About Us

Founded in 2003, Mary Furlong & Associates (MFA) is a strategy, business development, marketing and public relations strategic communications firm headquartered in San Francisco. The firm's strategy, business development, marketing and public relations services are uniquely geared to drive new opportunities for clients in the baby boomer and senior markets.

Our Values
Vision: MFA has a deep understanding of the boomer and senior markets, born from more than two decades of experience.

Integrity: We strive to work with socially conscious companies and entrepreneurs seeking to serve the real needs of mature consumers with quality products and services.

Relationships: Our team brings more than 40 years of combined experience in building relationships with "age beat" reporters, analysts, bloggers and other key online and offline influencers.

About Mary Furlong
Mary Furlong, Ed.D., MFA's president and CEO, is a leading authority on the baby boom generation as it moves toward and beyond age 50. She has guided the offline and online 45+ market strategies of leading corporations and nonprofit organizations for more than 20 years, and her list of clients includes IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Merrill Lynch, Viacom (CBS), Advance Publications, Proctor & Gamble, Pfizer, Microsoft, regional Bell operating companies and AARP. Mary founded MFA in 2003 to help socially-and consumer-conscious companies understand the real needs of this growing market.

In addition, Mary is the Dean's Executive Professor of Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University's Leavey School of Business.

Before launching MFA, Mary founded the nonprofit organization SeniorNet in 1986 and ThirdAge Media in 1996. Throughout the course of her work for both organizations, she raised $120 million in venture capital funds, corporate sponsorships and foundation grants.

During Mary's tenure, SeniorNet served more than 500,000 adults age 50 and older. Much of her time was spent in the field at the organization's learning centers, observing the applications that worked and the issues related to the technology. ThirdAge Media reached more than 2 million members - most age 45 and older - when Mary served as its CEO and visionary leader of the editorial team.

Mary has appeared on CBS, PBS, NPR and NBC's Today show to discuss trends in aging and technology, and her expertise has been featured in The New York Times, USA Today, Business Week, Fortune, People and Fast Company, among other publications.

In 2001, Fortune Small Business named Mary one of its "Top 25 Women Entrepreneurs," and Time honored her in 1999 as one of its "Digital 50." She also served as a White House Commissioner on Libraries and Information Science during the Clinton administration, and she has conducted hearings on aging and technology for the U.S. Senate. Mary is a member of the American Society on Aging's Business Forum on Aging, the Leadership Council of the National Council on Aging and the AARP Women in Leadership group. She also serves on several corporate advisory boards.

Mary is the author of the new book Turning Silver into Gold: How to Profit in the New Boomer Marketplace, which was published in February 2007 by Financial Times Press. She also co-authored the book Grown-Up's Guide to Computing, published by Microsoft Press in 1999

MFA Associates

Laura Weber Rossman, President, Outside Insite; Co-Producer, What's Next 2009
Laura Weber Rossman has over twenty years experience building, creating and marketing products and services for the mature market, especially baby boomers. She is the President of Outside Insite, a consulting company that works with companies entering or expanding into the 50+ market. She is Co-Producer of What’s Next 2009. She also specializes in long-term care insurance and retirement planning. Her experience includes the executive management team of AARP Services, where she was responsible for strategy and product development, direct response marketing and research.

Karen Orton Katz - Key Strategist, Internet Strategies Group
Karen Orton Katz is a senior entrepreneurial executive with 25 years of proven success in building Internet and consumer technology companies. Karen has been building Internet companies since 1996. She was co-founder and general manager of StarPress, an online lifestyle and travel media company. She served as VP of marketing and sales at ThirdAge Media, a leading online community for boomers, and SVP of sales, marketing and business development at Food.com. Currently, she serves as an advisor to early-stage companies, providing strategic marketing, sales and business development services. Karen is a frequent speaker at industry conferences including CES, PhocusWright Travel and PC Forum.

Laurie M. Orlov - Consultant
Laurie M. Orlov, a tech industry veteran, writer, speaker and elder care advocate, is the founder of Aging in Place Technology Watch, a market research firm that provides thought leadership, analysis and guidance about technologies and related services that enable boomers and seniors to remain longer in their home of choice. In addition to her technology background and years as a technology industry analyst, Laurie is a certified long-term care ombudsman in Florida and the author of When Your Parents Need Elder Care.

Myrna Blyth - Consultant
During her 20 years as editor-in-chief and publishing director of Ladies' Home Journal, Myrna Blyth was responsible for the publication's editorial and business sides. In 1998, she helped launch More, the first magazine aimed specifically at women over 40, and served as its editor-in-chief and publishing director. As an author, Myrna has written articles for such publications as New York and The New Yorker, two well-received novels and a non-fiction book, Spin Sisters that appeared on The New York Times' non-fiction best seller list. In 2001, she was named Advertising Age's "Publishing Executive of the Year" and was included in Columbia Journalism Review's list of 200 New Yorkers who help shape the national media agenda. In 1999, Myrna received the Magazine Publishers of America's Henry Johnson Fisher Award, the industry's highest honor, and she has won the Matrix Award from New York's Women in Communications, Inc. and the American Jewish Committee's Publishing Division Human Relations Award. Myrna was a delegate to the 2005 White House Conference on Aging, and she serves on the leadership council of the National Council on Aging. Myrna is also chairman of the President's Commission on White House Fellows, and she writes weekly columns for both National Review Online and the New York Sun.

Jane Glenn Haas - Consultant
Jane Glenn Haas is a multi-media personality - a newspaper writer, national columnist, book author, professional speaker and founder of WomanSage, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering, educating and fostering mentoring relationships among women at midlife. Jane writes for The Orange County Register, specializing in issues involving people 50 and older. Her weekly column, "Our Time," is distributed to 300 newspapers by McClatchy News Service. Twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, Jane has been honored for her reporting by the International Longevity Center, the American Society on Aging, the American Medical Writers Association, the American Heart Association and the Alzheimer's Association. Jane is the author of "Time of Your Life: Why Almost Everything Gets Better After Fifty," and she appears regularly on Southern California PBS stations KCET and KOCE.

Michelle Bauer - What's Next media and PR contact
Michelle Bauer is the founder, CEO and president of Common Language, Inc., a public relations and strategic communications practice located in St. Petersburg, Fla. She is the media and public relations contact for the What’s Next Boomer Business Summit 2008. Michelle’s marketing communications career spans over 20 years and includes business to consumer, business to business, and nonprofit expertise. A native of New York, she began her career there at a boutique public relations firm whose roster included several prestige art and fashion industry clients. Since moving to Florida in the 1980s, she has led marketing, communications, and public relations initiatives with such organizations as the Tampa Bay Technology Forum, the University of South Florida and the Ringling College of Art and Design. Prior to founding Common Language, Michelle was a partner with Sextant Marketing Group, a St. Petersburg-based marketing, public relations, and event management firm.

Mimi Filizetti - Event Manager, Creative Solutions Marketing
Mimi has more than 30 years'experience in project management and special events, including business conferences, customer events, and nonprofit meetings for groups ranging in size from 20 to more than 2,500. She founded Creative Solutions Marketing in 2002. Prior to that, she held marketing communication positions in high-tech companies and served as Operation Event Manager at Apple Computer and Director of Communications at Netcom and Santa Clara University.

Jeannette de Noord, European Associate
Jeannette de Noord, based in the Netherlands, is an associate consultant to Bay Area-based InnovationPoint, is a member of the advisory board of the Kids 2020 Foundation and serves as an adviser to start-ups. She has served in various marketing and sales management roles, has been involved with strategic functions in Europe and Asia and led a project that paved the way for Netherlands-based Royal Philips Electronics to enter the senior market. Her 20 years of line management in the international consumer business field has shaped and strengthened her conviction that the biggest successes are created when analysis meets with creativity, solution orientation and a large dose of pragmatism. The fit between the company and different national cultures plays a key role as well. Currently, she is a consultant and interim manager dealing with strategy and innovation, oftentimes in the senior market, and is a visiting teacher in Imagineering at TIO University of Applied Sciences for hospitality and tourism.

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