Mary K Young, one of the legal community's most accomplished marketing professionals, is known for combining extensive corporate marketing experience with a lengthy tenure at the helm of one of the nation's most progressive and effective legal marketing programs. As CMO of Howrey from 2000-2006, Mary K collaborated with firm leadership to strengthen the firm's position in the marketplace, demonstrating her equal facility with market research, strategic marketing and business-development planning, and the creative implementation of brand strategy. At Howrey she helped revise and expand the firm's strategic plan, reposition Howrey in the marketplace, launch four US and four European offices, integrate with a major merger partner, and restructure the firm's marketing department. 

During her tenure at Howrey, Mary K developed and launched new positioning and advertising for the firm and, in 2005, after Howrey shortened its name, she also led the development of its new corporate identity.  Between 2001 and 2004, as Howrey extended its footprint to London, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Paris, Mary K developed and implemented the marketing plan for each of those offices, just as previously she had led strategic planning initiatives at the firmwide, practice group, and geographic levels.

Mary K's extensive marketing experience began on the consulting side at Management Design, a Washington, DC consulting firm. After receiving her MBA, she spent ten years at Kraft Foods in Glenview, IL, where she developed and implemented positioning and branding strategies for a range of the company's most important products, including Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese, Kraft Grated Parmesan, and Kraft Singles.  As Category Business Director for Kraft's Singles brand, Mary K led a team of 50 professionals and had marketing and profit and loss responsibility for the $870 million business.  She returned to Washington, D.C., in 1997, to serve as Senior Vice President of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States where she was responsible for developing industry-wide strategy and positioning for the $34 billion distilled spirits industry. 

Mary K holds an M.B.A. in Marketing from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA, as well as a B.A. in Political Science and History from Vassar College.  She is a frequent presenter at marketing symposia.