About Craig Underwood

Entrepreneur, CEO, Loyalty and Web 2.0 Strategist, Advisor to Social Entrepreneurs

Underwood Partners is a Boston based company organized and led by Craig Underwood.  Craig recruits and works with a small number of highly experienced executives and analysts selected for each project based on their relevant backgrounds and passion for helping clients address their most important strategic challenges and opportunities.  Underwood Partners has expertise in three areas: Helping large enterprises understand, engage with and profit from the philosophy and applications of Web 2.0 and social media technologies; Developing and optimizing data-based loyalty and reward programs; and Leveraging the Internet to monetize fan bases, membership groups and other communities.

In addition to his role as Founder and Managing Partner of Underwood Partners, Craig’s experience includes Founder and CEO of The Loyalty Group/Air Miles Canada; CEO of Sports Loyalty Systems; Co-Founder of SocialSphere Strategies; and serving as a Partner at both Bain & Company and The Bridgespan Group, Bain’s nonprofit affiliate.  He has served on over 10 start-up, corporate and nonprofit boards.

Craig’s CEO experience includes being the Founder and CEO of The Loyalty Group, the Canadian company that created and runs the AIR MILES Reward Program – one of the largest coalition (multi-company) loyalty programs in the world.  Started by Craig and two colleagues in a Toronto hotel room in 1991, Loyalty now employs over 1500 people.  Over 70% of Canadian households are active members of the program and the business generates over $150MM in annual operating cash.  While at Loyalty, Craig developed 20 innovative coalition database marketing programs for sponsoring companies including Safeway, American Express and Bank of Montreal and launched www.airmiles.com, the first loyalty program on the internet. He sold the business in 1998 to Alliance Data Systems, which became one of the most successful public companies of the past decade (NYSE:ADS). 

Craig was a founding board member and served as interim CEO of Sports Loyalty Systems, a company started in 1996 to develop the coalition loyalty model around professional sports teams.

Craig’s consulting experience includes six years at Bain & Company from 1984 to 1990, where he developed and implemented strategies in a wide variety of industries from health care to food products manufacturing to marketing research.  He was among the first in his class promoted to partner and was selected by the firm to lead consultant recruiting.  At Bain, Craig developed expertise in and a passion for the powerful economics of customer loyalty. His clients included Nielsen Marketing Research, Baxter Healthcare, Sara Lee, Union Pacific Railroad and numerous hospitals.  As the 7th partner to join Bridgespan, where he served from 2003 through 2005, Craig focused on developing growth strategies for high impact nonprofits and improving the effectiveness of nonprofit boards.  His clients included the Center for Employment Opportunities, All Kinds of Minds, Cambridge College, The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and the College Board.

Craig is a co-founder and board member of Year Up, the innovative workforce development program that recruits and trains low income inner city young adults for entry level technology careers and higher education.  Craig worked closely with Founder and CEO Gerald Chertavian in 2001 to launch Year Up with 22 students in Boston.  The program now operates in Boston, San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, Providence and Washington, D.C. and serves over 800 students. Craig leads all of Year Up’s strategy work and is also involved in fundraising, recruiting and web strategy.

Craig earned a BA in Political Science at West Virginia University, an MA from Oxford University in Politics, Economics and Philosophy, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He has served on numerous boards, including Upromise and Oxford Properties and is currently on the Advisory Board of Modiv Media. Craig resides in Brookline, MA with his wife, their thirteen year old daughter and ten year old son.  All of the Underwood’s are avid skiers/snowboarders, tennis players, Red Sox and music fans.  Craig’s blog about Web 2.0, customer service and loyalty can be found at www.collaborationevangelist.com.