- Craig Barton | President
- Valerie Georgantas | President Elect
- Robert Bershad | Secretary
- Kiersten Hafer | Treasurer
- Dawn Pelon | Immediate Past President
- Graham Ruffels | Vice President, Membership
- Yvette London | Vice President, Programming
- Matt Roberts | Vice President, Communications
- Josh Miller | Vice President, Technology
- Brian Casey | Vice President, Volunteers
- Rich Palumbo, Vice President, Sponsorships
- Harry Shrank | Vice President, Collegiate Relations
Craig Barton | President
Craig Barton has over 23 years of design, product management and marketing leadership experience, spanning Aerospace and Defense, Engineering Consulting, Application Software, Mobile Technologies and Internet Solutions and Services and is currently Vice President of Global Product Management at arcplan, Inc. responsible for the overall strategic direction of the product line for this enterprise Business Intelligence software vendor.
Prior to arcplan, Inc., Craig was Sr. Director of Product Management at Exclaim, a provider of digital media platforms across both web and wireless channels. Additionally, Craig served as Director of Product Management and Marketing for AOL/MapQuest's Business Solutions Group, responsible for the overall strategic direction of the MapQuest B2B products and keeping MapQuest at the leading edge of the market. Craig was also part of a turnaround at Vicinity Corp., a location based solutions provider for top business and consumer brands, ultimately leading to the Microsoft acquisition in 2002. As a member of the core product team, Mr. Barton was instrumental in driving the GIS vision for Point A, Autodesk’s inaugural portal for technical professionals. Craig has an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from Clemson University and an MBA from Loyola University. He is a recreational triathlete and currently lives in Chester County, PA with his wife and two children.
Contact: president@amaphilly.org
Valerie Georgantas | President Elect
Valerie began her career in Montreal in the early 90’s with Canon Office Equipment in sales. At Sprint Canada, her career accelerated and she was recognized as the top sales performer in the Eastern Region. Her skill set broadened internationally in scope at Teleglobe, where she gained global business development and account management experience targeting the Canadian multinational community. At i3 Mobile, a wireless application provider, she led the Canadian office as the Country Manager. After being promoted to Director of Business Development Valerie was relocated to the US headquarters in Connecticut, responsible for the development of alternate sales channels. During her tenure as the Regional Manager at Dow Jones (Formerly known as Factiva, Dow Jones & Reuters) she was responsible for running a multiple-office region in Canada and the North East U.S. Under her leadership in 2004, her region was the top performing region in the world out of 43 global territories.
In 2005, Valerie worked on a variety of independent projects that led to the creation of Gantas Group; a company that specializes in helping organizations improve their business performance.
Valerie is originally from Montreal and attended McGill University. She is trilingual and has also lived in Europe. Prior to moving to Pennsylvania where she now resides with her husband and daughter, she spent 10+ years living and working in Toronto. Valerie is a part of the Forum of Executive Women’s (FOEW) mentorship program, the region’s premier female executive leadership organization.Contact: president-elect@amaphilly.org
Robert Bershad, Esq | Secretary
Robert E. Bershad is a marketing/communications professional who has published numerous articles on healthcare, law, and the internet.
Contact: secretary@amaphilly.org
Kiersten Hafer | Treasurer
Kiersten has more than 15 years experience working with Fortune 500 companies in the areas of strategic planning, business development, brand development, sales, marketing and promotions.
Her career leading businesses and brands is well rounded with experience working in retail, agency, sales, client and entrepreneurial capacities. She has broad complementary experience in business to business and business to consumer marketing with extensive practice in consumer marketing, food service marketing, and customer specific marketing/co-marketing.
A graduate of Kutztown University, Kiersten received a BSBA with a concentration in Marketing. She is also a graduate of Saint Joseph’s University with a Master of Science Degree in Food Marketing from the Haub School of Business and received her ServSafe® food safety certification from the National Restaurant Association. Kiersten is President and co founder of The Food Experience™, President of One Mind™, and Vice President Strategic Solutions Group at IRI.
Contact: treasurer@amaphilly.org
Dawn Pelon | Immediate Past President
Dawn Pelon, Regional Marketing Manager for Navistar, International Trucks, has 15 years of experience in the integrated marketing industry. She currently works with International Trucks as a marketing manager heading up the eastern region and focusing on channel marketing within a dealer network. She brings her expertise in channel and integrated marketing to the AMA as the 2009 Immediate Past President. Dawn has served on the PAMA Board for five years and just completed her term as Chapter President.
"Channel Marketing intrigues and inspires me...I find that it requires an intense level of creativity, audience engagement, and plenty of energy – not only are you focused on motivating and educating your channel network but at the same time you have to keep the end user’s needs as the primary goal. It can be entirely complex but when done right it is extremely powerful." She also has worked with industry-leading companies such as Minneapolis-based Carlson Marketing Group and Maritz Performance Improvement Company out of St, Louis, MO. Her clients have included companies such as Lincoln Financial Group, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Saturn, and AOL. Dawn received her masters from Michigan State University and her undergraduate from the University of Michigan.Graham Ruffels | Vice President, Membership
Graham T. Ruffels is President of Victory Production Management, a premium-based direct mail marketing firm. After leaving teaching to pursue his passion in marketing, Graham has spent the last 10 years of his career driven by a strong focus in business development.Following his tenure with a manufacturing company, where he honed his skills and went on to earn top sales executive, Graham was recruited to work for a Washington DC based production brokerage.
There, he expanded the existing network of vendors by introducing global resources to help fulfill the changing needs of their clients. He has improved processes by challenging the norms of the production cycle and integrating emerging technologies.
Now, working to assist organizations reach their full potential, Graham spends most of his time consulting to demonstrate how this medium is best utilized. Currently, he serves as the president of the Direct Marketing Association of Washington DC. Graham T. Ruffels is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island with a double major in Education and Political Science.
Contact: membership@amaphilly.org
Yvette London | Vice President, Programming
Known as a master of strategic planning with an unwavering ability to deliver against her clients' business objectives, Yvette cut her marketing teeth at Grey Advertising's consumer promotion division. There she honed her skills developing fully integrated plans for clients in a wide array of industries including durable goods, healthcare, liquor, retail, financial services and real estate.
After several years as Vice President Management Supervisor for the Olive Garden restaurant account, Yvette left Grey -- and New York -- to join Ryan Partnership in Westport, CT, one of country's top marketing services agencies. Leading the integrated marketing efforts for Mars Pet's cat food brands, as well as major projects for such consumer packaged goods titans as Kraft and Mott's, she wove consumer promotion, interactive, ethnic and direct marketing components into synergistic marketing plans designed to drive sales and market share, launch new products, deepen customer relationships as well as generate buzz and excitement around the brands.
In 2001 she decided to go it alone and became an independent consultant, continuing to build her packaged goods expertise as the agency's Acting Vice President for several Unilever brands, leading two account teams through strategic planning cycles, new product introductions, competitive/category reviews and day to day execution. She also used her wide ranging knowledge of marketing strategies and tactics for Novartis, Avon, Energizer, Georgia-Pacific and Intel among others.
Yvette moved to the Philadelphia area in 2006 and continues to do consulting work. She currently lives in West Chester with her husband, daughter, a dog, a cat and a tankful of fish.
Contact: programming@amaphilly.org
Matt Roberts | Vice President, Communications
Mr. Roberts’ strategic planning and marketing career spans several industries. As president of MJRC, Inc., Mr. Roberts has provided strategic planning and marketing guidance to clients in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, software development and financial service sectors. MJRC, Inc. provides clients with a range of strategic and tactical marketing services. In 2009 MJRC was awarded PAMA’s annual Marketer of the Year award in the category of excellence in Customer Specific Marketing. MJRC was also recognized for excellence at PAMA’s 2008 event, for excellence in Corporate Branding.
Prior to opening MJRC, Mr. Roberts was the Director of Qwest’s National Healthcare Center (NHC) which focused on leveraging broadband technology to deliver marketing, education and brand-building solutions to the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. Prior to starting the NHC, he led Qwest’s Healthcare Practice in developing national award-winning, business solutions for market-leading pharmaceutical companies. Procter & Gamble selected Mr. Roberts’ team to be its first interactive agency of record for its pharmaceutical division.
Mr. Roberts has authored several published articles on marketing and, as an experienced facilitator of strategic planning and sales training programs, has helped AstraZeneca, Proctor & Gamble, Pfizer, Wyeth and Qwest to implement successful, award-winning marketing campaigns.
Mr. Roberts received his Bachelors degree from The George Washington University. He has done graduate work in business administration at The University of Maryland and in medical sociology at The University of Pennsylvania.Contact: communications@amaphilly.org
Josh Miller | Vice President, Technology
A true serial entrepreneur and business aficionado, Josh Miller’s career and passion for marketing, business and technology began at Hamptons Online, where he started as a technical support intern. At Hamptons Online, Josh’s responsibilities included pivotal roles in a mail server migration, DNS server migration and account management system implementation. After his work with Hamptons Online, he began working with RDI, Inc., a Mount Kisco, NY based global electronics contract manufacturer and components distributor, with a focus on their website development, information technology and business operations. Concurrent with his involvement and consulting with RDI, Josh was brought on by the Law Offices of Stuart Salles in New York, NY as a Legal Assistant/Paralegal with the intent to “de-paper” the law offices, filing claims electronically and managing a myriad of portfolios.
After his brief stint in the legal industry, Josh made a complete industry transformation and formed the New Music Radio Network (NMRN) with partners, which was shortly thereafter absorbed by Qopel Records, a New York, NY-based independent music label where Josh assumed the role of Vice President of Marketing. At Qopel Records, Josh was responsible for building a strategic marketing plan for both the company as a whole as well as the individual artists, artist development, public and media relations, “street team” promotion crews, event planning and much more. After Qopel Records, Josh was brought on full-time by RDI, Inc. and assumed the role of Operations Manager, where he is currently responsible for all marketing functions, Information Technology (IT), and business administration. Josh has also started a real estate management company, a marketing and business consulting firm and is still looking to continue his reputation as a serial entrepreneur where possible!
Aside from his corporate and business interests, Josh has a passion for fun – he loves to tell jokes and always be the “comic relief,” spend time in the Hamptons, relax, spend time with his Jack Russell Terrier, Duncan and travel. Josh is also an Associate Member of the National Academy of the Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS). Josh is excited to be a part of PAMA and looks forward to adding in his skills, expertise and enthusiasm for business, marketing, entrepreneurship and world domination to the organization.
Contact: technology@amaphilly.org
Brian Casey | Vice President, Volunteers
Brian Casey’s 27 year career has included Retail Management, Credit Operations at a national Canadian Retailer, Information Systems Security, and Marketing Production. Working in Business to Consumer and Business to Business Marketing in the US and Canada, Brian was most recently V.P., Indirect Marketing for Wells Fargo Auto Finance, responsible for developing and executing Marketing Strategy. Brian holds a B.A. in Philosophy from York University in Toronto, Canada, and lives with his wife and son in Wallingford, PA.
Contact: volunteers@amaphilly.org
Rich Palumbo | Vice President, Sponsorships
Rich Palumbo has more than 10 years of experience in Healthcare Marketing. A graduate of Temple University, he received his undergraduate degree with a triple concentration in Journalism, Public Relations and Advertising. In the past decade he has worked for a variety of healthcare organizations including, HCR-ManorCare and The Main Line Health System. Rich is currently the Associate Vice President of Marketing for Amsurg Corp; the nation’s largest owner/operator of surgery centers. Rich has been elected to local office, written freelance for many Philadelphia-area newspapers, produced an independent film, started his own marketing consulting company (12-In-Line Media Solutions) and plays guitar in a local rock and roll band. Rich currently lives in Ambler, PA with his beautiful wife and children.
Contact: sponsorships@amaphilly.org
Harry Shrank | Vice President, Collegiate Relations
Harry Shrank has had a successful and diversified career as an entrepreneur, senior executive, and independent management and marketing consultant in the chemical, paper, pharmaceutical, transportation, consumer packaged products, and retail industries. After a career in marketing, distribution, and general management, Shrank joined Temple University Fox School where he has taught courses in the Marketing Department at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Mr. Shrank has worked for Colgate Palmolive Company, Bristol Myers Company, FMC Corporation, International Paper Company, and the Newark Group, Inc. Mr. Shrank advises the Temple Ambler Campus student chapter of the American Marketing Association.
Contact: collegiaterelations@amaphilly.org