The 2016 Executive Excellence Awards: Margi Tooth

As the marketing executive for Trupanion, Margi Tooth understands that the real clients for the companys health care policies generally have four legs, not two. We are a pet company, she says, not just an insurance company. Its the welfare of the beloved animal that counts and the trust that pet owners place in the insurer to deliver on promises.

Tooth enjoys the Ballard office where her pets often share desk space with their owners, while setting a pace she finds more dynamic than the more established pet insurance industry of her native England. The United States market, she notes, has huge capacity for growth; Trupanion controls around 20 percent of a market that is still largely untapped.

In her brief two years at Trupanion, Tooth has expanded the companys digital marketing presence, steadily growing online sales, which now account for about 40 percent of Trupanions business. Her hunger for data and analytics that explain shoppers behavioral tendencies have helped double sales through Trupanions website.

She also developed the media effort to support the firms 2014 stock offering and notes it as a dramatic shift to learn how to talk to scrutinizing investors rather than loving pet owners. The IPO raised $71 million for the firm, which eyes expansion into global markets and will be moving its headquarters into a bigger building in Seattles Georgetown neighborhood this year.

Tooth notes that success is ultimately driven by relationships with trusted veterinarians to help carry their message that we are pet lovers, first and foremost.