Anne brings more than ten years experience in integrated marketing communications, corporate and nonprofit cause-related marketing, corporate responsibility, and public/private partnership development.
Her work has spanned multiple industries such as retail, beauty, food, consumer packaged goods, and pharma. She has experience breaking down complex issues within the areas of: health, social services, the education and international development. The campaigns Anne has created and executed have raised hundreds of millions of dollars and engaged millions of customers and employees.
Previously, Anne was Vice President in Cause Branding at Cone, where she led corporate and nonprofit clients in the creation of long-term, sustainable strategies. Notably, on the nonprofit side, she assisted the American Heart Association in the creation of the award-winning Go Red for Women movement with its iconic “little red dress”, to raise funds and awareness for heart disease as the #1 killer of women. In addition, she managed signature campaign creation, sponsorship model development, and corporate partner activation strategies for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Safe Horizon, and Plan international USA.
On the corporate side, Anne developed cause programs to advance females in science for L’Oreal USA, For Women in Science and For Girls in Science. She helped extend Jockey International's 5+ year corporate citizenship initiative, Jockey Being Family, across multiple channels including online, retail and direct-selling. She also developed the strategic philanthropy platform for Dunkin Brand’s community foundation, including focused issues, national partnerships and country-wide cause marketing promotions. Most recently, she worked with Scotts’ Miracle Gro to create the company’s first-ever cause marketing and retailer engagement effort to be launched in 2012.
Anne has been honored through dozens of industry awards, including: PR Week "Nonprofit Campaign of the Year" in 2005 and 2007, Cause Marketing Forum “Golden Halo,” among others. She also co-authored a book, Breakthrough Nonprofit Branding: Seven Principles for Powering Extraordinary Growth, released last Fall.
She holds a bachelors degree in liberal arts from Georgetown University.
Bill Keeler has worked for Schwartz MSL for 13 years and nearly 20 years in public/media relations industry. He has been the lead person on many clean tech accounts, including: Luminus Devices, Solar Panels Plus and Converge. He writes corporate literature including press releases and backgrounders. He is responsible for positioning the company's executives as thought leaders on clean tech topics. Keeler also has years of experience in network security, consumer tech, embedded software and application development.
During Keeler's tenure at Schwartz MSL, he has raised the visibility of his clients by securing hundreds of print and broadcast placements with industry trades, security verticals and national media, including the Today Show, CNN Headline News, Fox News Channel, Associated Press, Bloomberg News, eWeek, SC Magazine, Network World, Forbes.com, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, Reuters, USA Today, New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
Keeler's teams have won more than 30 Bell Ringer Awards.
Brenna Hagy joined Schwartz MSL in 2010, and represents clients across the B2B and security technologies space. Brenna spends much of her time pitching, writing (press releases, media pitches,customer case studies and other collateral) and securing briefings and press coverage for her clients. She has placed stories and secured briefings with Forbes, TIME, PC Mag, eWeek, Infosecurity Magazine, Computerworld, IT Business Edge, Dark Reading, Security Technology Executive, CIO Insight and eSecurityPlanet, among others. Brenna also helps support her teams with day-to-day administrative actives such as the awards and speaking programs. Brenna graduated Magna Cum Laude from Manhattan College with a degree in Corporate Communications.
Bryan Scanlon has diverse experience building visibility for the agency's enterprise technology accounts, including the network, security, database, appliances, application integration and Web services markets. Bryan has taken several little-known technology providers, including AXENT Technologies (acquired by Symantec), Red Hat, Concord Communications, Netezza and webMethods, from launch to prominence and market leadership.
Bryan has more than 10 years of communications experience and has been with Schwartz since 1997. He has a track record of placements in top-tier business and broadcast trade press, including BusinessWeek, Barron's, Investor's Business Daily, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, The Boston Globe, CNBC, CNN, MSNBC, Upside, Forbes, and Dow Jones News, Bloomberg and Reuters wire services. He has provided strategic counsel and media relations for more than two dozen initial public offerings and acquisitions and leads the agency's strategic relationship with The New England Technology Sales, Marketing & Business Development Executives Association (NETSEA).
Prior to Schwartz MSL, Bryan was an associate at another PR agency, where he managed strategic and day-to-day media and analyst relations for $3 billion CompuCom Systems, an in-circuit emulator manufacturer, and divisions of Banyan Systems, Inc. He has produced marketing collateral for leading technology companies and ghost written more than two dozen articles for senior executives in some of the industry's most technical publications, including Network World, CNET and Electronic Design. As a freelance writer and photographer, Bryan's work has appeared in Computerworld, among other publications. He has won several top PR awards, including a Gold CIPRA and Bronze Anvil from the Public Relations Society of America.
Bryan holds a B.F.A. degree in writing from Johnson State College and an M.A. degree in English from Western Michigan University, where he also taught composition and journalism.
Twitter: @bkscanlon
Caitlin supports the Corporate Practice at Schwartz MSL Boston with proactive media relations activity and by assisting with account infrastructure. She has strong organizational skills, which help keep account teams on task! She works with Intellectual Property law firm Wolf, Greenfield and Sacks, P.C., as well as National Grid.
Caitlin’s previous PR experience includes internships at Comcast SportsNet New England, and at Callanan and Klein Communications where she worked closely with the principals of the company on a variety of local accounts including the Ahern Family Charitable Foundation, Multicultural Arts Center, Boston Ghost Cruises, and 50 Back Beer.
Caitlin also interned with the Boston Cannons providing grassroots marketing and community relations support at home games and events throughout New England.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in Communication and French from Boston College in Chestnut Hill, MA.
Carla Brennan is a Senior Account Supervisor in the Corporate Practice of Schwartz MSL Boston. She offers more than a decade of professional experience working on behalf of national and international companies spanning a diverse number of industries focused primarily in the legal, health care, high tech and non-profit sectors.
Carla leads Schwartz MSL’s relationships with intellectual property law firm, Wolf Greenfield & Sacks, P.C. and LexisNexis Legal & Professional. Prior to that, she managed and led accounts for two major Boston-based law firms, Foley Hoag, LLP and Goodwin Procter LLP. Before that. she served as Communications Associate for the Massachusetts Bar Association.
The bulk of her strategic media relations expertise is centered around developing strong thought leadership profiles for company executives on a number of timely issues. Her media relations work has secured coverage for clients in major daily and key trade news publications, including New York Times, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Mass High Tech, Boston Business Journal, American Lawyer, National Law Journal, Inside Counsel, Law360, IP Magazine and CFO Magazine, to name a few.
Carla’s previous clients have included Children’s Hospital Boston, Southcoast Health System, HealthAlliance Hospital, Hawaii Pacific Health, Philips Healthcare, PerkinElmer Life & Analytical Sciences, BMC Software and HP.
Carla holds a B.A. in journalism from Keene State College in Keene, New Hampshire and is fluent in Spanish.
With more than 20 years of high-tech marketing experience, Carol McGarry provides strategic counsel to agency clients, helping them to break through the media clutter and capture market leadership. She has worked with innovators in a broad range of technology areas, including consumer electronics, security, application management and financial technology. She leads the agency's wireless, telecommunications and networking practice group.
McGarry joined the agency in 1993 as its fifth employee and first vice president, and has helped to build the culture of excellence that has fueled the agency's growth. Over the years, she has been involved with many aspects of the agency's decision-making and management. As creative director, she established the Creativity and PR Excellence Awards, which recognize outstanding achievements and encourage the creative contributions of all staffers across the agency. She also leads agency brainstorming sessions on behalf of clients.
Past and current clients include Macromedia, Lycos, Netegrity, CheckFree Corporation, Progress Software, Wildfire Communications, AXENT Technologies, MapInfo, StreamServe and Optier. Among her accomplishments, McGarry led the team that launched Macromedia's Shockwave and Flash, creating enduring brands on the Internet.
Her award-winning work with teams at Schwartz MSL has earned her industry accolades that include the Silver Anvil Award, Publicity Club of Boston's Bell Ringer Award, Bulldog Reporter's Award for Excellence in Media Relations and PR, the CES Marcom Award, and The Communicator Award. Her team won a 2002 Silver Anvil with client CheckFree for a nationwide campaign to evangelize electronic bill payment for consumers and a 2005 Silver Anvil for the campaign on behalf of Peppercoin, Inc.
McGarry has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal and has spoken at the Red Herring conference and the Publicity Club of Boston. She started her professional career in high-tech publishing and earned the B.A. at Harvard University.
Chris brings more than a dozen years of PR agency experience to Schwartz MSL’s Corporate Practice, providing media relations, public affairs, crisis communications and social media counsel to clients in the B2B, government, technology, energy and environment sectors.
Previously, Chris was Account Director at Mullen, where she managed campaigns for General Motors, The Department of Defense, BBN Technologies and others. Most notably, Chris worked with GM’s Environment, Energy & Sustainability communications team for over four years promoting advanced technologies, alternative fuels (biofuels, E85 ethanol), hydrogen fuel cells and electric vehicles. Initiatives included special events, aggressive media relations and social media campaigns, employee communications, and stakeholder relationship development.
Prior to joining Mullen, Chris was an Account Supervisor at Peppercom in New York City where she worked on several accounts and campaigns for GE Financial (now Genworth Financial), and helped coordinate a number of special events for GE Corporate. Her other Peppercom accounts included Ricoh, The Doctors Company (a medical malpractice insurance underwriter by doctors for doctors), the ‘Trucks for Texas’ campaign for General Motors, and a campaign for online HR service provider EmployeeMatters that was awarded a PRSA Silver Anvil.
In addition to her publicity campaigns, Chris helped lead Peppercom’s unique "CrisisRx" crisis management program and was integral in creating and carrying out unique, simulated crisis situations tailored to meet clients’ specific needs. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Northeastern University in Boston, MA.
Dan is an Senior Account Supervisor at Schwartz MSL. While at the agency, he has been a key member of the Agency's Cleantech PR practice, working with a number of renewable energy technology and service companies. Dan contributes to his clients' PR campaigns by securing high-level media placements, managing speaking and award programs, and drafting strategic press releases and other documents.
Before joining Schwartz MSL, Dan worked at Ketchum as a brand marketing intern. He has a B.A. in journalism with an emphasis in public relations from California State University, Chico. In his spare time, Dan enjoys his remaining time with LOST, spending time outdoors and traveling whenever possible.
Since joining Schwartz MSL in 1999, Dara Sklar has driven communications programs for a variety of emerging-growth companies and played an active role in the growth of the agency’s consumer technology, IT security and renewable energy practice groups. Over the years, she has focused on helping innovative companies build brand awareness, increase demand generation and achieve their business goals.
Thriving on the fast pace of IT security, she has led the public relations efforts of over a dozen companies leading to numerous acquisitions including Sanctum, Inc. (acquired by WatchFire/IBM), Citadel Security Software (acquired by ), SecurityFocus (acquired by Symantec) and also worked with Eset, Avatier, BioPassword, PatchLink, Permeo and Blue Coat. She currently works with Cryptography Research, Bit9, Cloudmark and Aspera Software.
In her role as Director of the West Coast Security Practice, Dara coordinates regular bi-coastal agency-wide creative sessions, RSA media events, and information sharing and collaboration across security teams. Her close relationships with influential media and analysts provide her with an insider perspective into the industry, helping her teams secure a consistent track record of high-profile business and trade media coverage, including: ABCNews.com, The Associated Press, Financial Times, US News & World Report, USA Today, Newsweek, InformationWeek, Investor’s Business Daily, PC Magazine and C/NET, as well as broadcast segments on CNN and local news stations.
Sklar’s industry expertise spans broad market sectors including mobile, financial services, IT security and network infrastructure. As Co-Chair of the Consumer Technology Practice Group she works with innovative online destination sites and services, such as CollegeNET and Foodleras well as technology companies powering the next generation of digital media and interactive entertainment, such as Hannspree, GET IT, Cryptography Research , Aspera Software and Resistor Productions.
She has managed the PR efforts of dozens of acquisitions and assisted companies’ communications strategies during and following IPOs. Sklar works closely with her clients to develop stellar communications strategies and tenaciously execute on plans to deliver exceptional results. Her close relationships with influential media and analysts provide her with an insider perspective into the industry, helping her teams secure a consistent track record of high-profile business, trade and broadcast placements as well as grow visibility in the blogosphere and social media channels.
As a member of the agency’s Digital Services team, Sklar scripts and produces video and social media digital content such as insight into the latest threat from our security expert clients at the RSA Conference and humorous sample entries for client’s online video contests.
Outside of the agency, Sklar produces and directs short independent films that screen national cable television and at film festivals worldwide. She has a BA from Bowdoin College, where she focused on literary theory as anEnglish major and minored in Computer Science.
Dave Bowker has been with Schwartz MSL since 1998. In is role as a director, Dave leads strategic programs that enable security companies to accomplish their PR goals as they deliver technologies to keep businesses running and consumers safe.
Before joining Schwartz MSL, Dave participated in the production of both local and nationally-syndicated television programs at a variety of broadcast organizations in the Boston market.
Dave has a B.S. in Communications from Boston University
Dave is a Senior Account Executive at Schwartz MSL. Since joining the agency in 2009, he has represented clients in the solar, fuel cell, industrial biotechnology, and smart grid spaces as part of the agency’s Cleantech PR practice. In addition, he has represented clients in the healthcare and business-to-business technology industries.
Dave supports his clients by securing high-level media placements, writing press releases and other documents, monitoring and analyzing client and industry media coverage, and advising on tactical execution of campaign elements.
Dave graduated from Harvard College with a degree in Government and a minor in Psychology. When he’s not in the office, Dave can be found enjoying Boston’s many delicious eateries, or following his hometown Redskins, Capitals, and Wizards.
Dave Close has been leading communications campaigns in the technology industry since 1981. During the early 1980s, he was a writer and editor at World Information Systems, Inc. He researched and wrote stories for industry newsletter Electronics Insight and contributed sections on manufacturing, transportation, computing and energy to The Science Almanac.
In 1983, Close joined Digital Equipment Corporation and for the next 11 years he held a series of positions as a group communications manager and executive speechwriter. During his time with Digital, Close led communications teams handling advertising, PR and writing in the personal computers, workstations and UNIX organizations.
Close joined Schwartz MSL in 1994 as one of the first senior-level executives in the then-fledging agency. Throughout his career as Schwartz MSL, he has led more than 60 client teams, created and directed the agency's "Schwartz College" training program and led the agency's new business efforts. He also serves as mentor and advisor for several agency vice presidents.
Close is one of the agency's resident experts on manufacturing technologies, energy/utilities and environmental technology, open source software, aviation and transportation, compliance and business ethics.
Close continues to lead client teams, creating PR strategies, pitching the media and helping his teams generate media results. He is known for ghostwriting bylines and "think pieces" for his clients' executives and has won several awards for this work. In his role as "brain trust" advisor, Close also provides insight and advice to a variety of clients beyond his direct assignments. As the leader of the Schwartz MSL National Multiple Sclerosis Society PR team, he directs the pro bono efforts of a large group of agency volunteers that has substantially increased MS fundraising in Massachusetts during the past four years.
A life-long avid cyclist, Close bicycles more than 5,000 miles per year and has been progressing through his goal list to ride up the highest mountains in New England. He is married with two children and lives in Sudbury, Mass.
Davida Dinerman has been a member of the Schwartz MSL team since 1996. For a majority of her tenure, she has been well entrenched in the Healthcare IT, Services and Security Practice groups. Additionally, she offers value in other technologies, from storage to green tech.
Davida and her teams couple creative strategies with an aggressive, hands-on approach to power hit clients into targeted trade, technology, business and social media. In her position, Davida oversees strategic and tactical activities of her teams and interacts with clients on a daily basis. She also generates news and feature stories in media at all levels, facilitates analyst relations and handles speaking opportunities for her clients. Davida has developed content for marketing collateral and ghost-written bylines for senior executives, as well as written blog posts for the agency and her clients.
Several of Davida's teams have earned PR industry awards, including the Mercury Award for Response to Breaking News, and the Bell Ringer Award for Best Response to Breaking News and Print Feature/Commentary Placement in a Trade Publication.
For six years, Davida coordinated and managed one of Schwartz MSL's primary training programs, Schwartz College, where she not only developed curriculum, but also taught sessions. This training program, which offers people a forum to learn and share knowledge, is one of the reasons why Schwartz MSL remains a strong and impactful communications agency.
Davida earned her MBA with a concentration in management from the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College and her BA degree in psychology from Dartmouth College. She lives in Ashland, Mass. with her husband and two children, and is a competitive tennis player.
Doug Russell brings eighteen years of agency and corporate communications experience to the role of vice president. A Schwartz MSL veteran since 1997, Doug is a leader in the firms' Healthcare IT, Mobile, Networking and Telecom and Business Software & Services practice groups.
Doug's clients have included start-ups that rose to positions of market leadership to billion+ dollar business units of established companies such as Staples, Inc., Schneider Electric, Honeywell International and GE. His particular areas of expertise include message development, thought leadership campaigns, orchestrating company, product and service launches and high-level business media outreach. Doug's teams have won numerous industry awards, including several Publicity Club of New England Bell Ringer's, as well as ADWEEK Magazine's ICON Award for Corporate Branding Objectives.
Doug earned a B.A. in International Relations/History from the University of Virginia and an M.A. in Economics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He is married and has an eight year old son, Nathaniel.
Throughout her eight years at Schwartz MSL, Erin Del Llano has helped technology companies differentiate themselves and succeed in competitive markets through targeted and aggressive public relations programs. Del Llano has experience working with a variety of enterprise software and hardware companies and is also a member of the agency's expanding renewable energy and green practice.
Del Llano's IT expertise spans a range of technologies including networking, storage, information security, supply chain and mobile infrastructure. Del Llano's efforts have achieved demonstrable results for her clients, which have included early-stage companies such as VirtualLogix, Vormetric, Enkata and Aldata as well as established public companies such as Fujitsu, Xyratex, Honeywell and Pitney Bowes MapInfo. Del Llano managed Schwartz MSL's PR program for MapInfo leading up to and following Pitney Bowes' acquisition of the company for $408 million.
Whether it's through educating the market on emerging virtualization software or new developments in disk drive products, Del Llano has secured coverage for her clients in Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Reuters, Time and USA Today. In addition to reaching general and investor audiences through business press, Del Llano and the teams she leads consistently secure client coverage in tier one IT outlets and key vertical publications including those in the retail, banking, insurance and government industries.
Through her leadership of Global Solar Energy's public relations program, Del Llano has helped the solar cell maker stand out from its competitors by highlighting the company's long-standing success, unique technology and superior manufacturing process. Within 30 days of starting the account, Del Llano and the Schwartz MSL team secured stories in Associated Press, Reuters, WSJ.com, CNET, NYTimes.com, Scientific American CleanTech, Earth2Tech and EETimes.
Del Llano holds a B.A. in English with a minor in Women's Studies from Boston College.
Helen Shik joined Schwartz MSL in 1996. She has more than 15 years of experience in public relations helping emerging-growth companies launch new therapies with high-impact media coverage.
At Schwartz MSL, Shik has worked with many of the agency's medical device, biotechnology and healthcare IT clients, including Heartstream (now Philips Medical), Northstar Neuroscience, Hologic, Haemonetics, Cyberonics, Proxima Therapeutics (now Hologic), Neuromonics, Home Diagnostics, EnteroMedics, Calypso Medical, Wright Medical, C. R. Bard Urology, Sanarus Medical, Pheromone Sciences, Agencourt, PHT Corp., PerkinElmer Life Sciences and Phase Forward. In addition to developing positioning that resonates with the media and mentoring junior staff on media relations tactics, Helen works directly with senior reporters and producers and has secured coverage of her clients in outlets such as the CBS Evening News, Dateline NBC, the Today Show, CNN, CNBC, TIME, The Wall Street Journal, Parade, Reader's Digest, The Associated Press, The Dow Jones, Forbes, Fortune, BusinessWeek, The Boston Globe and Fast Company.
Helen has extensive experience working with the broadcast media, and has helped many clients launch newly FDA-approved therapies. Helen and her teams have won a long list of industry awards, including several Bell Ringer, Communicator and Bulldog Awards.
Prior to joining Schwartz MSL, Helen worked in the PR group of Lehman Millet, a medical marketing agency, where she launched the first diagnostic tests for Alzheimer's disease and worked with a local biotech company developing oral vaccines. At Cudaback Strategic Communications, she worked with a wide range of clients, including a medical device company with the first robotic solution for hip replacement surgery, The Smithsonian Institution, Computerworld, PCWorld and Arthur D. Little, Inc.
She earned a B.A. in political science from Boston University in 1987. She served for several years on the board ofthe Publicity Club of New England. She is a current member ofthe Healthcare Communication & Marketing Association and a member of the board of directors of Congregation Beth El of the Sudbury River Valley. She can be found on soccer field sidelines every weekend, rooting for her sons.
Twitter: @HelenShik
Based in San Francisco, Jason is an executive vice president and directs Schwartz MSL's fast-growing Cleantech & Green PR Practice. In his 12 years with Schwartz MSL, Jason has planned, managed and executed award-winning communications programs to help his clients increase lead and demand generation, boost valuation, improve brand awareness, establish executives as industry thought leaders, optimize web presences, and secure government funding and private equity investment. His experience goes beyond traditional PR, having managed a number of integrated public relations, government relations and search-engine marketing campaigns.
In 2006 - recognizing the immense PR and policy challenges facing the emerging cleantech industry - Jason spearheaded the launch of the firm's Cleantech & Green Practice. Schwartz MSL's history of successfully representing underdog companies and creating new markets, combined with its results-oriented approach to public relations, government relations and digital media, made it a natural fit for companies facing heavily entrenched energy interests and trying to change long-established consumption behaviors. Today, just four years after formally launching the practice, Schwartz MSL has one of the largest Cleantech & Green Practices comprised of close to 30 clients.
Jason's Cleantech experience includes working with and launching emerging market leaders in solar, greenhouse gas management and environmental compliance, Green IT, wind, green building, lighting controls and biofuels. Representative client experience includes Aurora, Inc., AWS Truepower, Borrego Solar, Canadian Solar,Daintree Networks, Elster Group, Enviance, Gevo, Joule,Oerlikon Solar, Picarro and Skyline Solar.
Jason began his career at Schwartz MSL working with some of Schwartz MSL's most innovative enterprise technology clients including webMethods, Netezza, Vivisimo and Qualys. For a number of years, he helped co-lead the firm's Security Practice helping to establish it as the largest Security PR Practice in North America. Today, he continues to support the Agency's Consumer and Financial Services Practice Groups through work with RetailMeNot and SharesPost.
Jason is an active contributor to Schwartz MSL's Green blog, Renewablog, which explores news, public policy and market developments that impact the role of the Cleantech and Green marketer. Prior to Schwartz MSL, Morris worked at The Weber Group on the Bacardi and TJX accounts and at Fox Sports New England. He holds a B.S. in marketing from Bentley College.
Twitter: @jasonmorris
In her role as vice president, Jill works with enterprise technology companies and brings more than 12 years of experience to her clients. Since joining Schwartz MSL in 2006, she has represented companies that span the IT security ecosystem, including 8e6 Technologies, Bit9, Breach Security (now part of Trustwave), ESET, Fortinet, Layer 7 Technologies and Mykonos Software (now part of Juniper).
She enjoys collaborating with her teams to drive high-impact results that align with her clients’ strategic business goals. Jill has successfully secured feature stories for her clients in national print and broadcast media such as The Wall Street Journal, TIME, USA Today, NBC Nightly News and NPR, She is also experienced at combining the power of digital content with traditional PR activities that spark engagement, drive measurable actions and impact buying behavior.
Jill graduated with a master’s in English from McGill University in Montréal. Before joining Schwartz MSL she worked for several other high-tech PR agencies and also served as a senior PR manager at Inktomi Corp.
Jim joined Schwartz MSL in 1998. As a leader of the Schwartz MSL Healthcare practice, Jim counsels clients on strategy and messaging for corporate and product communications campaigns as well as crisis and issues management across a broad range of industry sectors, including biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, molecular medicine and medical devices.
Jim is also an accomplished media relations professional, and has placed client medical breakthroughs and trend developments in dozens of high-level consumer, business and professional outlets, including Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, ABC World News Tonight, the BBC, CNN, Newsweek, USA Today and The New York Times.
During his tenure at Schwartz MSL, Jim has represented companies and organizations such as PowderMed Vaccines (Pfizer), West Pharmaceutical Services, Micromet, BioMS Medical, Biogen-IDEC, NxStage Medical, Bayer HealthCare, WL Gore & Associates, Proxima Therapeutics and the Institute for International Research.
Jim has led award-winning national and global campaigns to condition markets for medical advances still in development, infuse mature product lines with renewed excitement, and launch new innovations that build sales, valuation and market leadership. Campaigns that Jim has led at Schwartz MSL include the launch of a novel five-day radiation treatment for breast cancer, positioning DNA-based vaccines as a viable solution for a Bird Flu pandemic, building visibility for pre-clinical research in antiangiogenesis for metastatic cancer, accelerating clinical trial enrollment for a potentially breakthrough multiple sclerosis drug, introducing a new therapy for the treatment of abnormal uterine bleeding and raising awareness of emerging diagnostics for Parkinson's Disease and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
The four-year-long touring exhibition of headache pain-inspired artwork that Jim previously orchestrated for Sandoz Pharmaceuticals (Novartis), designed to expand the population of migraine sufferers who seek professional treatment, is a healthcare public relations textbook study.
Jim is also a co-founder of the government relations practice at Schwartz MSL, and spearheaded a successful, two-year-long crisis communications and disaster recovery response to an accidental factory explosion that cost lives and destroyed a client's medical product manufacturing factory.
Account teams and campaigns led by Jim have won many of the PR industry's most prestigious awards, including an unprecedented three "Best of Show" Super Bell Awards.
Prior to Schwartz MSL, Weinrebe was a senior vice president at a healthcare marketing boutique, for whom he developed a thriving public relations practice and launched a business unit that accelerates recruitment of patients for global clinical research studies.
A graduate of Cornell University, Jim is the father of two daughters and a long-time resident of Newton, MA.
John Moran, director and executive media coaching specialist
Since joining Schwartz MSL in 2000, John has represented technology companies in a variety of market sectors, including application development & integration, open source, software security, semiconductors and peer-to-peer (P2P).
He also serves as Schwartz MSL's media coaching specialist, working closely with top executives on message development, preparation and presentation skills.
Prior to joining Schwartz MSL, John spent 14 years as a radio talk show host, producer and writer.
Twitter: @jfmoran
Since joining Schwartz MSL in 1999, Julie Goldman has had experience with a wide variety of technology, healthcare IT and medical companies, ranging from public corporations to IPO-stage companies to start-ups. An account director, she is a key member of the agency's healthcare IT practice and has a strong background in consumer technology and personal finance.
Julie's media coverage and creativity have impacted her clients' businesses and played a key role in the agency garnering prestigious awards. Honors include several Silver Anvil Awards, the highest honor in the PR industry; Gold and Silver Bulldog Awards, which are judged by working journalists; and multiple Bell Ringer Awards from the Publicity Club of New England.
Julie earned her B.A. from Boston College, as a double major in Communications and Theatre Arts. She lives in Framingham, Mass., with her husband and new son.
Twitter: @juliegoldman
With nearly seven years of experience in government and public relations, Karis has worked with a variety of clients in the legal, health, utilities, and higher education industries.
She currently provides strategic and tactical support to Intellectual Property law firm, Wolf, Greenfield, & Sacks; global utility provider, National Grid; and performance materials company, Cabot Corporation. In addition, Karis serves on the Government Relations team at Schwartz MSL and provides public affairs services to various clients.
Prior to joining Schwartz MSL, Karis served for two years as a field representative for the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services and Senator for North Texas area at events, meetings, and forums in Senate District 12, Tarrant and Denton Counties. She developed relationships with civic and community groups, coordinated group trips to the Capitol, and pursued PR activities on behalf of the senator. Karis also served as the intern coordinator for the senator’s district office.
Karis' previous experience includes an internship in the White House Office of Public Liaison where she assisted Deputy Associate Director for African American Outreach with the planning and executing of large events, meetings, bill signings, and briefings for the President, Vice-President and White House Senior Administration Officials. She also coordinated and scheduled White House tours and assisted the White House Social Office with events.
Karis has also worked with campaigns for various elected officials in Texas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. Karis holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of North Texas and a M.S. in Public Relations from Boston University.
Kiley Phalan joined Schwartz MSL in the summer of 2009. She works on security and technology accounts with a client portfolio including Corero Network Security, Javelin Strategy & Research’s annual “Identity Fraud Report” and Fiserv.
As a part of the Corero team, Kiley actively pitches leading security bloggers as well as Web and print journalists from leading industry publications. She has formed relationships with editors at some of the most popular trade publications such as InformationWeek, Computerworld, Information Security and eWeek, and regularly secures coverage in national business outlets such as Forbes.com and MSNBC.com.
In addition to her media relations work, Kiley is a founding member of the Schwartz MSL Research Group and regularly completes a variety of research projects and SEO audits on the behalf of clients.
Kiley’s primary responsibilities include targeting and pitching trade, national and business media outlets, identifying and flagging relevant industry trends and drafting a variety of documents for the media including pitches, bylines, award submissions, speaking nominations and corporate messaging.
Kiley earned a Bachelor of Science in Public Relations from Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications, where she graduated magna cum laude.
Kiva Starr brings a unique blend of global cause, CSR and nonprofit experience to the agency. Kiva currently manages of the development of global cause platforms for Kellogg’s masterbrand, P&G Oral Care and DeVry University. Additionally, Kiva oversees thought leadership for cause & CSR in North America and serves as the Deputy Lead for PurPle.
Prior to joining MSL, Kiva spent six years at Cone, LLC managing business development and leadership positioning efforts for the agency, as well as serving as a key strategist on a range of cause and CSR accounts. Kiva was responsible for developing national and global marketing communications and Cause Branding strategies for Fortune 500 companies and leading nonprofit organizations. Over the years, Kiva provided counsel to the following clients: Walt Disney, Target, Time Warner, Reebok, American Cancer Society and many others.
In 2008, Kiva received an opportunity to work in Northern Tanzania for three months and serve as the Marketing & Communications Manager for the Indigenous Education Foundation of Tanzania. Kiva managed all communications activities in Monduli Tanzania for East Africa and the United States. She was responsible for developing an internal and external communications plan and approach, as well as strategic fundraising plans and strategies to build more meaningful and long-term relationships with donors around the world. In addition, Kiva worked with local Maasai tribes to educate families on the importance of education, specifically for girls.
Previously, Kiva worked for Hill Holiday and The Castle Group gaining experience in media relations, event planning and account management/planning.
Kiva holds a Global MBA in International Marketing and a BSBA in Marketing from Suffolk University.
Based in San Francisco, Laura operates at the intersection of technology and communications, commanding a deep understanding of disruptive technologies across the life sciences, sustainability and technology sectors. With 15 years of public relations experience, Laura has the ability to translate scientific and technological relevance across a variety of critical audiences through the strategic implementation of product and market development, corporate and crisis communications, media strategy and training and digital media.
Kempke also manages Schwartz MSL's content marketing services, which are designed to reach clients' target audiences directly through articles, blogs, Twitter, video, ebooks, case studies, email newsletters, white papers, podcasts, interactive presentations, images and other types of material. Content marketing programs can support marketing functions such as lead generation and lead nurturing, as well as more traditional PR activities like thought leadership. She also works with the Agency's SEO group to optimize content for search and, more broadly, to design PR programs that are in line with clients' SEO strategies.
In technology, Kempke's work spans industries such as enterprise software, application development and open source, telecommunications, security, and manufacturing and supply chain software. Clients have included Aspen Technology, Digium, GeoTrust (acquired by VeriSign), Invincea, JBoss (now part of Red Hat), VFA and Ximian (purchased by Novell).
Kempke also works with clinical stage life sciences companies, biotech tools and service providers, and diagnostics companies. Recent work has focused on oncology drugs in development and marketed diagnostics.
Campaigns on behalf of performance products companies include launching Nanocomp Technologies and stimulating interest among potential customers and partners in that firm's textiles made of carbon nanotubes. Kempke also headed the Schwartz MSL team that served one of the largest manufacturers of synthetic fibers used in body armor, highly engineered ropes and industrial products.
Her clients have reached scientific, technical, employee, investor and general audiences through traditional and social media, analysts, awards and events. Coverage ranges from Barron's, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Investor's Business Daily; to Science, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, Scientific American and Discover; to CIO, GigaOm, Slashdot and InformationWeek.
Kempke holds a B.A. in political science from the University of Wisconsin and an M.A. in government from Georgetown University.
Twitter: @laurakempke
Lauren Arnold brings more than 12 years of communications experience to her position of vice president. Since joining the agency in 1997, Arnold has helped clients in both the healthcare and technology sectors realize their business objectives through high-quality and high-impact public relations programs. Arnold provides strategic counsel as well as consistently secures media coverage in the national press for clients in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical, medical devices and diagnostics, business software and consumer industries.
During her tenure at Schwartz MSL, Arnold has worked with companies in early-stage development as well as large, established public corporations. Representative clients include Agencourt Bioscience, AmpliMed, Boston Scientific, Cyberonics, InnoCentive, MapInfo (recently purchased by Pitney Bowes), Proxima Therapeutics, SONIC innovations, Syncardia Systems and Vasomedical. Pitney Bowes MapInfo is the agency's oldest account, having been a client for almost 17 years. This account tenure is virtually unheard of in the PR world and Arnold has been on the account since she started at Schwartz MSL.
Arnold particularly enjoys working with the media, securing coverage for her clients in leading business, consumer and professional publications. Coverage highlights include articles in Parade, The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, The New York Times, TIME, Newsweek, The Boston Globe, cover stories in Genome Technologyand LIFE, ABC's "The View," CNN, CNBC as well as local affiliates across the country. For one client, Arnold secured three in-depth articles as well as inclusion in BusinessWeek's coveted Web-Smart 50 award in one year. Arnold also represented the client at a scientific conference in Moscow,securing interest and interviews from national reporters.
In addition to mentoring her teams on media relations, Arnold runs the agency's business press pitching class, providing guidance to junior account staff on how to successfully place national business stories.
Arnold has led several successful product and FDA-approval national launches and awareness campaigns. Under her guidance, Arnold's teams have won numerous industry awards, including the Communicator Awards of Excellence and Publicity Club of New England's Bell Ringer Awards for the launch of a five-day radiation treatment for breast cancer, the national launch of a digital hearing aid and FDA approval of the first total artificial heart.
Prior to Schwartz MSL, Arnold served as a communications correspondent for a mutual fund company. She graduated cum laude from Colby College with honors in English.
Lesley Sullivan is an account supervisor at Schwartz MSL. She is a results-focused public relations specialist with six years of public relations experience. Trained in the newsroom, Lesley holds a master’s degree in journalism and has two additional years of experience working for the media.
Lesley works on Schwartz MSL’s security practice. Some of the companies that she has worked with include Corero, Lancope, LogRhythm, Core Security, Aveksa and Xceedium. She also has experience working with data warehousing, mobile/telecom and supply chain companies.
In previous positions, Lesley worked at Corporate Ink, a boutique agency where she learned the ropes of public relations; New England Cable News (NECN); and WMCT. She has also written for several Florida-based regional publications, including the Tallahassee Magazine, where she contributed a cover story that received a six-page color spread.
Lesley holds a master’s degree in journalism from Emerson College. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in communication with minors in English and sociology from Florida State University and a minor in journalism from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University.
Lloyd Benson has a long and distinguished career in public relations and strategic marketing and has been a key member of the Schwartz MSL senior management team since 1995. Benson currently oversees the agency's award-winning healthcare practice and throughout his career at Schwartz MSL has been involved in some of the most prominent healthcare campaigns of the past decade. These include work for clients who have developed innovative technologies to treat sudden cardiac arrest, uterine bleeding disorders, epilepsy and heart disorders. He has also spearheaded launches of next-generation digital hearing aids, diagnostic tests for cervical cancer and the first total artificial heart ever to be considered for approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Benson also has extensive experience in developing and executing high-impact campaigns for technology clients. His expertise includes work in the customer relationship management, telephony, instant messaging, enterprise software and consumer technology arenas.
Schwartz MSL account teams and campaigns architected by Benson have consistently won many of the public relations industry's most prominent awards. From 1996 through 2003, his teams received more than 50 awards from organizations like the New England Publicity Club, Bulldog Reporter, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), the International Association of Business Communicators, the Medical Marketing Association and the Healthcare PR and Marketing newsletter. In 1996, Benson's campaign on behalf of Gynecare won the PR industry's most prestigious award, The Silver Anvil from the PRSA.
Benson has relationships with many of the nation's leading and most influential reporters and editors at outlets ranging from The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek and the Associated Press to ABC's Good Morning America. He is considered among Schwartz MSL's leading resources in public company communications and has guided many clients though the Initial Public Offering process.
Benson has many years of senior management experience in the PR agency business and, at Schwartz MSL, is heavily involved in agency-wide training. Prior to joining Schwartz MSL, he was a vice president at a boutique high-tech agency. He previously was director of strategic planning for NYNEX Business Information Systems, helping to guide the company into deregulated markets following the break-up of AT&T in the early 1980s. Benson is a graduate of Colby College and a resident of Salem, Mass.
McClennan combines strategic communications counsel with a relentless drive for excellence to help Schwartz MSL's clients succeed in leveraging public relations to realize their business objectives.
In his more than eleven years at Schwartz MSL, he has led teams in a variety of industries, including financial services, semiconductor manufacturing, consumer technology and gaming. He has worked with companies ranging from venture-funded start-up to large public companies, including CheckFree, Peppercoin, I4 Commerce, AmberWave, PRI Automation, Connected, Imaging Automation, NECX and Trellix.
McClennan's teams have been recognized with more than 35 awards for excellence in public relations, including four Silver Anvils (The PR Industry Oscars) in four years for Marketing Consumer Services and Financial Services for his teams work on behalf of CheckFree, I4 Commerce and Peppercoin. Working with CheckFree, his team helped raise consumer awareness of the benefits to paying bills online to 99 percent, and followed up with a campaigns focused on increasing the number of women who paid their bills online and reducing consumer fears of ID Theft.
He has obtained placements for his clients in a wide variety of business and trade publications, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Fast Company, Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, and Newsweek He once convinced a CNBC crew to follow the vice president of technology of a small start-up company around COMDEX for an entire day as a Day in the Life feature.
McClennan has a B.A. in public relations/political science from the S.I. Newhouse School at Syracuse University. McClennan is president-elect of the Public Relations Society of America's Boston Chapter, one of the largest in the nation.
Twitter: @mcclennan
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mcclennan
Meghan Gross, an experienced corporate communicator with two decades of perspective in a wide array of industries, joined MSLGROUP in January 2011. As an experienced corporate counselor, Meghan helps C-level executives navigate key reputation issues at the intersection of legal affairs, communications and marketing.
For the past decade, Meghan has worked with two leading law firms to develop and implement thought leadership campaigns designed to increase client acquisition and retention and to support brand visibility. In this capacity, she has handled CEO and brand positioning efforts, thought leadership campaigns, business development initiatives, internal communications, and integrated communications planning and management.
Meghan has handled an array of issues management and crisis communications scenarios, including executive transitions, personnel misconduct, workforce reductions, litigation, financial scrutiny and acquisitions.
In addition to her career in Boston, Meghan spent five years in Washington, D.C. working in public affairs including account roles at the bipartisan firm Powell Tate. Her agency experience in Boston includes assignments at two corporate communications firms. Meghan is active in the Public Relations Society of America, having served on the board of the Boston Chapter for the last six years. She was Chapter President in 2010, and remains active on the board as Immediate Past President in 2011.
Meghan is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Communication at her alma mater, Boston College, where she teaches Introduction to Public Relations in the spring and fall semesters, a position she has held since 2005. She received her Master’s Degree from George Washington University.
Mercedes Carrasco, an account director at Schwartz MSL, has worked with a variety of public and private technology and healthcare technology clients. She has experience supporting PR initiatives in security, enterprise software and healthcare IT markets both domestically and internationally through Schwartz MSL U.K. and Sweden offices.
Mercedes manages account teams and their daily operations. She also leads the development of corporate messaging and strategic PR goals; oversees analyst and customer programs; and generates news and feature stories in a variety of high-level publications.
Over her nearly six year tenure at Schwartz MSL, Mercedes has worked with several technology companies, spanning the security landscape, from email encryption to web security and internal hardware, software and network security. By implementing thought leadership campaigns and creative PR programs, Mercedes has helped companies of various sizes increase exposure among targeted audiences ? customer prospects, analysts and investors. For the past five years Mercedes has represented ScriptLogic Corporation and oversaw its acquisition by Quest Software, a leading IT company with more than 100,000 customers, 3,400 employees and 60 offices worldwide. Most recently, Mercedes worked with Purewire, Inc., a SaaS-based Web security company that was acquired by Barracuda Networks in late-2009.
Mercedes graduated from Syracuse University, earning a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the Martin J. Whitman School of Management and a Bachelor of Arts in Public Relations from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.
A native of Scranton, Pennsylvania, Mercedes now lives in the heart of Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood and enjoys the dining, shopping and entertainment the city has to offer.
Twitter: @mfereck
Merrill Freund has more than 15 years experience in high-tech public relations and has represented clients in various tech industries. In addition to formulating strategy, messaging and managing day-to-day activities on his clients' accounts, he works with his peers to stimulate high-profile placements in leading media outlets, including BusinessWeek, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, CNN and CNBC, as well as in the top computer trade publications.
Freund has led a number of successful campaigns for open source companies that supported their overall business objectives. He managed the Gluecode account, repositioning the company from a proprietary portal company to an open source application development challenger to Oracle, IBM and BEA, which ultimately led to the company's acquisition by IBM. He currently runs the Qlusters account, helping to increase by 10x the number of downloads of its open source systems management software and supporting its series B financing, and Terracotta, an open source network attached memory company, for which Schwartz MSL has helped pioneer a brand new category through results-based PR.
Freund also has deep expertise representing companies with data center-focused technologies, including server, storage and virtualization software. For the last four years, he has managed the Rackable Systems (Nasdaq:RACK) account, positioning the company as a legitimate competitor to Dell, IBM and HP, supporting Rackable Systems' successful 2005 IPO and communicating the company's leadership on green issues. He currently leads the Xyratex (Nasdaq: XRTX) account, a $1 billion plus storage OEM, and Virtugo, a provider of management solutions for virtualization platforms. He previously helped execute the successful launch of Panasas, an innovator in parallel storage solutions.
Previously, Freund was with Marinex Communications, a New York-based PR firm specializing in healthcare and high-tech clients. Freund holds a B.A. in political science from Union College and an M.S. in telecommunications from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Twitter: @merrillfr
Miranda Coykendall is a Supervisor at Schwartz MSL in San Francisco, where she has worked on a variety of consumer, technology and green accounts.
Prior to joining Schwartz MSL, Miranda worked as a field producer for the Fox News Channel, travelling to breaking news stories both domestically and internationally.
Miranda holds a B.A. in Legal Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and spends her free time convincing her colleagues to join her in training for half marathons and triathlons.
Nathan has represented a variety of PR clients including, high tech, security, cleantech and consumer companies as well as authors and NGOs. He has earned positive and prominent coverage in major media outlets such as PBS’ The Nightly Business Report, The New York Times, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, NPR, The San Jose Mercury News, The Oakland Tribune and The San Francisco Business Journal among others. Previously, he worked on the production side of the media equation as a print and broadcast journalist.
Nicole Solera comes to Schwartz MSL with nearly five years of experience in PR and marketing for some of the most recognized technology companies in the U.S. In particular, she recently performed contract work for RSA Security, a leading IT security company, where among other tasks she managed events for RSA’s support of national cybersecurity month. She also has experience with B2B technology markets, having worked within the EMC corporate marketing department.
At Schwartz MSL, Nicole is a key member of the Agency’s IT security practice. She recommends story ideas to her clients, based on current events, and she’s responsible for earning coverage across a variety of professional media and social media outlets. Nicole also works closely with her client’s customers and their analyst champions to package stories for strategic visibility opportunities.
Paul C. DiPerna brings 16 years of communications, business experience and an MBA to Schwartz MSL, displaying an ability to produce stellar media results at the business and trade levels with a diverse group of companies engaged in the Security arena. Paul’s Security-industry expertise comes from having worked with companies such as Credant Technologies, Federated Networks, Funk Software, Javelin Strategy & Research, Proginet and Workshare.
Pete joined Schwartz MSL in 2010 after a stint in a green/cleantech-focused boutique agency. He has worked with a range of progressive clients across a broad range of industries from cleantech, biotech/agriculture, solar, security, enterprise tech, consumer tech, sustainably-focused consumer and even high-profile annual conferences like Macworld.
Prior to his career in public relations, Pete worked in higher education at a few different Bay Area universities, and at a major book publishing house in New York. He holds a BA in Journalism and Mass Communications from the University of South Carolina in Columbia.
Risa Burgess has 12 years of healthcare communications experience and joined Schwartz MSL in 1998.
Risa has executed award-winning product and company launches for breakthrough medical devices and diagnostics in depression, orthopedics, oncology, epilepsy, cosmetics and has extensive experience working with biotechnology, health technology and life science companies. She has designed and implemented PR campaigns to support regional sales efforts, regulatory milestones, scientific communications, M&A activity, pre-launch market conditioning, issue awareness, celebrity-driven consumer awareness, corporate communications, clinical trial recruitment and special events. Her client portfolio includes emerging growth companies such as Leerink Swann, Southern Research Institute, Cyberonics, Wright Medical, Artes Medical, etrials, High Throughput Genomics, Verdezyne, SONIC innovations and Oridion and market leaders including West Pharmaceutical Services, PerkinElmer Life Sciences and CMGi.
Risa has secured innumerable high impact placements for her clients in media including The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Investor's Business Daily, BusinessWeek, Fortune, Dow Jones, Reuters, Financial Times, Boston Globe, Nature Review, BioITWorld, Pharmaceutical Executive and Drug Discovery and Development. She also has a solid track record of broadcast coverage on CNBC, CBS, NBC, FOX and ABC.
Under her guidance, Risa's teams have been recognized for PR excellence by the Publicity Club of New England with top honors including best product/service publicity business-to-business campaign for Leerink Swann in 2009; best news release: regional for Cyberonics in 2006 and best investor relations/financial campaign for Cyberonics in 2005.
She is on the Board of Directors as immediate past president for the Publicity Club of New England and she manages the Agency's submissions for the annual awards competition. She also leads training and professional development programs for the healthcare practice and is actively involved in recruiting and interviewing new hire candidates.
Prior to joining Schwartz MSL, Risa worked as a research associate at RAMS-FIE in Gaithersburg, MD. She also dipped her toes in culinary PR at Blue Plate Communications, a Newton, Mass. public relations agency focused on the food service industry. Risa holds a B.A. in journalism from the University of Maryland with a specialty in public relations and writing. When she isn't at the office, she is spending time with her husband chasing after her toddler.
Since 1997, Ross Levanto has raised the visibility of a broad range technology companies in several industries, including application development and open source, application integration, security, storage, Web communities, Web acceleration and Web search technologies. During his tenure at the Agency, he has led teams creating new markets and market categories, from Web shopping and online people searching to Web services and open source integrated developer environments.
Ross also enjoys placing clients in the media. He has successfully placed strategic features in a variety of print and broadcast outlets, including Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Fortune, CNN and the Associated Press.
Ross graduated with a bachelor's degree in communications, summa cum laude, from Boston University. Prior to joining Schwartz MSL, Ross was the webmaster at WHDH-TV Channel 7, an NBC affiliate in Boston. In the Fall of 1996, he worked in Vice President Al Gore's Communications Office in Washington, where among other duties he performed background research for the Clinton administration's export encryption policies.
Ross is also an active volunteer in the local technology scene. He has served as vice president, press and public affairs for the New England Business and Technology Association, which later merged with the Massachusetts Software Council. He is the originator of the Association's annual awards ceremony, which is still in existence today.
Twitter: @rosslevanto
Sarah joined Schwartz MSL in 2012 and works primarily with the firm's cleantech clients. She previously worked at the Antenna Group, a clean technology and energy-focused PR firm in San Francisco. Prior to that, Sarah worked as a financial analyst in Piper Jaffray's Capital Markets group specializing in Convertible Securities. Sarah has a master's in journalism from the University of Colorado in Boulder and a B.A. in Economics from the University of San Francisco.
Shannon Murphy brings more than eight years of communications experience to the role of Vice President at Schwartz MSL, where she is an active member of the Medical Device & Diagnostics, Pharmaceutical and Biotech, and Healthcare IT practice groups. Since joining Schwartz MSL in 2005, she has supported established leaders and emerging innovators in the healthcare IT, medical device, and life science fields with strategic public relations counsel and high-impact media exposure. Shannon leads teams, guides her clients and manages workflow, helps to develop and implement strategy, crafts effective and influential messaging, and secures coverage in a variety of media.
Over the past five years, Shannon has represented both emerging and established companies in the Medical Device & Diagnostics, Pharmaceutical and Biotech, and Healthcare IT spaces including Ascent Healthcare Solutions, Cepheid, Curexo Technology, Epocrates, eToims Medical Technology, Fluorotronics, Healthline Networks, LifeCell, Nobel Biocare, Omnicell, Otologics, Oxford BioMedica, PriceDoc, PureSleep, ResMed, Respironics, SeQual Technologies, Versant Advantage, W.L. Gore & Associates and Zynx Health. Shannon has executed PR to support clinical trial recruitment, pre-launch market conditioning, regulatory events, product launches, regional sales efforts and issue awareness. She has also played an integral role in her teams' winnings of several PR industry awards, including a Gold Bulldog Award for the best business-to-business product launch, Publicity Club of New England Bell Ringer Awards for Best National Print Feature, Best National Television News Placement, Best Marketing Communications Campaign, New Media, the Bell Ringer Merit Award for Community Service Campaign and Product/New Service Publicity: Healthcare, and the Bell Ringer for Product/Service Launch: Healthcare.
Shannon has secured favorable client coverage in an array of print and broadcast consumer and trade media outlets on both a local and national level, including Arizona Republic, Associated Press, Congenital Cardiology Today, Dow Jones, Forbes, Parenting Magazine, PharmaVOICE, Pharmaceutical Executive, Reader's Digest, Red Herring, Self Magazine, The Doctors, The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Wall Street Journal, and countless others.
Prior to joining Schwartz MSL, Shannon was involved in healthcare public relations for such clients as 3M Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi Aventis and Endo Pharmaceuticals. She spearheaded a national grassroots campaign with dermatology residency programs for three years in approximately 60 different markets across the country. Shannon has also been fully involved in the FDA clinical trial processes for new products, as well as during the successful launch of the new products post-regulatory clearance. She was previously a senior account executive at KPR, Inc., a pharmaceutical advertising firm based in New York City. Prior to that, she worked at Cohn & Wolfe, also in New York City. Shannon graduated from Colby College with a B.A. in English literature and creative writing, studied at the Universite de Bourgogne in Dijon, France, and was captain of the women's lacrosse team.
Sherry Feldberg is a director in Schwartz MSL' healthcare practice. She's worked with a mix of large, publicly traded clients, including Hologic, Cyberonics, Respironics, Wright Medical and Accuray, as well as private companies like diaDexus and Retina Implant. As a director, Sherry's days are spent on planning, managing day-to-day team activities and leading her teams' media relations efforts, a passion of hers.
Over the years, Sherry has cultivated relationships with some of the top health reporters, resulting in coverage for her clients in outlets such as the Associated Press, USA Today, Time, Family Circle, CNBC, CBS, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times and Newsday.
When Sherry's not busy running her accounts, you can find her at the gym, catching up on her favorite prime-time dramas, including Mad Men, Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice, or chasing after her daughter.
As a senior account executive at Schwartz MSL, Shweta Agarwal works with a number of security, virtualization, business intelligence, cloud computing, data center consolidation, wireless and clean tech companies. Shweta works closely with clients to generate media coverage, plans and executes analyst and blogger relationships and manages speaking programs. She has successfully placed her clients in business as well as trade publications including the Associated Press, CIO, CNet, ComputerWorld, eWeek, Financial Times, InfoWorld, InformationWeek, NetworkWorld, IDG News Service, TechTarget, The Washington Post and ZDnet.
Prior to joining Schwartz MSL, Shweta worked at several leading public relations agencies in India including Rediffusion Dentsu Young & Rubicam Brand Communications and TBWA Anthem PR where she managed PR campaigns for Bharti group, India's leading telecom conglomerate providing cellular, land line, national long distance and broadband services and a variety of consumer technologies.
She holds an M.S. in Journalism and Mass Communications with a specialization in Advertising and Public Relations from Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communications (SIMC), India, and a second Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications from Emerson College in Boston, MA.
Stacey Holifield is a director at Schwartz MSL with more than ten years of communications experience. Throughout her career, she has worked with a variety of healthcare companies—from emerging growth to Fortune 500—to develop and execute strategic, high-impact, communication campaigns.
In her spare time, Stacey pursues the proverbial, unattainable work/life balance. She enjoys running at a very slow pace, practicing yoga while her mind races, eating chocolate as a meal substitute, and debating whether or not blue is actually blue with her two year old son.
Stacey is based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Tiffany is an Director at Schwartz MSL and during her tenure with the agency, she has worked with a variety of emerging growth security, consumer, clean tech and other high tech companies to implement and manage comprehensive public relations campaigns on their behalf. In particular, Tiffany works to help guide clients as they move deeper into the world of social media - including blogs, podcasts, forums, wikis and any other technology that crops up - through training, strategy and implementation.
Tiffany has leveraged strong media relationships to secure favorable client coverage in an array of top business and consumer media outlets including, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, BusinessWeek, Investor's Business Daily, Associated Press, National Public Radio, and CBS Television and Radio, among others.
Prior to joining Schwartz MSL, Tiffany worked as a PR strategist for Boston-based technology public relations agency, ink Communications. She also served as a marketing and communications representative for Sunday River Ski Resort in Maine. Tiffany received a B.S. in Public Relations from Boston University's College of Communication.
In her spare time, you can find Tiffany hitting the links or the slopes depending on the season.
Twitter: @ynaffit