Our Leadership

Metrist Partners provides analytics resources for its clients, delivering weekly, monthly or quarterly analyst assessments of Internet marketing activities and results, creating a culture of continual improvement and transforming marketing from an expense to an integrated part of the revenue stream with clear and measurable return on investment.

Avery Cohen helps marketers use interactive media to gain actionable insights into customer needs. At Metrist Partners, Avery has helped companies rethink their brand experience, optimize web sites and troubleshoot drops in traffic or conversion rates on web sites.

Avery and the staff at Metrist Partners have developed expertise in web analytics, search engine optimization, search advertising, email marketing, test design and social media. Metrist Partners engages with strategic visions and executes successful Internet marketing tactics on behalf of clients in diverse industries. Clients include Advertising Age, Crain’s Chicago Business, and Peapod.

Prior to founding Metrist Partners, Avery held leadership positions in information technology and Business Intelligence. During that time, he helped organizations collect, design, manage, develop and interpret data from their business systems. He worked in a wide variety of industries, and with clients that include Fortune 500 business managers, marketing executives and entrepreneurs. His experience includes supporting and developing a state-of-the-art planning and forecasting system for an international business, managing information technology and introducing new technologies for Fortune 100 companies, and managing consultants on an extensive range of business intelligence platforms.

Avery is a member of the Marketing Advisory Council for the DePaul University Driehaus School of Business in Chicago

Susan Shulman is General Counsel and Director of Operations for Metrist Partners.  Susan focuses on operations and business development.  Prior to joining Metrist Partners, Susan was the Pro Bono Initiative Director at the Public Interest Law Initiative.  In that role, Susan worked with lawyers at law firms and corporations to facilitate increased participation in pro bono legal work and to focus greater attention on the unmet legal needs of low-income individuals.  Susan consulted with over 70 law firms and corporations on launching and reinvigorating their pro bono programs.  She also succeeded in tapping previously untapped resources for pro bono work, including transactional attorneys and attorneys at corporations, and fostered the first pro bono partnerships between law firms and corporate legal departments in Chicago.  Her efforts resulted in a 16% increase in pro bono work by law firm attorneys, and a 156% increase in pro work by attorneys at corporations.

Karen Phelps, a project manager at Metrist Partners, has been helping retail, publishing, and service businesses develop a professional web presence and optimize their search (for more than 5 years). At project launch, Karen methodically documents client goals and priorities, works to understand their business model and assess their communication and marketing needs.

Karen has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kalamazoo College, and a Master of Business Administration degree from Michigan State University. Prior to joining Metrist, Karen enjoyed a successful 20 year career at Hewlett Packard in the Consumer Sales division, providing quantitative analysis, metrics reporting, business planning & development and internal web-based communications. Detail-oriented and meticulous in her work, Karen effectively handles a wide diversity of responsibilities, meets commitments and deadlines and delivers high-quality product. Recent clients include McHenry County Economic Development Corporation, Performance Paving Ltd., and  McHenry County Living Magazine.

Sharon Sevransky, a Senior Consultant at Metrist Partners, has developed expertise in web analytics, search engine optimization and search advertising.  Prior to working at Metrist Partners, she worked as a Project Manager and Systems Analyst, helping managers design new systems, collect and interpret data, determine business requirements and priorities, and coordinate with different business partners, departments and vendors.   She worked in the Financial Services and Banking Industries for 20 years, including their e-commerce development area as a Software Testing Manager.