Digital Strategy Exchange logo

Digital Strategy Exchange

The Digital Strategy Exchange (DSX) is a new, exclusive, peer-to-peer members-only professional development organization for brand/client-side digital leaders (Manager, Director, VP, CxO).

DSX plans provide a safe forum to learn and succeed by exchanging information, ideas, learnings, best practices, jobs, and opinions in a vendor-free space (e.g. no vendors, agencies, or “influencers”). > See Benefits

With so much change happening in Digital Marketing, eCommerce, Digital Merchandising, Fulfillment, and Customer Service, the time is right to organize as a community to help us excel at what’s next.

Apply for Pre-Launch Membership (Google Forms for now until the full community site is launched)

Leadership

The founder of the Digital Strategy Exchange is Steve Gehlen, a 25-year client-side digital executive (Nike, Icebreaker Clothing, Pendleton, Hollywood Video, OHSU, Brandlive, and others) who founded and managed a similar organization from 2004-2009 called Internet Strategy Forum, which grew to a national membership of 1,500 client-side-only digital executives, with a Board of Directors from Disney, Visa, Intel, IBM, Oregon Health & Sciences University, NBC/Universal, and others.

Founding Principles of DSX

  1. Members will ONLY be brand/client-side employees who have responsibility for driving digital strategy and execution (e.g. digital marketing, eCommerce, digital merchandising, digital operations, digital transformation, customer service, etc.) at medium-to-large companies (e.g. no vendors, agencies, or influencers).
  2. Meetings and online discussion forums will be opportunities to network exclusively with peers and learn by sharing experiences, case studies, lessons learned, best practices, and experiences with vendors/platforms/agencies.
  3. Provide members with support for managing industry-wide issues and changes.
  4. Speakers and panelists at events will mostly be peers, not vendors selling something or “influencers” with little practical corporate/brand experience.
  5. Help members hasten the move to the C-suite, developing the skills to become the next generation of leaders, not just in digital, but for the company overall.
  6. Create opportunities to educate senior business executives and the media about the value of our work.
  7. Help members take control of our narrative regarding issues that impact our profession by communicating our collective opinions (e.g. custom market research) to large tech vendors and the media.

Planned Member Benefits*

  • Knowledge Sharing (informed by real-world experience)
    • Best Practices
    • Lessons learned
    • Latest trends
    • Case Studies
    • Vendor experiences and opinions
    • Team management wins
    • Templates (e.g. AI prompts, CDP evaluation matrix)
  • Networking
    • Asynchronous – The DSX members-only site will be like a gated community version of LinkedIn (no sales reps!)
    • Synchronous – Members-only meetings (online and in-person)
  • Education
    • Online courses
      • Members teach members
      • Experts teach members
    • Coaching (experienced digital leaders coach newer digital leaders)
      • One-to-One coaching
      • One-to-Many coaching
    • Downloadable resources
      • White papers
      • Case Studies
      • Templates
  • Job Board
  • Research – DSX will conduct member-focused research to share with members and, if relevant, the vendor community.

* NOTE: These are the PLANNED benefits as the DSX membership grows. There is no guarantee that any or all of these benefits will be available from the start of your membership or during your membership term.