially powerful, then lead them into market reality.

The result: category reinvention, new revenue streams, scalable innovation, and modernized marketing that turns vision into measurable impact.

Reinventing Jacuzzi’s Brand and Growth Engine Around Experiential Wellness

Repositioned Jacuzzi from hot tubs in a $2B product category to Sensational Wellness in a $4T cultural market.

Unified 14 brands into three lifestyle platforms and rebuilt the end-to-end consumer experience to deliver on the new promise.

Grew premium market share 53% and marketing-attributable sales 60%, all while reducing marketing spending over 40%.

1/14
When Investindustrial acquired Jacuzzi Group, they sought to transform a legacy hot tub maker with a 5x multiple into a modern wellness brand with a 15x multiple. Success would require a new premium positioning in the wellness space and modernizing its culturally disconnected products, marketing, and retail to make that positioning real.  
2/14
We started with market understanding. Consumers saw Jacuzzi as a relic of 1980s luxury — not a leader in modern wellness. That perception kept the brand stuck in the $2B hot tub market, despite the value of its hydrotherapy. But the $3T global wellness market was growing fast — and with the right strategy, Jacuzzi could capture a piece of it.
3/14
Research led us to a key insight: people craved greater wellness in their lives, but most found it difficult and joyless to pursue. In this context, Jacuzzi could offer something unique and powerful: wellness that was effortless and pleasureful.
4/14
On the power of our consumer insight, we developed a new brand promise: Sensational Wellness — extraordinary sensorial experiences with deep physical and emotional benefits. A big idea rooted in Jacuzzi’s heritage of hydrotherapy, it staked a bold new claim in the $3T wellness market.
5/14
To fulfill the promise of Sensational Wellness, we reinvented both the product line and the process behind it. We built a design-forward innovation engine that tripled development throughput, enabled a price premium over competitors, and became the foundation for Jacuzzi’s 54% premium market share gain.
6/14
A new all-season spa pool declared Jacuzzi’s leadership in Sensational Wellness. Part hydrotherapy hot tub, part red-light and IR therapy center, part professional-class swim spa, It was a new kind of product — and an early signal of the transformation to come.
7/14
Wellness leadership would demand innovation that sparked people’s desire. After two years of networked R&D, Jacuzzi launched True Water™ — 99.999% chlorine-free water that effortlessly cared for the spa and the people using it. True tapped into the nanobubble technology used in NASA spacecraft to turn two traditional purchase hurdles, chlorine and cleaning time, into reasons to buy only Jacuzzi. 
8/14
Next, we would reinvent the defining product category, reimagining a hot tub as a spa pool with everything Sensational Wellness could mean: human-centered design, immersive multi-sensorial experiences, advanced therapies, nearly care-free use, and digital engagement — all in one product. This early prototype captured the essence of the shift. 
9/14
With product transformation underway, we turned to how people connect and shop. For the first time in a decade, Jacuzzi launched multi-channel social advertising to reposition the brand, reignite demand, and power local retail.
10/14
Research showed Sensational Wellness had to be felt to be believed. We launched experiential and influencer partnerships to let people feel what they were missing — turning first-hand experience into breakthrough conversion and industry-leading ROMS.
11/14
Next, we redesigned the shopping experience — environments, merchandising, pricing, and promotions — to reflect the premium brand Jacuzzi sought to become. And we recreated the retailer network and its programs to support local partners in moving with us in delivering Sensational Wellness in every detail.
12/14
Even before its full launch in 2026, the work repositioned the brand, set it apart from its traditional competitors, doubled its premium category market share, and set the business on a path to double sales within three years.
13/14
Thank you to the business leaders who sponsored the work: 
Michael Karangelen, Investindustrial; Robin Esterson, Chairman of the Board; Curt Pullen, Board Member; Dave Jackson, CEO.

Thank you to the Jacuzzi team: Erica Moir, Larry Ovalle, Nick Ochtman, Destini Protich, Andrew Marquardt, Jamie Murrett, Kimberly Giraldo,  Laura Roennfeldt, Rachel Norgaard, Joel Voelker, Tyler Verissimo, Oscar Haro, Art Acevedo, Rick Valicenti, Hyperquake.
14/14

Reinventing Herman Miller’s Leadership Through a New Model for the Workplace

Created Living Office, the first complete rethinking of the workplace in decades, shifting Herman Miller from a furniture manufacturer to a leader in how people work.

Redesigned the business around the model, from product portfolio to service to go-to-market—positioning the company as a strategic partner at the beginning of projects, not a supplier at the end.

Reestablished brand and innovation leadership, defined new product categories delivering 20% of sales today, and launched 4 new service ventures. Grew the business 11% in the first full year.

1/15
Businesses were spending $1 trillion on workplaces, with less and less to show for it. Employees complained that going to the office actually hurt their productivity as daily occupancy fall below 50%. Herman Miller was increasingly seen as a transactional furniture supplier, and for the first time ever, competitors were viewed as the innovative workplace leaders. The declining perceptions were showing in Herman Miller sales.
2/15
Research led us to a foundational insight. Work had transformed, becoming creative, collaborative, digital, and humanistic, but no one had made sense of the transformation — or redesigned workplaces to support it. We realized Herman Miller could use its design capacity to do just that, and to be first-to-market with the knowledge, services, and furnishings for a new era of work. It was a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
3/15
We asked: if we forgot everthing we know about work and workplaces and started fresh, what would workplaces be like? The answer was Living Office — management, tools, and workplaces founded on a human connection, collaboration, and flow (not on rigid 1960s factories and 1980s technologies.) We reinvented Herman Miller’s business around it with a simple value aspiration: 30% more people, in 30% less space, who were 30% happier and more productive.
4/15
Living Office was a big opportunity. It monetized Herman Miller’s design capacity and workplace knowledge not just through furniture, but through digital platforms and services that helped organizations turn their workplaces into business assets. It promised to give Herman Miller new distinction in the $20B office furniture market and to gain a share of the growing $300B market for emerging workplace solutions.
5/15
Living Office built leadership in four areas: a human-centered point of view on work and workplaces that helped people and their organizations prosper; a placemaking framework to deliver those kinds of workplaces; a diverse portflio of furnishings and tools for provisioning them; and services and support that enabled their creation and livelihood. Each offered new brand and business opportunities.
6/15
In building a fresh POV on workplaces, we recognized there was no systematic understanding of what people did at work. Realizing we couldn’t make better workplaces without understanding work, we set off on six months of global research. It uncovered seven fundamental goals, ten work activities (shown here), and seven work characteristics that could define the why, what, and how of modern work across industries, regions, and cultures. It was a new foundation for new workplaces.
7/15
The new Placemaking Framework used our POV to rethink decades-old benchmarks of workplace design. Standardized offices, cubicles, and conference rooms gave way to diverse, ever-evolving work settings tied to the purpose, character, and activities of the people using them. It was a new landscape of work that used data to build human desire and performance.
8/15
We reinvented Herman Miller’s furnishings and tools around our new understanding of work and workplaces. We replaced generic cubicles and seating with purposeful variety, ultimately creating two new furniture categories: Focused Portfolios supporting specific high-value work and teams and Individual Elements elevating casual engagements and culture. Those categories represent over 20% of sales in the industry today.
9/15
We grew four new service businesses: Peformance Environments, consulting to support companies in transforming their workplaces; Robin Powered, the leading workplace utilization platform to help organizations make the most of their evolving spaces; Live Platform, the world’s first scalable platform empowering furnishings to support people’s needs across the workplace; and Living Office Settings, bringing together Microsoft, Crestron, and Logitech to sell ideal technologically integrated total settings for modern work.
10/15
We delivered the whole Living Office package to leading organizations and their designers. We demonstrated that workplaces could be beautifully desirable for people and a powerful business assets. And, we proved our value hypothesis: 30% more people in 30% less space, 30% happier and more productive.  The impact became our influencer marketing that fueled the desire of organizations and the demand of their designers seeking a more valuable business model.
11/15
We reinvented the design and buying experience. Living Office became an authentic marketing platform that recaptured Herman Miller’s design and workplace leadership. We used Living Office content, tools, and frameworks to shift the company from an often price-driven conversation with furniture buyers at the end of a project to a strategic workplace solutions and value conversation with the C-Suite at the beginning of a project. 
12/15
Living Office won Herman Miller its first award for workplace design (to add to its hundreds of product design awards) when Wallpaper chose the idea and its four elements as one of the world’s most important design innovations across two decades.
13/15
Living Office restablished Herman Miller brand leadership, articulated a new landscape of work for the world, reinvented workplace design to support it, create new service businesses to move Herman Miller into the $300B workplace services market, and used it all to grow its share in its core $20B furniture market. Living Office delivered a directly attributable 11% sales increase in its first full year.
13/15
Thank you to the leaders who sponsored the work: 
Brian Walker, CEO; Curt Pullen, President North America; Ben Watson Executive Creative Director; Mary Stevens, Senior Vice President Global Marketing.

Thank you to the Living Office core team: Ryan Anderson, Tracy Brower, Alex Cammenga, Erinn Cerreta, Debbie Cook, Adam Daley-Fell, Richard Elder, Abdallah Fadel, Jeff Gibson, Lori Gee, Sam Grawe, Gretchen Gscheidle, Chris Hoyt, Shilpi Kumar, Katie Lane, Nic Milani, Ellie Rogers, Joseph White.
15/15


Redesigning a Liberal Arts University for Greater Meaning Today
Reclaimed the original promise of U.S. liberal education—uniting intellectual exploration with preparation for everyday success—to define a new model for liberal education: Full-Impact Learning.

Reimagined the institution around the model, integrating curriculum, pedagogy, faculty, and student experience into a single system, and establishing a differentiated position centered on lifelong security, purpose, and joy.

The work prompted the chairman of the board to remark, “I’ve been waiting for something like this for 10 years.” 1/1

Creating a New Model for Consumer-Driven Growth

Redefined value creation—combining marketing’s strength in category and product management with design’s talent and focus on consumer experience to create a new growth model. 

Demonstrated the power of the model across the portfolio, from Listerine to K-Y.

Scaled the model across the organization through a set of tools and a foundational playbook for value creation adopted across the business.

1/1



Elevating Herman Miller’s Largest Dealer Beyond Furniture Reselling

Redefined the role and business model of the dealer, shifting from manufacturer-led product sales to a customer-driven partner delivering workplace outcomes.

Defined five high-value customer segments and redesigned the offering around their needs.

Built a new model spanning services, solutions, and new ventures beyond the traditional furniture category.

Packaged the concept for customer validation and strategic adoption. 1/1






How I help


I work with business leaders and boards at moments of strategic inflection,  when a business or brand needs to clarify its direction, reignite growth, or turn ambition into execution.

That work typically focuses on one or more of the following:

Defining vision and promise
Clarifying what the organization can stand for, the category it can lead, and the promise that will anchor its growth, then translating that into a clear positioning and strategic direction.

Reinventing products, services, and experiences
Shaping the product and experience portfolio to fulfill the promise, unlock new revenue streams, and build durable advantage.

Transforming go-to-market models
Modernizing brand, marketing, and retail to connect with today’s audiences and turn strategy into demand, relationships, and enterprise value.



How I work

I combine the imagination of a designer with the discipline of a business strategist. That means creative decisions support business outcomes and growth strategies translate into experiences people love.

My role often spans advisor, partner, and embedded leader, bridging long-term vision with everyday execution. I lead work from insight to implementation, from optimizing what exists today to building what’s next.

The work sits at the intersection of an organization’s unique DNA and the realities of culture, technology, and markets today — not as theory, but as action.
 


Engagements

Some organizations seek focused clarity: core understanding and strategy on a page, ready for action in weeks.

Others engage more deeply, partnering over time to define vision, reinvent systems, and drive transformation through execution.

The shape of the engagement follows the need and opportunity.



Contact

If you’re facing a moment of inflection and this work resonates with you, I’d welcome a conversation.

gregparsons@gregparsons.com






Copyright © Greg Parsons LLC,  2025. All rights reserved.

Greg Parsons is a transformational CMO, brand and experience architect, and growth leader helping companies define their greatest promise and build the business to deliver on it.  

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