Libby Morgan: Thanks for joining me today, Greg. We just announced Blazer, where you’ve been CEO since 2019, is joining MERGE. How are you feeling?
Greg Ng: I’m incredibly excited. I’m proud of what we’ve built over the past 22 years at Blazer which was previously Brooks Bell. I’m extremely grateful to the employees who’ve made us into the strategic consulting firm that we are, and I can’t wait to get started with MERGE. Now, with MERGE’s execution capabilities across creative and technology, we can do even more for the clients we already serve and for new ones.
LM: Tell us a little about the expertise your team brings to MERGE.
GN: Our team brings a strategic lens to support clients in determining their investment strategies and proving out ROI in areas such as: data science, user research, experimentation, advanced analytics, and organizational effectiveness.
We’ve spent the last several years helping clients connect customer insight to real business outcomes—improving how teams make decisions, execute programs, and scale what works.
Everyone on the team has experience navigating complex, regulated industries like financial services, retail, and healthcare. We understand the importance of privacy, security, and compliance, and we know how to drive transformation in high-stakes environments.
We’ve navigated complex digital transformation and optimization challenges, and I believe that experience will only enhance MERGE’s existing capabilities. We have a few proprietary service frameworks, too, that we’ll deploy together!
LM: I’m also excited to get started. You’ll be joining the team I lead focused on delivering integrated solutions to solve our clients’ most complex business problems, while also addressing challenging market dynamics. Leveraging products, accelerators, and holistic offerings, we focus on speed-to-market and business results.
Within that framework and, as you and I have discussed at length, your team brings a lot of strategic value and insights. Why don’t you share some of what we have discussed and why we are both so excited about our future together?
GN: We all know the tech industry continues to push forward at an incredible pace with no sign of slowing down. Companies and brands need to deliver against their business goals and get ahead of consumer expectations.
Now, with MERGE, we have more resources and ability to help clients move faster and smarter. We help them optimize for opportunities at earlier stages like strategic planning, digital experience design, and go-to-market execution.
Our consulting expertise helps clients turn insights into action with measurable outcomes. We make sure their customer interactions translate into results. This means faster campaign launches, greater customer lifetime value, up to 30% higher conversion rates, and sustainable revenue growth.
LM: I know you have countless success stories. Can you share with us a few of the outcomes that your clients have seen?
GN: We are privileged to partner with some of the world’s leading brands including Fortune 100 financial services firms, one of the largest U.S. financial institutions, and global retail brands.
Here’s a quick list of some of the accomplishments:
- We supported a brand’s marketing organization in its efforts to quantify ROI to justify budget for new and long-standing initiatives. With this information, they were able to increase budget!
- For another organization, we unified insights across research and customer experience teams.
- We helped an organization drive smarter decisions by unifying campaign processes and dashboards and embedding analytics practices.
- We elevated a company’s website personalization efforts by defining clear program goals, conducting an activity-level impact analysis, and providing specific recommendations. The true measure of success comes from the client seeing increased conversion rates, growth in customer lifetime value, and accelerated revenue.
LM: Greg, I know that you and I agree it all starts with our clients. Our North Star is always to provide measurable results for our clients, and I know Blazer has the same value proposition.
What are the 3 most exciting things for you as you join MERGE and look toward the future?
GN: I’m looking forward to joining such a successful and forward-thinking company that MERGE is. The culture is fantastic, and we also value curiosity, embracing differences, and making magic for clients across industries!
I’m also excited to expand our reach. We’ve done great things as Blazer, and now we’ll be able to do even more great things as a part of MERGE. This team is going to deliver truly unique, tech-enabled solutions that help our clients transform their industries.
LM: I’d love to share the 3 most exciting things from my perspective as Blazer joins MERGE and we look toward the future.
- The expansion of the team focused on cross-offerings strengthens MERGE’s ability to serve clients better, faster, and more comprehensively. We are responding with scale to marketplace demand through research, organizational design, data-driven experimentation, and platform integration with Adobe and Google.
- Our value systems are aligned. We are both focused on solutions that advance health, wellness, and happiness.
- The incredible talent that Blazer brings will complement and extend the capabilities that MERGE offers. I’m excited to see what we all do together.
LM: What’s one unexpected thing about you, Greg, that most people wouldn’t guess?
GN: On weekends, I’m a professional soccer photographer. It started as a way for me to stay in the game after I stopped coaching my kids. Now, I capture images through the season for the two professional teams in our area: North Carolina FC and North Carolina Courage.
LM: My unexpected thing: after spending 30 years in the city, my husband and I just moved our family to the suburbs.
So, I’m currently building garden beds in my backyard and attempting to grow vegetables. Wish me luck! From green thumb to green thread… Our CEO, Stephanie Trunzo, brought the concept of green threads to MERGE. A green thread is a commonality or something that reoccurs over the years and gives meaning to the different steps on a journey.
For me, a green thread has been creating and building new things. It’s being creative, coming up with different ways to solve challenges, having fun with new ideas, and collaborating with others. I’ve enjoyed the journey of discovering interesting approaches and having fun along the way. What’s a green thread for you?
GN: I have a personal tagline that goes along with your green thread: “Never Stop Creating.” It applies to both my creative endeavors as well as the acknowledgement of constantly growing and discovering ourselves. Sometimes that’s evolving and sometimes that’s reinventing ourselves - and, like you said, when you look back and see those evolutions, you can find a green thread.
My green thread is in creating cultures where our team can bring their ”whole selves” to work. We all have bad days or certain habits we’d maybe like to hide. But, if we bring a perfectly packaged version of ourselves to work, where we do hide parts of ourselves, we miss out on the chance to form deeper bonds with our coworkers.
I care about creating a work environment where we can be our authentic selves because it marks for a stronger team and better work. Also, I believe it’s essential to living a holistically fulfilling life.
LM: Well said, Greg. We’re excited you and your team are here. Welcome to MERGE!
Read our press release to learn more!