Merkle(www.merkle.com), the nation's largest and fastest growing independent customer relationship marketing agency, today announced the hiring of Wayne Oliver as vice president of operations, and the promotion of Steve Gregg to the role of vice president of sales & marketing for Merkle's Response Management Group division. Merkle Response is a leading provider of direct response processing and fulfillment services to nonprofit organizations, government entities, and commercial companies.

Utilizing his extensive background in corporate operations, Oliver is tasked with continuing to streamline operational processes, oversee compliance with the division's "best practices" policies and procedures and lead numerous internal quality and efficiency initiatives to build on Merkle Response's reputation for service excellence. Gregg joined Merkle's response division in a business development role in 2008 and has played a primary role in the division's 30% revenue growth since 2008. In his new position, Gregg will focus on the division's marketing strategy to build awareness and generate leads, lead the Merkle Response sales team and strategy, and continue to drive new business sales growth for the division.

Prior to joining Merkle, Oliver was the principal consultant and former senior vice president of operations at Direct Group, a $100 million fully integrated direct marketing solutions company. While there, Oliver directed all functions for their multi-site, high volume, high-speed marketing operation. Oliver took the lead on direct reports and oversaw logistics, safety, training and production. His substantial experience in process improvement and project management along with his experience working with large corporations, such as Reader's Digest, will continue significantly to the Merkle team.

"My deep expertise in process improvement has provided me with the necessary experience to streamline successful company-wide iniatives," said Oliver. "Improving the internal process of Merkle will start downstream, and with the excellent staff and with Merkle's investment in emerging technologies, we can move forward to improve efficiency, drive down costs and strengthen those deep client bonds, which drew me to Merkle."

Gregg came to Merkle Response from the AB&C Group, which provided outsourced call center and fulfillment services for multi-channel catalogers as well as contribution processing services for nonprofits. During his 17 years at the AB&C Group, Gregg held mid-level and senior sales and marketing positions that led to the company's growth in providing services to commercial and nonprofit direct marketers. Steve has had tremendous success developing, implementing and managing marketing and sales projects for over 20 years.

"Merkle Response has earned a well-deserved reputation as the leading provider of mail processing and fulfillment services in the market as a result of our ability to deliver a consistently high level of efficient and responsive service to our clients," said Gregg. "Our 'high-tech/high-touch' service approach, which minimizes costs through leading edge technology combined with attention to handling the exceptions that occur, will stand us well as we continue to grow by helping to deliver bottom-line results for our clients and delighting their customers."

"As our business has continued to grow over the past several years, we have been aggressively adding talented leaders to the Merkle Response team," said Bill Sayre, President of Merkle's Response Management Group. "Wayne and Steve are proven leaders with extensive direct marketing experience. I am excited to have both of them join an already strong management team."

Merkle Response is unique in the market as the only company of its kind with ISO 9001:2008 certification, a quality management and continuous improvement system that requires adherence to documented procedures and regular audits both internally and externally to ensure compliance. Merkle Inc is continually exploring new technologies and services to help its clients maximize their customer portfolio throughout the customer lifecycle across all physical and digital touchpoints.