H. Signe Ostby

BBA 1975, MBA 1977
Former Vice President of Marketing, Software Publishing Corporation
Woodside, Calif.

Signe Ostby joined Procter & Gamble in 1976 as a brand assistant and introduced in-store sampling methods to the company. After leaving P&G, she worked briefly at Clorox before finding her niche in the high-tech marketplace.

Ostby launched her start-up, Software Publishing Corporation, making productivity software for personal computers, in 1982. While with Software Publishing, she brought the concept of trial-size promotion to software products, a huge success for the company’s first product, pfs:write. After leaving Software Publishing in 1988, Ostby started a marketing strategy consulting practice and worked for many of the personal computer hardware and software companies, including IBM, HP - printers and software, Apple, Epson, Egghead, Radio Shack, Compaq, and a wide variety of software companies. In addition, she developed a seminar series, which taught consumer packaged goods concepts to high-tech companies, selling their products through retail stores.

Ostby and her husband Scott Cook, co-founder and retired CEO of Intuit, Inc., established the Center for Brand and Product Management at the Wisconsin School of Business with a $6.4 million gift and have been instrumental in creating and supporting its vision as the nation’s premier brand management MBA program. Both Ostby and Cook continue to serve on the center’s advisory board. Ostby has also served on the Dean’s Advisory Board at the Wisconsin School of Business.