Elevate your digital leadership journey
Digital Strategy Exchange
The Digital Strategy Exchange (DSX) is an exclusive, peer-to-peer professional development network for brand-side/in-house digital leaders (Manager, Director, VP, C-level) and consultants with at least 10 years of brand-side experience.
Basic membership is FREE, and a Premium membership is just $95 for the first year.
DSX provides a forum to meet, learn, and succeed by exchanging ideas, learnings, best practices, jobs, and opinions in a vendor-free space (e.g. no vendors, agencies, or “influencers”).
With so much change happening in Digital Marketing, eCommerce, Digital Merchandising, Digital Product Design, Marketing Ops, and eCommerce Ops, the time is right to organize as a community and excel at what’s next.
Join the exclusive community of fellow brand-side digital leaders.
Next Zoom Meeting (general business audience)
The Making of the First Nike.com Website (30th anniversary)
The first Nike.com website was launched 30 years ago just prior to the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. Learn the behind-the-scenes story of how the project came together.
Featuring Jonathan Nelson, CEO of Omnicom Digital
Wednesday, July 15, 1:00pm – 2:00pm PDT
Zoom meeting
Next Zoom Meeting (DSX members & prospects only)
Dealing with Digital Leader Overwhelm
We’re all feeling it. Let’s get together to talk about dealing with digital leader overwhelm.
Thursday, June 25, 12:30pm – 1:30pm PDT
Zoom meeting
Next In-Person Event (general business audience)
Co-creAIt, an unconference about Human/GenAI collaboration (for brand-side digital leaders & consultants)
Co-creAIt is an unconference about Humans and AI collaborating at work. The event is for brand-side digital leaders and will feature the tracks below.
As an unconference, there are no speakers or panelists (you’ve probably heard from several AI experts already). INSTEAD, each attendee is an equal participant in the various topic discussions, which the attendees decide on together at the start of the event. It’s an interactive and collaborative event format.
Tracks
- Digital Marketing Management
- Digital Product/eCommerce Management
- Digital Content/Merchandising Management
- Digital Leadership Development
Date: Friday, July 31st
Time: 9:00am – 4:30pm
Location: OSU Portland Center, 555 SW Morrison Street, Portland, OR 97204
Join the DSX Email List
Stay up to date on events, news, learnings, etc.
For prospective members and sponsors, others.
Benefits Overview
Complete benefits in Price table below
Exclusive Peer Network
Membership applications are manually reviewed to ensure that members accepted into the network are brand-side/in-house digital leaders, or consultants with at least 10 years of in-house experience, or are between such jobs. No salespeople, agencies, or “influencers” without brand-side experience.
Knowledge Exchange
We host regular members-only meetings. Learn from expert guest speakers and from your fellow digital leaders. Our exclusive online community, like a gated LinkedIn, provides a variety of ways for Premium members to exchange learnings, case studies, best practices, job openings, software & agency experiences, etc., with NO sales pitches. A robust Member Directory helps you find expertise by function, industry, and/or platform.
Career Development
The mission of the DSX is to help our members advance in their career in a variety of ways, including getting hired and promoted. Let DSX be the “X” factor that elevates your career.
3 Simple Steps to Become a DSX Member
WE REVIEW
We review your application to ensure you meet the membership criteria.
YOU JOIN
If approved, we send you a link to join and pay (if joining Premium or Team). You then get access to the member benefits.
Membership Benefits and Pricing
50% Discount for 1st Year to Help Grow the Network*
Basic (individual)
In-House & Individual Contractors w/ 5+ years In-house-
Discount to attend exclusive members-only monthly meetings (save up to $10 per meeting)
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Good Discounts on premium DSX events open to general business audience (including in-person events)
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Limited Access to Members-only online community (like LinkedIn but without the constant sales pitches)
Premium (individual)
In-House & Individual Contractors w/ 5+ years In-house-
50% Discount for 1st year
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NO COST to attend exclusive members-only monthly meetings (save up to $25 per meeting)
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BEST Discounts on DSX events open to general business audience (including in-person events)
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Earn commissions by referring new Premium members (Affiliate program coming soon)
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Complimentary digital leadership coaching by Steve Gehlen (1 hour, $250 value, discount on additional hours)
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Access to Members-only online community (like LinkedIn but without the constant sales pitches)
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Member Directory: Find expertise by function, industry, and/or platform
Team (Premium)
Up to 15 In-House Members for Price of 10-
50% Discount for 1st year
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Get Premium Member benefits for up to 15 people at the cost of 10 (i.e., up to 5 free members)
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Complimentary digital leadership coaching by Steve Gehlen (up to 4 hours, $1,000 value, discount on additional hours)
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Invoicing & pay by check available
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Team Administrator account manages all Team sub-accounts
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Members must have the same email address domain as the Team Administrator
Do these challenges sound familiar?
Network with and learn from peers who have dealt with these same issues.
- Risk of falling behind in AI
- Challenges with team alignment & performance
- Dealing with underperforming SaaS platforms
- Dealing with underperforming agencies
- The talent you need for your team is hard to find
- Overwhelmed by the pace of change and choices
- Keeping up seems impossible at times
- Meeting customer experience expectations
- Too many sales pitches on LinkedIn & email
- LinkedIn's usefulness to my career has diminished
- Management doesn't appreciate the complexities
- Dealing with internal obstacles and turf battles
- Struggling with budget & resource allocation
- Challenges with measuring ROI confidently
- Challenges demonstrating the true value I'm adding
Been There, Done That
DSX Founder is a Peer
The founder & facilitator of the Digital Strategy Exchange is Steve Gehlen, a 30-year brand/in-house digital executive (Nike, Icebreaker Clothing, Pendleton, Hollywood Video, OHSU, Cambia Health Solutions, Brandlive, and others). He knows in-house digital leadership challenges first hand.
Steve founded and managed a similar organization from 2004 – 2009 called the Internet Strategy Forum, which grew to a national membership of over 1,600 in-house digital executives, with chapters in 7 cities and a Board of Directors from Disney, Visa, Intel, IBM, Oregon Health & Sciences University, NBC/Universal, and others, plus monthly chapter meetings and an annual Summit conference. He knows how to build a community of leaders.
LEADERSHIP TESTIMONIAL
During my time as a digital strategy executive at Intel, I had the privilege of working with DSX Founder Steve Gehlen as a Board member for the Internet Strategy Forum, which he founded in 2004 and led with tremendous success. I had the opportunity to work closely with Steve on several initiatives and saw firsthand his ability to build an engaged, peer-driven community of digital executives. Steve’s expertise and ability to cultivate a professional network that drives success are unparalleled.
Bryan Rhoads
Head of Marketing, Transformative Optics, former digital executive at Intel and Micron Technology
Getting started is easy
Fill out our simple member application form. We’ll review your application to ensure it meets our membership criteria.
From the Founder
Contact the Founder
I’ve formed the Digital Strategy Exchange approach based on 30 years of brand-side in-house digital leadership experience (Nike, Icebreaker Clothing, Pendleton, Hollywood Video, Oregon Health & Science University, Brandlive, Wilco), combined with the unique experience of having built a similar exclusive professional network on a global scale 20 years ago, plus experience producing many successful business conferences and events over those same years.
If you have questions about applying for membership, or have questions about ways to work with DSX if you aren’t a member prospect (e.g. sponsors or partner organizations), please contact me.
– Steve Gehlen, Founder & Facilitator, Digital Strategy Exchange
50% Discount on 1st Year
To jump-start our network growth during your first year, all membership pricing is 50% off*
* The 50% Year 1 discount is for the first year of membership only. Subsequent annual membership fees are billed at the then-current rate without the Year 1 discount unless the membership is cancelled before the renewal date.