Jeffrey Barnhart, Founder and CEO of CMA, has more than 35 years of experience in strategic marketing, advertising, public relations, digital marketing, social media, direct response programs, sales promotion, association management and event marketing. He is a featured speaker and columnist on various marketing and communications topics and has been named Small Business Person of the Year by the Princeton Regional Chamber of Commerce, and Icon of the year by NJBIZ. CMA won the 2016 Outstanding Small Business of the Year award from the MIDJersey Chamber of Commerce. He was also named a regional finalist for Inc. magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award and served on the editorial Board of Mercer Business magazine.
Prior to founding CMA, Jeff spent eight years as a marketing executive at Philips Lighting, where he spearheaded the successful marketing and sales integration of three Philips Lighting Company mergers and played a key role in launching one of the first energy-efficient, environmentally-beneficial lighting products in the US market. Jeff was also instrumental in developing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) “Green Lights” program that advocated using new lighting technologies to reduce electricity demand and served as the basis for the current Energy Star initiative.
Some of Jeff’s other significant accomplishments include the founding of the International Card Manufacturing Association (ICMA) in 1990 in effort to provide a forum for which professionals in the card manufacturing industry could network, monitor and report on industry happenings. ICMA is a global non-profit association that he helped grow from seven members to 240 plastic card manufacturers, personalizers, suppliers and other industry participants.
Jeff earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Rider University.