Merkle (www.merkle.com), one of the nation’s largest and fastest growing customer relationship marketing agencies, today announced the promotion of 10-year Merkle veteran Zhengda “Z” Shen to the role of executive vice president and chief operating officer. In his new role, Shen will oversee Merkle’s analytics, technology and data groups in the creation, development and deployment of database marketing solutions and innovative marketing approaches that harness quantitative marketing insights for clients.

Prior to his new role, Shen served as senior vice president of Merkle’s Quantitative Solutions Group, which provides the critical analytical insight needed to drive the firm’s highly targeted and measurable marketing solutions for leading client organizations and brands. Shen joined Merkle in 2000 and played a key leadership role in building Merkle’s analytics and data businesses. In 2005, at age 31, he became the youngest vice president in the company’s history.

Shen said, “Merkle’s value proposition has always been our world-class offering in data, analytics and technology. However, what sets us apart now is our ability to integrate those three functions to really harness the power of data to drive fact-based marketing decisions and to uncover customer insights to develop actionable strategies that drive successful marketing programs for our clients. I am excited to be continuing at Merkle in the new and expanded role of chief operating officer, and am looking forward to executing on Merkle’s customer relationship marketing vision.”

Merkle Chairman and CEO David Williams said, “In the past 10 years, Z has made enormous contributions to Merkle. Most recently, he oversaw our Quantitative Solutions Group and guided Merkle Promotes Zhengda Shen to Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer 2 that division during a period of aggressive growth and development. As chief operating officer, I am confident that Z will do a tremendous job in leading Merkle’s analytics, technology and data solutions groups and ensuring that we continue to leverage our knowledge and resources more effectively than ever before to create outstanding results for clients.”