Michaela Hayes is a Senior Marketing Consultant with La Piana Associates.  She has an extensive background in population, market, and survey research; branding; marketing; communications; and strategic planning and strategy formation.  
 
Michaela has held manager and director-level positions of marketing and market research with several organizations, as well as senior and managing consultant positions with national consulting firms. Michaela’s professional work spans the nonprofit, business, and government sectors, and includes organizations focused on health care, mental health, social services, children and youth, seniors, environment, education, and arts and culture.  She has designed and conducted innumerable research projects on behalf of clients who seek to better understand their markets and market trends, market position, competition, and customer/client needs and concerns.  She advises these organizations on how to use this information to make better decisions and to develop more effective strategies to achieve their missions and strategic goals, and on how to develop their own in-house research and marketing functions.
 
Michaela was a contributing author to David La Piana’s book, Play to Win: the Nonprofit Guide to Competitive Strategy, which won a Terry McAdam Nonprofit Book of the Year honorable mention award.  Additionally, she was a co-author of La Piana Associates’ book: The Nonprofit Mergers Workbook, Part II: Unifying the Organization after a Merger (2004).  She has published many journal articles on strategy, marketing, and market research, and is the author of Focus Group Essentials: Increase the Effectiveness of Your Communications and Their Contributions to the Bottom Line, published by the International Association of Business Communicators.

Michaela has served as a board member and volunteer for several nonprofit organizations.  She is active in professional organizations including the American Marketing Association and the International Association of Business Communicators where she serves as President-elect on the Board of the San Francisco Chapter.  She also serves on the Steering Committee for the Philanthropic Consultants Network, located in Northern California.  Additionally, Michaela is instructor of the Market Research course for San Francisco State University’s Integrated Marketing Program.
 
Michaela received a Master’s degree from the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan, and a BA in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.