D'Lea Martens is a true farmer's daughter, born in Dodge City, Kansas. Fortunately, in her teen years, her parents had the good sense to pay attention to their mid-life crisis and changed their occupations from farming to financial planning. They got out of Dodge. And moved to Spokane. A bigger small town.

College eventually brought D'Lea to northern California and Stanford University, where she majored in geology. Digging in the dirt was still a big part of her life. She worked on silver exploration projects in Montana then ended up as a petroleum geologist in Denver. However, after just a couple of years in this gig and an ever-growing rock collection to manage, D'Lea decided she wanted more contact with people.

While getting her MBA at UCLA, D'Lea discovered that marketing is a lot like geology. Dig, dig, dig, gather all the facts, look at them, look at them again, and then twist them in a way no one else has ever seen, and you've got yourself a winner. It's part discovery, part science, part intuition.

After graduating, she beat it back to Colorado and honed her marketing skills through marketing leadership positions with Coleman Natural Products, Gerry Baby Products, Celestial Seasonings, Vipont Pharmaceutical and finally as a partner at Sterling-Rice Group. There D'Lea led innovation, integrated marketing and positioning assignments for companies such as Kraft, Cascadian Farm, Good Times Restaurants, National Institute of Meat for the country of Uruguay, Horizon Organic, Nestle/Chef America, Chili's, Olive Garden and numerous others.

D'Lea began a small, independent consulting firm in 2005. Priscilla Pritchard joined her in 2006, and they named the firm Tango Strategy. While her knowledge is broad, D'Lea has a wealth of experience and a special passion when it comes to natural and organic brands. She's also fascinated by creating complete brand experiences for CPG companies and experience-based products.