Our Team

Gordon Borrell founded Borrell Associates in 2001 and has become the local media industry’s leading analyst. He is ranked in the top 2% among Gerson Lehrman Group’s 150,000 consultants worldwide and is quoted in Ad Age, Media Post, Editor & Publisher, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes and other publications. Prior to starting Borrell Associates, Gordon was vice president for new media for Landmark Communications, where he started his career 22 years earlier as a newspaper reporter. He is past chairman of the Local Media Association and of the Local Media Foundation.  Gordon has five children and lives with his wife, a writer and book author, in Hampton Roads, Va.

Jim has been helping local businesses and media companies for over three decades. He joined Borrell Associates in 2011 as the Vice President of sales and was named President in 2019, helping improve the company’s overall growth, client retention, training efforts, and product development. Jim began his media career in 1990 at The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia. He has held a variety of fast-paced sales and marketing roles, business and product development and general management. Jim serves on several non-profit boards, including Catholic Charities of Easten Virginia (Past Chair) and Eggleston Services, an organization providing education, training, and employment for persons with disabilities in Southeastern Virginia.

Corey is the nation’s foremost authority on local advertising.  He leads Borrell’s ongoing surveys of local marketers — the largest survey of SMBs in the U.S. — as well as the company’s expansive database of local advertising and marketing expenditures. He’s the co-host of the Local Marketing Trends podcast and host of his biweekly video program, Corey’s Local Market Minute, seen on YouTube. Prior to joining Borrell in 2014, he was director of market intelligence at Gannett. He holds a degree from Ohio University and lives with his wife in Williamsburg, Va.

Colby began helping local media companies adopt new technologies back in the days of ASCII Videotex. He sold audiotext systems to newspapers and TV stations for nine years before transitioning to online content management systems in 1996. He rode the first Internet boom all the way up ― and all the way down ― with a succession of media-focused Silicon Valley companies before joining Gordon’s fledgling consulting practice in 2001. Colby continues to be an enthusiastic student of the evolution of media and its impact on civilization. He and his wife live near Seattle, on an island with good broadband.

Taryn is a results-orientated sales leader with experience in traditional and digital media planning and selling. She joined Borrell in 2019 and heads up the training program for Borrell’s Compass platform. Prior to joining Borrell, Taryn worked for WEHCO Media in Chattanooga in various sales and management roles as well as leading a digital team. Taryn has a degree in public relations and business administration from Lee University.

Shari has over 35 years of hands-on leadership experience in multiple media organizations – newspaper, radio, cable television, and digital media, Shari’s extensive sales management background includes sales management roles at Comcast Spotlight, Knight Quality Stations (now part of IHeart Media), and local newspapers in Vermont and New Hampshire. She has shown the ability to adapt and succeed in non-traditional environments, mentoring others to do the same.

Leah joined Borrell in 2021 as Director of Client Services, charged with creating a superior customer experience for clients.  She started out as a middle school Math teacher in Henrico County, Virginia, before entering the media and marketing industry in 2020 as an Account Executive with Audacy. Her ultimate love for data drew her to the research side with Borrell.  Leah received her bachelors in Mathematics from Tusculum College, where she played softball, and her masters in teaching from Virginia Commonwealth University. She resides in Virginia with her husband and their two cats, Star-Lord and Gamora.

Based in Toronto, Andrew has worked for more than 30 years in the media sector. His early career was with LexisNexis, where he was director of textbook publishing for the UK division, before moving to Canada in 1987 to head up their operations in Toronto.. He then joined CanWest (now Postmedia) where he was closely involved in developing CanWest’s web strategies and the expansion of their online aggregation businesses. He also contributed to drafting the newspaper industry positions on copyright law reform in Canada. As Director of Corporate Development for Borrell Associates, Andrew is responsible for financial management, reviewing vendor contracts, external partnerships, managing the annual local online advertising conference and all non-US sales.