Jeff Puma

Content Director, Manufacturing Leadership Council

Since 2022, Jeff Puma has served as Content Director for the Manufacturing Leadership Council. Prior to this role, he led marketing and communications for the Association for Manufacturing Excellence where he helped AME navigate the COVID-19 pandemic and increase its profile as a lean, continuous improvement thought leader on social media and in the virtual space.

He previously served as Account Director at Lipman Hearne, an agency serving associations, universities, and non-profits. He oversaw branding, advertising, marketing, fundraising and other work for clients including Obama Foundation, University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish Football, University of the Pacific, Sweet Briar College, and Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. His career also includes time in the education space leading communications and marketing for both public and private schools in Chicagoland.

Jeff began his career with Siemens USA. He created Siemens’ first executive outreach program, working with six C-level executives to establish them as thought leaders on industry, infrastructure, and technology. Prior to launching this ambitious program, he worked in the company’s Washington, DC office for Siemens Transportation Systems, Inc., before heading that operating company’s marketing and communication office in Sacramento, CA. While with Siemens, Jeff graduated from Siemens’ international high-potential communicators program and helped his team win the Siemens top+ Star Award for Total Business Improvement.

He graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in government and international studies. At Notre Dame, he completed the Hesburgh Program in Public Service and competed for the Fighting Irish Track & Field team, earning a Notre Dame Monogram and Big East Academic All-Star recognition. During his time in college he interned in Washington, DC, for both Senator Richard J. Durbin’s office and the Federal Communications Commission’s International Bureau. More recently, he achieved a certificate in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Workplace from the University of South Florida and earned his Enterprise Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt.

An avid music enthusiast, he has seen more than 400 concerts by 300 different bands (a tally that has only slowed because of children and a pandemic), written songs that you can find on iTunes or Spotify (if you’re really sleuthy), and contributed music reviews and stories to the Tribune Company newspapers. In fact, Jeff got his start creating online content in the mid-1990s when he designed a band’s website, writing copy and HTML code in SimpleText and then FTPing each webpage to a server. Beyond his career and interest in music, Jeff has also volunteered as a coach in youth soccer, travel baseball, and middle school and high school track and field. He resides in the Chicago suburbs with his wife and two teenaged children.