Brenda Bence

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Brand Development Associates International (BDA) has been ranked #29 in the Independent Consultants/Trainers/Coaches category of Leadership Excellence’s annual ranking of the Top 500 Leadership Development Programs in the world. The Leadership 500 is a ranking of the best individuals, teams, and organizations in leadership development practices and employee motivation-productivity today.

This year’s Leadership 500 was published in the October 2011 Special Edition of Leadership Excellence magazine, a publication founded by business greats Ken Shelton, Stephen R. Covey, Ken Blanchard, and Charles Garfield. The issue was sent to more than 187,000 of the world’s “movers, shakers, and decision makers.”

“This is a tremendous honor for our company,” said Brenda Bence, BDA’s Founder and President. “We are thrilled to be recognized by such a prestigious publication as Leadership Excellence and to be recognized along with so many other accomplished companies.”

To determine the Leadership 500 rankings, Leadership Excellence evaluated organizations based on seven criteria: vision/mission, involvement and participation, measurement and accountability, design-content-curriculum, presenters-presentations-delivery, take-home value, and outreach.

Brenda Bence founded BDA in 2002 after 20 years of building mega brands for Fortune 100 companies Procter & Gamble and Bristol-Myers Squibb. During that time, Bence – who holds an MBA from Harvard Business School – was a senior executive responsible for billion-dollar businesses across four continents and almost 50 countries.

Today, less than ten years after its founding, BDA does business across 25 countries and maintains offices in both the U.S. and Asia. The company provides training, coaching, and speaking services to clients located on six continents, including such companies as Citibank, Credit Suisse, Danone International, Deutsche Bank, KFC, Kraft, Lilly, Mattel, Microsoft, Sheraton Hotels, Standard Chartered Bank, Pizza Hut, and the U.S. Department of State.

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Author Brenda Bence’s latest book, Smarter Branding Without Breaking the Bank: Five Proven Marketing Strategies You Can Use Right Now to Build Your Business at Little or No Cost, has been named an Award-Winning Finalist in two separate categories of the USA “Best Books 2011” Awards: the Business/Marketing & Advertising category as well as the Business/Entrepreneurship & Small Business category.

“My aim with the book is to show SMEs and solo-preneurs that they have a variety of assets available to them right now that they can use to market their brand — regardless of the size of their budget,” Bence said.

After years as a mega-brander working across four continents and 50 countries for deep-pocketed consumer giants like Procter & Gamble and Bristol-Myers Squibb, Bence left the corporate world to start her own business. From scratch — and with almost empty pockets — she used inventive, low-cost methods to build her own international brand that now serves clients in 25 countries with offices in the U.S. and Asia. To help readers achieve similar success, Bence has filled the award-winning book with hundreds of low-cost or no-cost branding ideas that can immediately increase a company’s revenues.

Smarter Branding Without Breaking the Bank is Bence’s fifth book. The three books in her How YOU™ are like Shampoo personal branding series have won a total of 13 national book awards. “I am honored to be recognized again by the USA Best Books Awards,” Bence said. “Smarter Branding is based on one of my most popular workshops, so it’s gratifying to know that the book that stems from that workshop is also being well-received.”

The USA “Best Books 2011” Awards are sponsored by USABookNews.com, the premiere online magazine and review website for mainstream and independent publishing houses. Winners and finalists this year traversed the publishing landscape: Simon & Schuster, St. Martin’s Press, Random House, Penguin, Harper Collins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, John Wiley & Sons, and hundreds of independent houses.

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