Tony Salemi is a veteran entrepreneur and business owner. He has designed, marketed, and sold product ideas to the business community for more than 35 years.
He started his business career in 1982 with a small retail operation, which introduced him to the importance of providing personalized customer service to consumers, which became one of his guiding principles for the rest of his career.
For the next 20 years, Tony owned and operated a premium and incentive business that designed and developed integrated marketing programs for corporate clients that used branding and custom products to bring awareness and increase sales of their product and service offerings within their respective marketplaces. Clients ranged in size from local small business to national fortune 100 companies.
In 2003, Tony founded MicrobeGuard Corporation, a product innovation company manufacturing specialty paper products for the commercial market. As the President, CEO, and Chief Innovator, he successfully developed a patented suite of commercial products. These products have revolutionized the way premium processor, foodservice and grocery businesses display, store, and transport seafood and raw proteins. MicobeGuard’s FoodTouch® products have become a sought after and recognized brand worldwide.
In addition to Tony’s business career, he founded and was the co-chairman of a not-for-profit organization that served the physically disabled. Born of his deep compassion, philanthropic nature, and tireless commitment to serve others, the work of his organization positively affected hundreds of disabled recipients throughout his community.
Tony resides in the Chicago area with his wife and three children.
Mark Monaco, Senior VP Business Strategy & Ideation, and Chief Marketing Officer, is a passionate business professional, former business owner and CEO with more than forty years of experience. He has achieved a level of prominence for his break-through work in the application of strategic business intelligence and creativity to business strategy, innovation, culture, and marketing practices.
Today, he leads MicrobeGuard’s senior management team in exploratory visioning, business strategy formulation, and product ideation and development. As a visionary, he maintains a professional discipline of anticipating market occurrences, and generating market insights. By balancing internal and external areas of focus with strategic research, diagnostics and action, he brings a broad knowledge, best practices and intelligence to direct application in the formulation of MicrobeGuard’s business concepts and strategies, product innovation and development, and marketing. As CMO, Mark is responsible for the global branding and marketing of all MicrobeGuard products.
His extensive experience includes change management, process leadership, strategy and innovation, creativity, cultural change, brand integration and management, marketing, communication, executive coaching, and public speaking.
Mark’s passion is improving business performance by anticipating and meeting the unique challenges presented in achieving business and marketing objectives in today’s challenging and fluid global marketplace.
He has been married to his wife for 45 years.