Patrick Byrne loves a good fight. The chairman and CEO of Overstock.com, who holds a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, once pursued a boxing career. Byrne also turned 
Overstock.com from a two-year-old $1.8 million startup into a $1 billion enterprise in little more than a decade.

Starbucks rode into its 40th anniversary year after scoring the strongest holiday sales season in its history. The coffee retailer's CMO Annie Young-Scrivner, though, is determined to keep Starbucks a youthful brand, riding on the cutting edge of technology and innovation.

About a year after graduating from Wisconsin's Ripon College, Howard Draft was one of the 13 founding employees of new direct marketing agency Kobs & Brady.

Sanjay Gupta joined GMAC Inc. as CMO in March 2008, the same month that investment firm Bear Stearns collapsed.

Harvard School of Business' first CMO, Brian Kenny, enjoys being in charge of marketing in the midst of one of the most business-focused institutions in the world. Nor is the irony lost on him.

Monica Luechtefeld, EVP of global e-commerce at Office Depot recently restructured her marketing teams into one group to further integrate channels.

When Melissa Payner-Gregor joined Bluefly as president in 2003, she knew exactly who she wanted to lead the then-fledgling e-commerce site's marketing function: Brad Matson.

The daily deal site Groupon launched in 2008, but has recently gone global to more than 150 cities. Direct Marketing News speaks with the company's president and COO, Rob Solomon.

About.com's Minskoff on the Web portal's branding campaign derived from 'timeless human behavior'

CMO Christa Carone discusses her strategy for redefining the company's brand