P-O-P People to Watch: Danell Loftin, Microsoft Corp.

Title: Worldwide Lead Visual Merchandising Manager, Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WAAge: 38Education: United States Air Force AcademyWhy she's one to watch: Recently lead the launch of Windows Vista, the largest retail launch in Microsoft history with more than one million pieces of P-O-P 2007 was a big year for Danell Loftin. In January, she lead the largest product launch in Microsoft history for Windows Vista, creating more than one million pieces of P-O-P -- all hitting stores on the same day. Her path to the computer giant proved that networking can happen anywhere. For her, it was a chance meeting on a beach in Australia that led to her current position as worldwide lead visual merchandising manager for Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, WAPreviously working for TaylorMade-adidas Golf and Gargoyles Inc. (whose sunglasses are worn by NASCAR drivers and extreme athletes), Loftin kept in touch with her friend from Down Under, a Microsoft executive who offered her a contract position with the company two years later. Within three months, she was hired to work on the launch of the Xbox 360 full time. She says the transition from athletic gear to software was an easy one."Going from extreme sports and sporting goods to gaming is kind of a natural progression because they're all very involved and very passionate," she says. "In any kind of P-O-P you can always take best practices of what you've done in other arenas and apply it almost anywhere."For the Vista launch, she and her team of two others achieved 93% compliance from retailers, an accomplishment she says was made possible with one word: communication."We kept a really intimate relationship and a really close dialog going because there was so much happening and things were moving so fast," she says, noting they maintained at least weekly and sometimes daily contact with their retail partners. "They let us do things with the launch they probably wouldn't let us do at any other time in their store."Loftin acknowledges that such cooperation is hard to come by, with more and more retailers instituting no-clutter policies and wanting more control over their own messaging. "Everything is getting simplified and everything is getting much cleaner at retail," she says. "It's hard to say where P-O-P is going to be in the next 10 years."

P-O-P People to Watch: Danell Loftin, Microsoft Corp.

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