Our Team
Meet Our Founders
Cimply is led by Mark Donatelli and Daniel Kowal, two co-founders and managing partners whose careers developed on different sides of the marketing ecosystem.
Mark’s background connects customer understanding, data strategy, technology, consulting, and business transformation.
Daniel’s experience connects integrated media, performance marketing, agency operations, analytics, reporting, and financial stewardship.
Together, they built Cimply to help clients connect strategic direction with the planning, activation, measurement, and operating discipline required to put it into practice.
Cimply is intentionally senior-led. Clients work directly with experienced practitioners who understand that most marketing problems do not begin and end inside a single channel, platform, report, or campaign.
Built by Practitioners, not Just Advisors
Cimply was founded to close the gap between advice and execution.
Many firms can describe what should happen. Many agencies can operate an individual channel. Cimply was built for the space between those models, where strategic judgment, customer understanding, media activation, data, analytics, reporting, and day-to-day execution have to work together.
That operating model reflects the founders’ own careers. Both have advised senior leaders, worked inside complex organizations, managed teams and partners, and carried responsibility for putting plans into action. They understand the difference between a recommendation that sounds right and one that can actually be implemented, measured, and improved.
Their experience is not presented as a collection of past titles. It is the foundation for how Cimply helps clients make complicated marketing challenges clearer, more practical, and more manageable.
Mark Donatelli
Co-Founder and Managing Partner
Mark Donatelli’s career spans military intelligence, technology leadership, product management, data strategy, management consulting, agency leadership, and marketing transformation.
His early work in U.S. Army intelligence shaped a practical view of information, systems, preparation, and mission outcomes. That experience still influences how he approaches marketing challenges today: understand the signal, clarify the objective, prepare for more than one possible outcome, and make decisions that improve the next move.
Mark later moved through technology, CRM, product, data, consulting, and business leadership roles before holding senior positions across global marketing, data, and agency organizations. His work has included customer and marketing data strategy, data sourcing and commercialization, customer intelligence, segmentation, measurement, operating-model design, and advisory work for large brands and complex organizations.
At Cimply, Mark helps clients connect customer understanding with business strategy and marketing action. He works with leaders to clarify the problem, assess readiness, improve the use of data, strengthen measurement, align teams, and turn broad ambitions into practical plans.
His work is grounded in a simple belief: marketing should start with the customer, but it must also improve decisions, operations, and business outcomes.
Mark’s Areas of Focus
- Customer-first growth strategy
- Customer intelligence, segmentation, and data strategy
- Marketing and business transformation
- Measurement, analytics, and decision support
- Executive advisory and cross-functional alignment
Outside of client work, Mark is an avid golfer and traveler with longstanding interests in design, culture, food, and the ways people experience brands and places.
Daniel Kowal
Co-Founder and Managing Partner
Daniel Kowal brings more than 15 years of experience across integrated media, performance marketing, agency operations, reporting, analytics, financial management, and large-scale execution.
He has worked in complex agency and media environments where planning, process, budget control, stakeholder coordination, reporting, and executional discipline all have to hold together. His experience includes search and biddable media, integrated planning, campaign operations, global media processes, CRM-to-media attribution, partner management, and the stewardship of significant media investments.
Daniel approaches media as an operating system, not simply a collection of channels or platform dashboards. Budgets, audiences, messages, creative, trafficking, tracking, reporting, optimization, and accountability must work together if a plan is going to perform in the real world.
At Cimply, Daniel helps clients turn marketing plans into reliable execution. He works across media activation, reporting, analytics, operational design, process improvement, partner coordination, and financial management to create greater clarity and control.
His work brings structure to complicated programs without introducing unnecessary process. The goal is to make execution more consistent, performance easier to understand, and investment decisions easier to defend.
Daniel’s Areas of Focus
- Integrated and performance media
- Paid search, paid social, and programmatic activation
- Media operations and process design
- Analytics, attribution, and reporting
- Budget management and financial stewardship
Outside of Cimply, Daniel’s interests include skiing, photography, cooking, music, technology, and aquascaping.
Two perspectives. One operating model.
Cimply’s value is not simply that its founders have experience. It is that their experience is complementary.
Mark brings a perspective shaped by customer understanding, data, technology, strategy, consulting, and transformation. Daniel brings a perspective shaped by media execution, analytics, operations, reporting, financial control, and agency delivery.
Together, they help Cimply see more of the system surrounding a marketing problem.
A media problem may actually begin with measurement. A reporting problem may actually be caused by inconsistent data definitions. A demand-generation problem may begin with positioning, customer understanding, planning, or the sales handoff. A growth problem may require strategic clarity and operational support at the same time.
Cimply was built for those intersections.
Mark Brings
- Customer and market understanding
- Data strategy and transformation
- Strategic planning and executive advisory
- A system-level view of business and marketing challenges
Daniel Brings
- Media activation and performance management
- Operational and financial discipline
- Analytics, reporting, and attribution
- The processes required to make execution hold together
Together, they Connect
- Strategy with execution
- Customer understanding with activation
- Data with decisions
- Media investment with accountability
- Planning with measurable performance
Senior-led by Design
At Cimply, founder-led does not mean the founders appear for the introduction and disappear after the work begins.
Mark and Daniel remain directly involved in client engagements, particularly where the work requires strategic judgment, operating experience, performance interpretation, planning, financial oversight, or cross-functional problem solving.
The exact balance depends on the engagement. Some clients need help clarifying direction. Others need stronger execution, measurement, or operating discipline. Many need a combination of both.
Cimply also draws on a wider network of specialists, partners, and experienced practitioners when the work calls for additional capabilities. The founders remain accountable for connecting that expertise to the client’s objectives and ensuring that the work holds together.
Clients receive senior attention without giving up the specialized resources required to execute.
How Experience Shapes the Work
The founders bring different backgrounds, but they share a practical operating belief: complexity should be made useful, not celebrated.
That belief shapes how Cimply works with clients:
- Start with the customer and the business objective.
- Define the real problem before prescribing a channel or tactic.
- Check readiness before increasing investment.
- Build plans that teams can realistically execute.
- Activate media and marketing programs with discipline.
- Measure what happened, explain why it matters, and identify what should change.
- Improve the operating system over time rather than treating every challenge as a one-time project.
The goal is not to make marketing sound more complicated. It is to help leaders make better decisions and help teams do the work with greater clarity and confidence.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who founded Cimply?
Cimply was founded by Mark Donatelli and Daniel Kowal, who serve as managing partners. Together, they bring complementary experience across customer strategy, data, media, analytics, agency operations, consulting, and business transformation.
What experience do Cimply’s founders bring?
Mark’s experience spans military intelligence, technology, product management, data strategy, consulting, agency leadership, and marketing transformation. Daniel’s background spans integrated media, performance marketing, analytics, reporting, financial management, and large-scale agency execution.
How involved are the founders in client work?
Cimply is intentionally senior-led. Mark and Daniel remain directly involved where clients need strategic direction, operating judgment, media leadership, performance interpretation, financial oversight, or cross-functional problem solving.
How does Cimply combine Consulting and Agency experience?
Cimply connects strategic judgment with practical execution. The firm helps clients determine what should happen, then supports the planning, activation, measurement, reporting, and operational work required to make it happen.
Bring us the problem, even when it does not fit neatly into one channel
Whether the challenge begins with strategy, media, data, measurement, operations, or the connections between them, Cimply can help identify the most practical next step.