About Us

What We Do

Varda Partners is a privately-held online marketing firm. We work hand-in-hand with partner companies to significantly increase sales for their products and services via online marketing channels, deep data analytics and proven business optimization strategies. Our depth of experience in these areas enables us to structure performance-based relationships with our partner companies so that we win when they win.


Who We Are

We are marketers, technologists, sales professionals and business leaders who are passionate about driving results in a collaborative and growth oriented culture. We take our work but not ourselves seriously, avoid the bureaucracy of larger, more corporate environments and believe that sometimes a game of ping-pong is exactly what the business needs. Our experienced leadership team includes senior executives formerly of Red Ventures, the nation's premier online marketing and digital consumer choice platform.


Chuck
Brockman
Ryan
Currington
Kevin
D'Allaird
Robbie
Hodge
Brad
McMinn
Joe
Peterson

Joe Peterson
CEO

Joe co-founded Varda Partners in late 2013 with friend and long-time colleague, Kevin D’Allaird. Prior to founding Varda Partners, Joe served on the senior executive team at Red Ventures and helped grow it from a fifteen person company into the nation’s premier online marketing and sales provider with thousands of employees. During his eight years there, he assumed numerous senior leadership roles, including COO of the entire company and President of DirectStarTV, Red Ventures' largest business unit.

Before joining RV, Joe led the growth of several venture capital and private equity backed companies. He was CFO and EVP of Marketing and Development at EzGov, a software and technology solutions firm that won awards for its growth and innovation. He was EVP of Marketing and Sales for Ephinay, a financial services provider to the middle market. He was Director of Business Development for 2C Optics, a pioneering consumer eyeglass lens manufacturer. Earlier in his career, Joe was a strategy consultant for The Boston Consulting Group, where he advised Fortune 500 companies in marketing and sales strategy. He began his career with Andersen Consulting, designing and implementing technology processes for the financial services and healthcare industries.

Joe graduated from Duke University, magna cum laude, with a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He earned his MBA with honors from the Harvard Business School. In 2008, Joe was named to the Charlotte Business Journal’s "Forty Under 40" list honoring his professional and civic accomplishments. In 2014, Joe started Shine Charlotte, a team of experienced business leaders offering pro bono strategic advisory services for leaders of local non-profits and ministries. Joe lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his wife of 20 plus years and their three children.

Katharine Ostrow
Director of Business Operations

As a Director of Business Operations at Varda Partners, Katharine leverages her analytics background to enact data driven decisions. She collaborates with our technology, marketing, sales, and operations teams to optimize internal processes and drive deliverable results for clients.

Katharine started her career in Analytics at Red Ventures where she contributed to the success of a number of Fortune 500 partner relationships. Prior to joining Varda, Katharine worked as Director of Analytics at Glew.io, a SaaS-based business intelligence platform. At Glew.io, Katharine developed custom analytics solutions to enable ecommerce brands and marketing agencies to understand and utilize data.

Katharine graduated from The University of Virginia with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Statistics and Economics. Katharine lives in Charlotte, NC and enjoys rooting for UVA basketball, Charlotte FC, and the Baltimore Ravens.

Kevin D'Allaird
Chief Marketing Officer

Kevin co-founded Varda Partners with long-time friend and colleague Joe Peterson in late 2013. Prior to founding Varda Partners, Kevin was a Senior Vice President at Red Ventures where he was instrumental in the early development, leadership and rapid growth of the company’s paid and natural search marketing channels.

Under Kevin’s leadership, Red Ventures’s strategic search marketing capabilities grew rapidly and became cornerstone building blocks in the portfolio of marketing competencies that continue to drive Red Ventures’s growth today. In the latter part of his seven years at RV, Kevin served as CMO of the company’s Energy division where, working together with Joe, the two conceived and executed a strategic acquisition that disrupted the dynamics of the competitive landscape and significantly accelerated the company’s growth in that vertical.

Previously, Kevin led online strategy, development and operations for several high-growth companies, including both private equity backed and publicly traded companies such as HandySoft Global Corporation, Vitria Technology, and XML Solutions.

Kevin graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Science in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering. He has been a Charlotte, North Carolina, area resident for over 20 years with his wife Whitney and their three boys.

Peter Smul
Chief Operating Officer

As Varda's Chief Operating Officer, Peter is responsible for driving measurable results for clients and providing leadership and development for the Varda team members. He previously worked with long-time friends and Varda Partners co-founders Joe Peterson and Kevin D’Allaird at Red Ventures, the nation’s largest online marketing and sales provider. During his ten years there, he helped to grow the company from fewer than 100 employees to several thousand, taking on a number of roles that spanned starting and/or leading business units and marketing functions, serving as the company’s Chief Administrative Officer and leading the transition team related to Red Ventures’ largest acquisition.

Prior to joining Red Ventures in 2006, Peter spent three years as the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer of the Charlotte Bobcats (now Hornets) NBA expansion team and worked in the NBA’s league office from 1995 through 2003, where he participated in the startup of the WNBA and the NBA’s Development League. He also has experience in investment banking and management consulting, with Credit Suisse and Mercer Management Consulting, respectively.

Peter graduated from Yale University, cum laude, with a degree in Economics and Mathematics and earned his MBA from the Harvard Business School. He serves on the Make A Wish Foundation Central and Western North Carolina Board of Directors and is a member of the Robinson Center for Civic Leadership at the Foundation for the Carolinas. He previously served multiple terms on the Levine Jewish Community Center Board of Directors and was named to the Charlotte Business Journal’s "Forty Under 40" list. Peter lives in Charlotte, NC, with his wife and their 19 year old twins.

Brad McMinn
Chief Data Officer

Brad is Varda Partners’ Vice President of Marketing Analytics. His professional passions include data analytics, data science and the intersection of computer science, statistics, and business. Brad has over 12 years of experience in technology and analytics. Brad started his career in consulting at American Management Systems where he and his teams developed software solutions to remove complexity from government systems. After earning his MBA, Brad joined Red Ventures where he drove impact in a variety of sales operations and marketing analytics leadership roles. His teams of developers and analysts successfully grew bottom line results for a number of Red Ventures’s Fortune 500 partner relationships. Brad has also worked as head of operations at Tresata, a pioneering big data analytics company, and president of Compel Analytics, a services firm he founded to work with clients one-on-one to solve analytics challenges.

Brad earned his undergraduate degree from Duke University, earned his MBA from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, and earned a Master of Information and Data Science degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Information.

When not working on exciting data analysis projects, Brad spends time as a husband and father to his wife and three children in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is a frequent volunteer and organizer for Duke Alumni events in Charlotte as well as being involved with the Robinson Center for Civic Leadership at the Foundation for the Carolinas.

Chuck Brockman
Vice President of Product Development

As Varda Partners’ Vice President of Product Development, Chuck brings over 15 years of experience in application development and architecture for large, high volume, high revenue e-commerce sites. He believes powerful technology does not have to be complicated for its users and has a knack for finding practical development solutions for seemingly complex development challenges.

Before joining Varda, Chuck was co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Navinsure, a web broker of employee health benefits for small companies. He created an online marketplace for employers and employees to find the best benefits and insurance solutions from the wide and complex range of possible options. He did all this while ensuring HIPAA compliance and winning approval for the online marketplace from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to Navinsure, Chuck was in senior development roles for companies ranging from Speedway Motorsports to E-dreamz marketing agency to e-procurement company Verian Technologies.

Chuck graduated from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with a Bachelor of Science degree in Earth Sciences and also completed two years of master’s degree work in Geochemistry.  Chuck continues to live in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his two daughters.

Ryan Currington
Chief Technology Officer

Ryan is Varda Partners’ Vice President of Development. Ryan loves innovation and helping businesses use technology in innovative ways.  He has over 11 years of experience working as a developer and leading development teams.

Ryan started his career working as a Java developer for Oracle in Atlanta.  At Oracle, Ryan helped create the forecasting software used by big box retailers like Best Buy to help forecast product sales and inventory needs.  After moving to Charlotte, Ryan joined Red Ventures where he developed his passion for creating technology to enable SEO and SEM strategies.  Ryan has also worked as the VP of Product Development and Head of Product at Torus Sphere, a SAAS-based company with a product enabling actionable insights for e-commerce store owners. During his time at Torus Sphere, Ryan created the vision for the product and led a team of developers in taking the product from conception to production release.

Ryan graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science.  Ryan lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his wife and their twins.

Robbie Hodge
SVP of Marketing

As Varda Partners’ Director of Marketing, Robbie brings over 12 years of experience in digital marketing for unique, high volume, high revenue e-commerce sites. He loves the process of connecting customers to websites and enhancing the user experience.

Before joining Varda, Robbie spent almost 7 years as at E-dreamz, a full service digital agency. As E-dreamz’ Marketing Manager, he led its strategy in the ever-changing digital marketing landscape and delivered strong results to clients. He developed a strong partnership with Google, earning Premier Partner status. Prior to E-dreamz, Robbie held lead marketing roles with FireFold.com and GasWatch.

While not marketing, Robbie enjoys tinkering with electronics, online gaming, and learning new things. He and his wife recently moved into the historic neighborhood of Plaza-Midwood in Charlotte, NC.

Tim DeMille
Sales Manager

As Varda Partners’ Sales Manager, Tim leverages his passion for sales with his industry knowledge to ensure both his clients and sales teams achieve their goals. With over 10 years of experience selling and managing teams in an array of products and services, Tim has a keen understanding of the sales process and drivers of success. He started his sales career with State Farm, working closely with policyholders and acquiring Property & Casualty, Life and Health licenses. He then spent seven years at Red Ventures, a leading digital consumer choice platform. Initially a Sales Agent, he quickly mastered the sales process and outperformed expected benchmarks. After being promoted to Sales Manager, he was responsible for launching several new businesses, training new hires, developing sales scripting and call flows, and managing hundreds of salespeople.

Tim graduated from Western Carolina University with Bachelors of Science degrees in Sales Marketing and Entrepreneurship. He lives in Charlotte, NC with his wife and son. He spends most of his free time caring for and doting on his infant son, but also enjoys playing golf in his limited free time.

Brantley Kendall
Senior Developer

As a Senior Developer at Varda Partners, Brantley is responsible for designing, creating and implementing technologies across a wide range of business functionality. He has a passion for utilizing the right systems and tools to maximize business efficiency and effectiveness. Prior to joining Varda, Brantley worked as Senior Application Developer and Lead Salesforce developer for Peak 10, a leading national IT infrastructure and cloud services company. Among the many functions he performed at Peak 10, he led the training of the internal development team, enabling Peak 10 to bring its Salesforce platform development in-house. Prior to joining Peak 10, Brantley spent 3 years at Red Ventures, a leading digital consumer choice platform, where among other accomplishments, he helped create the technology infrastructure for a consumer marketplace for home services offerings.

Brantley graduated from Furman University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science. In his spare time, Brantley enjoys spending time with his wife and 2 kids, being active outdoors and cheering on the Atlanta Falcons!


Careers

Varda seeks great performers to join our growing marketing firm. We want people who are self-driven, smart, persistent, creative, dependable, and eager to learn and grow in responsibility. Strong interpersonal skills are a must. Perhaps most importantly, we are seeking people who are passionate about being successful!

Specifically, if you think you’re a fit for any of the following roles, reach out to us with why you think that and we will be in touch with you shortly.


Full Stack Developer


Responsibilities

We are seeking a full stack LAMP developer to join our team full-time and help take our business to the next level. This individual will work closely with other talented developers to design and develop web applications, API integrations, e-commerce sites and cool data analysis tools that turn data into actionable intelligence for our marketing team. This is an excellent opportunity to accelerate your career alongside our experienced and growing team of marketers, technologists and business leaders.

Desired Skills and Experience

You should have at least 2-3 years development experience and demonstrated proficiency with PHP, Apache, MySQL, and JavaScript/jQuery. You should have knowledge of security principles and an eye for interaction and user experience. Prior experience in e-commerce and AWS is a bonus.

In general, we look for people to join our team who are self-driven, smart, persistent, creative, dependable, and eager to grow in responsibility. Strong interpersonal skills are a must. Perhaps most importantly, we want people who are passionate about being successful!

Please email talent@vardapartners.com to apply.


Digital Marketing Associate


Responsibilities

We seek a Digital Marketing Associate to contribute to and lead a number of our digital marketing and ecommerce efforts. You will be responsible for email campaign creation, social media management and other online marketing initiatives, as well as tracking performance. Your responsibilities will also include some ecommerce content creation, including images, video and prose. Successful Digital Marketing Associate candidates will work with our experienced marketing team to learn new skills and take on increasingly more advanced responsibilities.

Desired Skills and Experience

You should have 1-3 years of experience in an online marketing environment. Your experience should include several of the responsibility areas for this job as listed above. Experience with some of HTML, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro, Google Analytics and/or Microsoft Excel is a plus. A college degree with strong academic performance is required.

Please email talent@vardapartners.com to apply.


Contact Us

Varda Partners is based in Charlotte, North Carolina. We are always happy to hear from prospective talent looking to expand their careers and from potential partners looking to optimize their businesses and take their sales to the next level. Please feel free to reach out to us, and we'll be in contact shortly.

2115 Rexford Rd #460
Charlotte, NC 28211