Building client relationships.
Creating teams and systems. Retaining and growing clients with strategy and trust.
I help good teams keep and grow the clients they love.
For 25 years, I’ve led big client relationships on the agency and consultancy side across brand and media, managing portfolios from $6M to $90M for retail, restaurant, automotive, CPG, financial services, and healthcare brands. These days I work two ways.
For agencies and consultancies: I can step in as an interim strategy or account lead, help you close a must-win pitch, or set up a client-partnership system your team can run without the founder in every meeting.
For brands: I’ll help you get more from your marketing partners, or build an in-house team that needs them less.
No mystery, no endless retainers. After our first call, you’ll get a one-page scope and a fixed price within 48 hours.
About Dina Light-McNeely
Dina has spent 25 years helping agencies and consultancies build great relationships with Fortune 500 brands. Most recently, she was a strategic client partner at a global commerce consultancy. Before that, she ran a $90M media and brand integrated portfolio at a holding-company network.
Along the way, she’s owned P&Ls from $6M to $90M, hired and coached the account leads who ran them, and earned the highest client and team satisfaction scores in her group five years running. She’s worked with automotive, grocery, restaurant, financial services, retail, beauty, hospitality and healthcare brands, and she still gets a little giddy about a hard problem and a smart team.
The American Advertising Federation named her one of its Top 20 Women in Advertising. She taught digital marketing at SMU’s Cox School of Business, where she learned as much from her students as they learned from her, and in 2025 the ANA published her research, The $15 Trillion Dollar Advantage, on the audiences U.S. marketers keep overlooking.
Off the clock: she works in a 1910 Craftsman she and her husband restored, tends a perennial garden she loves, and has a Godzilla collection she’s been building since she was 10.
She partners with agencies and brands anywhere.
My Services
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For CEOs, chief growth officers, chief strategy officers and heads of client service, when it matters most: a senior account or strategy lead just left, a must-win pitch is weeks away, a client walked without warning, or a big renewal is coming and planning has been happening on the fly.
Interim strategy lead. I step in two to three days a week for three to six months and lead strategy: the thinking, the team, the client, the plan and the KPIs.
Interim account lead. I run one or two big accounts across brand and media, two to three days a week for three to six months: the client relationship, the team, the plan and the growth targets. No ramp-up, no new headcount.
Pitch and RFP sprint. Over four to six weeks, I lead or co-lead a must-win pitch: strategy, story, who’s in the room, rehearsals, and an honest read on what the client will actually respond to.
Client partnership operating system. First, a four-to-six-week look at how your client team plans, runs QBRs and picks which RFPs to chase. Then a four-week install of the system to run on: a planning calendar and templates, a QBR format clients actually want to attend, an RFP go/no-go playbook, and an account health scorecard that flags risk early.
Bringing agencies together. Merged, acquired, or running sister agencies, like a brand shop and a media shop, that need to work as one? I build the shared ways of working that matter, like intake, planning, delivery and client experience, and leave each team room to stay itself. I’ve done this for an agency bringing four companies together.
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For CMOs and VPs of Marketing, Digital or Commerce, often in their first year in the seat. I spent 25 years on the agency side of these relationships, so I know what partners won’t tell you, and what it takes to get their best work.
Agency partner review. Over four weeks, I look at each partner, creative and media alike, on scope, fees, team, results, and how the relationship is really working, measured against what your business needs next. You’ll get a clear call: keep, fix, consolidate, or replace. Priced per partner. If you like the pitch, I’ll write the brief, build the shortlist, and help run it.
Audience and customer journey strategy. (new) Over four to six weeks, I turn your data and research into clear personas and customer journeys, then into a plan your teams and agencies can act on, from launch to loyalty. I’ve done this for Capital One, Omni Hotels and an oncology brand.
In-housing plan. In three to four weeks, we’ll decide what work moves in-house and in what order, the roles and costs involved, what stays with partners, and how to handle the transition for the agencies affected. I can also lead the new team through its first quarter.
Marketing and commerce roadmap. In four weeks, you’ll have a 12–18 month roadmap: priorities, sequencing, partner and platform decisions, the shape of the budget, and the operating rhythm to run it.
Download My Research
In 2025, the ANA published my paper, "The $15 Trillion Dollar Advantage," on the gap in audience targeting in U.S. marketing. Enter your info for the PDF.
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