About
Professional Summary
As the Digital Marketing Manager for Colliers | Southwest Region, Marie Bell enhances the creative technical aspects of marketing on behalf of internal and external stakeholders. Working with local marketing teams across the Southwest, she generates, executes, and evaluates digital marketing strategies to implement best-in-class methods throughout the region.
Her responsibilities encompass business development, digital presentations, custom property websites, email marketing campaigns, social media strategies, training and onboarding, and internal digital initiatives that enhance and raise the profile of our organization and professionals across the Southwest Region.
Her advanced skills include Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop), Ceros, Constant Contact, Mailchimp, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Sitecore, Hootsuite and Microsoft Office. With a diverse background in design and marketing, Marie's experience includes working with both large corporate and small local companies. She has developed and adapted her skills over time and has created a wide array of designs across various print and digital formats.
Background:
Before coming to Colliers, Marie was involved in creating a variety of graphics for events hosted by Square Egg Entertainment, including Phoenix Fan Fusion (formerly Phoenix Comicon), Minnesota Fan Fusion and Vegas Fan Fusion. She created designs for web, social media, apparel, promotional items, and print collateral. As graphic designer and production assistant for Sportex Safety, she worked under tight deadlines to create graphics and production-ready files for a broad range of mediums, including screen printing, embroidery, laser engraving, print media, banners, and signs.
Accomplishments
- 2022 – Promoted to Digital Marketing Manager | Southwest Region
- 2021 – Promoted to Senior Digital Designer | Southwest Region
- 2020 – Promoted to Graphic Designer | Arizona Region
- 2020 - Service Excellence Award for Colliers in Arizona for going out of her way to provide excellent service for clients, brokers and coworkers
- Awarded Colliers’ Commercial Property Marketing Certification (CPMC)—the first and only accreditation for CRE marketing professionals, representing the highest educational accomplishments to increase strategic and tactical marketing expertise and knowledge of our industry
Education
- Bachelor of Arts, Digital Design with Emphasis in Animation and a Minor in Marketing, Grand Canyon University
Memberships & Involvements
- AIGA Arizona
- AZCREW
- Creative Mornings PHX
Testimonials
"Marie is an extremely quick learner, a smart designer, and a creative problem solver that anyone would be lucky to have on their team. Her willingness to take on new challenges, eagerness to learn, and knowledge of digital marketing and design sets her apart from a traditional graphic designer. Marie listens first, takes direction with exceptional grace, and is a strong team player regardless of the hurdles and position she’s placed in. I’m beyond grateful to have had her as a partner and teammate for over 3 years, and have never seen someone grow more in such a short period of time. Marie’s ability to train others, share her expertise, and communicate clearly is unparalleled and is the type of skillset that cannot be taught. Having Marie on my team has made my job easier and more efficient by her speed to market design and ability to adapt in a fast paced, high demand environment."—Kristen Singletary, Digital Marketing Manager, RED Development
Services
Skills
Service Lines
My Team
My Team
In her role as Senior Director of Business Development & Marketing | West Region for Colliers, Vanessa Williams oversees a talented team of marketing and research professionals across the Western United Stats. Serving as business partner and advisor to the regional president, division leadership and local markets across the Southwestern Region, Vanessa is tasked with developing a highly effective salesforce to achieve organic growth and continuously increase market share for Colliers.
Collaborating with regional and local leadership teams and brokers, Vanessa is focused on developing and implementing marketing and research strategies to position the region as a leader in the commercial real estate industry through innovative and measurable tactics. Her goal is to elevate marketing and research teams to operate as strategic partners to Colliers’ brokers.
Working closely with key support functions, Vanessa assists in managing the business development process, the identification and qualification of opportunities, and the assignment of new opportunities to local or regional pursuit resources and/or the national Business Development Center. She is accountable for developing the structure and resources required to execute business development plans for the region.
Regional team:
The Colliers Regional Strategic Projects Team comprises the most talented and experienced professionals across the region. The team serves as strategic advisors to Colliers’ brokers and clients and partners with national marketing and research leaders to cascade regional initiatives and objectives to local markets.
Under the direction of the Director of Business Development and Strategic Resources, the regional team leads a network of marketing experts to develop actionable marketing initiatives, champion the adoption of new technology, and identify and implement best-in-class marketing processes and practices. The team is responsible for developing avenues to strategically partner with business line leaders to target and win new business.
The team’s approach blends the insight and imagination of incredible people who see endless possibilities. We foster a culture of innovation and collaboration that informs, connects and advances the interests of our clients and professionals through business development, property marketing, digital engagement, research and public relations. Our fully internal regional team takes advantage of a comprehensive set of tools and resources, with expertise in all areas of commercial real estate marketing. We create high-quality content that tells a story and is useful, relevant and thought-provoking.
Background:
Previously Vanessa served as marketing director for Colliers in Arizona and regional marketing ambassador for Colliers’ Southwest Region, where she fostered a culture of innovation and collaboration that informs, connects and advances the interests of clients and professionals through business development, property marketing, public relations and digital engagement.
As marketing director for Arizona, Vanessa led an innovative marketing team strongly focused on business development. Her young and innovative approach resulted in new strategies for commercial real estate marketing, focused on the growing influence of social media and the changing landscape of the new economy. As a vital client-facing professional, Vanessa has been actively involved with brokerage professionals in pitching new business. Throughout the creative process, she worked hand-in-hand with brokers and staff to develop highly effective marketing concepts and strategies.
As regional marketing ambassador for the Southwest Region, Vanessa partnered with regional and national marketing leaders to cascade regional initiatives and objectives to local marketing directors, managers and Colliers Centers of Excellence leaders. She guided a network of marketing experts to develop actionable marketing initiatives, champion the adoption of new technology, and identify and implement best-in-class marketing processes and practices. Working with local marketing managers and directors, Vanessa found avenues to strategically partner with business line leaders to target and win new business.
Her work with Colliers has allowed Vanessa to combine her passion for growing the company’s business through marketing with her commitment to values and ethics. She joined Colliers in 2015, with enthusiasm for the company’s unique value-based culture and is dedicated to moving that mission forward.
Vanessa demonstrates exceptional skill and expertise in several core components of marketing, including business development, branding, asset positioning, property-marketing campaigns, public relations and advertising. She brings more than 14 years of extensive experience and knowledge in all aspects of marketing, business development and graphic design.
Her tenure in the commercial real estate industry began in 2007, when she served as a graphic designer at Grubb & Ellis. Vanessa left the commercial real estate industry for a few years to hone her skills at Campbell Fisher Design (now known as Fisher). She returned to commercial real estate in 2013, joining Cushman & Wakefield as manager of its marketing department for Arizona.
As the Creative Manager for Colliers’ Southwest Region, Cristiana Zarr works alongside Vanessa Williams, the Director of Business Development & Strategic Resources for the Southwest region, focusing on business development, overall strategy, and guidance to implement best-in-class marketing initiatives for the brokerage teams and clients.
On a daily basis, Cristiana provides creative direction for high-profile custom property marketing and brand development, cascade initiatives, toolkits, and templates, while also guiding the Southwest Region’s creative efforts.
Cristiana also coordinates with regional and local marketing team members to deliver high-standard branding and campaign solutions by developing branded deliverables across print and digital platforms.
The vast skillset that Cristiana brings, including solutions-oriented design aesthetic, creative leadership, and collaboration, all contribute to Cristiana’s success in her position.
Previously, Cristiana served as the Arizona Region’s Creative Manager, following new trends to develop innovative designs for strategic marketing initiatives, branding, and advertising campaigns. She determined messaging and design formats to drive maximum engagement and designed highly specialized property marketing campaigns. One of her primary functions was to support the Arizona Region team, train staff on creative marketing materials, and monitor project deadlines to ensure that they were completed as scheduled.
Cristiana has been with Colliers since 2005.
As the Digital Designer for the Southwest Region at Colliers, Nicole Nowakowski assists with digital marketing and design on behalf of internal and external stakeholders. Working with local marketing teams across the Southwest and alongside the Southwest Regional Digital Marketing Manager, she supports and implements creative digital marketing strategies to implement the highest quality practices throughout the region.
Her responsibilities encompass creation, design, and implementation of digital presentations, custom property websites, email marketing campaigns, training and onboarding, and internal digital initiatives that enhance and raise the profile of our organization and professionals across the Southwest Region.
Nicole's skillset includes Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, XD, Premiere Pro), Ceros, Wordpress, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Sitecore, and Microsoft Office. With a diverse background in design, marketing, and web development, Nicole's experience includes working for both large corporate environments as well as small companies. She has developed and adapted her skills over time and has created a wide array of designs across various print and digital formats.
Background
Nicole comes from a creative and technical background. Preceding her current role, she worked for Catalyst Design Group as a designer, website developer, project manager, and video editor. In this agency-style setting, she participated in graphic design projects, such as logo development and packaging design, as well as website design projects and video projects. In addition to her experience at Catalyst Design Group, she worked as Project Manager and Digital Designer for Design United, a student-run agency at Grand Canyon University, where she managed client and designer schedules, critiqued designers to ensure quality work, and fascilitated a fluid process from design conception to delivery.