BIOGRAPHIES
Valorie Luther
Founder and CEO
Ms. Valorie Luther began her public relations and marketing career in New York City by assisting Mr. Roger Martin, a veteran of the trade, with several successful campaigns that led to increased exposure and more business for his clients.
Later, Valorie became a national sales leader in a well-known consumer company where understanding and responding to the customer’s requirements was the key to her success. In addition to her sales role, Valorie was asked to sit on various committees which concentrated on communications and marketing issues.
After moving to Westchester County, Valorie became Director of F.E.M.A.L.E. where, in addition to her Director’s responsibilities, she ran a public relations campaign which brought some much needed attention to the nationally based not-for-profit.
Later as a resident of Fairfield, Connecticut, Valorie was the founder and facilitator of Women@Work which required branding work, numerous public relations campaigns, and the management of varied marketing events in order to get the community based organization off the ground.
Once Valorie found her replacement for running Women@Work, she formed Creative Concepts Consultants which specializes in her passions: social media, public relations, marketing and events.
In addition to Creative Concepts Consultants, Valorie, has organized, with her team, the Business Smart Tools Conference which was created to help teach the business community how to use social media for business. Business Smart Tools has since evolved into a radio show focused on innovative brands or brands doing innovative business, all in 5 minutes online!
“This is an exciting time to do business,” says Valorie, “where the power of a social network like Facebook or Twitter can bring our clients closer to their customers while expanding their exposure at a much faster rate and more effectively. We are taking the social media ride with our clients and enjoying the journey every step of the way!”
To contact Valorie Luther, please call 866.475.5191 x709
BIOGRAPHIES
Nicoline Maes
Director, Business Services
Director, Business Development / Netherlands
After attaining a degree in Business Administration, Nicoline worked as a Senior Management Assistant at the International Division of Philips Consumer Electronics in the Netherlands, her native country. While working at Philips was a great business experience, Nicoline wanted to round out her career by pursuing her creative side, so she left the corporate world to study design full time at “St. Joost,” the renowned Dutch Academy of Arts. Soon after, Nicoline combined her business and creative experience and founded her own design company “AQUI” which focused on interior design for businesses and private homes along with custom designing events for the corporate sector.
Later, Nicoline became a mother of two and and closed AQUI to start working for BCO, a K-12 support and training organization servicing over 350 schools. Here she oversaw business administration and event management for the organization.
In 2006 Nicoline moved with her family from the Netherlands to the United States and in 2007 started working for Creative Concepts.
As Director of Business Services for Creative Concepts, Nicoline is responsible for several broad areas where her focus is to develop and oversee internal business processes, streamline customer related services, and contribute to event planning and other special projects. As Director of Business Development/Netherlands, Nicoline reaches out to and manages companies in the Netherlands interested in promoting their product or service in the United States via social media, public relations, and marketing events. Nicoline also provides hands-on social media workshops for smaller businesses in the Netherlands. You can learn more about these services here.
Versatile, creative, multi-lingual, organized and team player best describe Nicoline Maes who is an integral part of the success we have achieved at Creative Concepts.
BIOGRAPHIES
David Borzo
Director, Content Production
David, always on board for new challenges, has worked with Creative Concepts since 2008. As Director, Content Production, David gets to bridge the complimentary tasks of learning and writing about a wide range of subject matter. David also currently keeps busy as Editor, designer and public relations for Storied Gifts.com.
An award-winning artist, David graduated from Drake University with a Degree in Fine arts, and has taken part in many shows and been associated with many national publications over the last 25 years.
Along with his love of writing and history, David is passionate about wine collecting, Tea, music, and his large extended family.
BIOGRAPHIES
Maureen McLellan
Relationship Manager
Maureen began her career more than 20 years ago as a daily newspaper reporter in the Boston area, moving on to stints as a business editor, copy editor, content producer and freelancer for various publications and Web ventures (Maureen’s work has appeared in The Boston Globe and Vermont Business Magazine, among other publications). Although she still loves the look and feel of newsprint – and has the ink stains to show for it – Maureen is thoroughly enjoying the challenge of working on the New Media frontier! She joined the Creative Concepts team in January 2011, blogging for several clients and working on special projects to elevate their online presence.
A graduate of Boston College, Maureen has fond memories of her years in the Bay State but now makes her home in Fairfield, CT, with husband Doug Whiting, two sons, and a poorly trained but lovable black lab.
BIOGRAPHIES
Robin Phillips
Public Relations Manager
Robin Phillips is a Public Relations professional with 20 years’ experience in the field. She began her career working in publicity and marketing for book publishing, with posts at Scholastic Publishing and at Random House, Inc. She then explored the realm of non-profit/animal welfare Public Relations, assuming a high-level position at The American Kennel Club in New York City. After three years with the AKC, Robin joined Meredith Corporation, and put her love of the home and garden, as well as women’s issues, to use as the Public Relations Manager for such magazine titles as Country Home, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Better Homes and Gardens. Also at Meredith, Robin was the lead PR person on the team who founded More magazine, the first fashion, beauty and health title for women over 40.
Three years later, Robin took her talents to an award-winning international Public Relations firm, Ruder-Finn, and began supervising a team and a client roster there that included many start-up internet companies, as well as the Guggenheim Museum, McGraw-Hill, and the New York City Ballet. In 2001, Robin returned to the media world and to home interior and garden design, and became the Director of Public Relations for House & Garden magazine, published by Condé Nast. Robin left in 2004 to pursue freelance PR consulting opportunities, and has since worked for Bon Appetit, Conde Nast Traveler, The Little Gym, and Pinkberry.
Throughout her career, Robin has secured countless media placements, including articles or mentions in The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Self magazine, Parents, Shape, and Men’s Health & Fitness, among others.
She has negotiated ongoing media appearances for editors, designers and spokespeople at CBS The Early Show, CBS The Saturday Show, NBC’s The Today Show, Fox’s Good Day New York, CNN, HGTV, and News 12 New York and Connecticut. While at House & Garden magazine, Robin initiated and oversaw the redecorating of Barbara Walters’ dressing room by acclaimed Manhattan interior designer Alexa Hampton on the hit ABC morning television show The View.
As part of the Creative Concepts team, Robin brings her vast experience and love of Public Relations to round out the communications team that supports our clients!
BIOGRAPHIES
Jenni Hilton
Public Relations Writer and Strategist
As a public relations and marketing communications professional, Jenni has worked in the technology sector, focusing on strategic marketing, message management, deployment strategies, and public relations initiatives. In addition, she has had agency experience managing integrated marketing strategies for business to business clients. For Creative Concepts, Jenni contributes to our blog sharing public relations tips and stories as well as helping to build our client strategies for our public relations campaigns.
BIOGRAPHIES
Stephanie Schwab
Social Marketing and Digital Strategist
Stephanie brings nearly 20 years of experience in social media, e-commerce, retail and technology to Creative Concepts with the past six years working exclusively in social media. She has advised leading B2C and B2B companies in navigating emerging communications technologies and connecting with consumers in new ways. Stephanie’s teams have been honored with social media industry awards including a WOMMIE award, a PRNews Platinum award, and an OMMA award.
Stephanie writes about social media at StephanieSchwab.com, writes a houseblog, Twitters @socialologist, connects with other knitters at www.ravelry.com (stephanies), and engages on Facebook and other social networks. She holds an MBA in Marketing and Strategic Planning from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a BA from the University of Washington.
BIOGRAPHIES
Rick Lavoie
Social Marketing and Digital Strategist
Rick is a unique strategic/business and creative design hybrid with a 360 Marketing Communications background. He focuses on human needs as drivers in emerging channels to deliver very effective and impactful social and digital programs to promote consumer engagement, trial, retention and revenue for his clients. He has served in Senior Account Service and Creative Director roles and has 14 years digital experience with 20 years total integrated marketing communications experience.
Rick has led large teams for online and traditional communication delivery on the client side at MasterCard and Starwood Hotels as well as at agencies such as Critical Mass/Omnicom, Ryan Partnership, Saatchi & Saatchi, Clarion Marketing/Publicis, and R/GA. Clients and brands include Citi, Chase, Unilever, MARS, Walmart, Nestle, Kraft, Viacom, GE, Heineken, Novartis, IBM, Cadbury Schweppes, and AT&T.
Deliverables sold in and developed include B2C and B2B acquisition, retention, and direct marketing programs from strategy to execution for eCommerce, social media, emerging digital applications, mobile, long-term digital strategies, large-scale site builds, rich media campaigns, print advertising and collateral programs.
Rick is driven to innovate and build brands online and off so that the Creative Concepts clients can truly expand and grow!
BIOGRAPHIES
Brit Liggett
Video Producer
Brit is originally from Massachusetts but now calls Brooklyn, New York her home. She graduated with a BFA in Television and Documentary Production from the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University in Orange, California in 2007. With diploma in hand, she moved immediately to New York City and took a position with the Washington Post Company at their environmental web-startup Sprig.com.
At Sprig.com, Brit honed her new media skills and situated herself as a video producer with a conscience. After leaving the Washington Post family in 2009, Brit has worked as a Video Producer for Inhabitat.com, Ecouterre.com, Adobe, Comcast, American Express, The Green Shows, The Diabetes Education and Camping Association and joined the team at Creative Concepts in the fall of 2010 where Brit has used her experience to creatively tell each clients’ story through video on the web.
BIOGRAPHIES
Melissa Schweiger Kleinman
Social Media Writer and Strategist
Melissa Schweiger Kleinman is an author, journalist and blogger. Her articles have appeared in Shape, Martha Stewart Weddings, Women’s Wear Daily, Interview, Marie Claire, Redbook, Hamptons, Seventeen, In Style and on Babble.com, In Style.com and StyleList.com. She is the author of Sephora: The Ultimate Guide to Makeup, Skin and Hair from the Beauty Authority. She is a regular contributor to the parenting blog, Cool Mom Picks, where she reviews everything from strollers to sunscreens. Melissa lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and two sons.
BIOGRAPHIES
Susan Wagner
Social Media Writer and Strategist
Susan is a freelance writer and editor, specializing in fashion and parenting. Susan has an MA in English from The Ohio State University, and she taught English at the high school and college level for ten years. She started her first blog, Friday Playdate, in 2005; in 2011, she relaunched that site as The Working Closet, a fashion and style blog.
Susan freelanced for AOL for five years, writing for ParentDish, Holidash, AisleDash, and AOL Travel. In addition, she served as the site lead at AisleDash, as the associate editor at both ParentDish and Holidash, and as an editor with AOL’s Seed content platform. She was the managing editor for fashion and style at BlogHer.com for two years. She currently writes the Working Closet blog at Work It, Mom, is a contributor to TLC’s Parentables blog and now writes for the Creative Concepts blog in addition to supporting our clients with content and strategies that help them expand their communities online. Offline, her work has appeared in the anthologies “Sleep is for the Weak” and “Kirtsy Takes a Bow,” and she is an occasional contributor to Oklahoma Magazine.
Susan lives in Oklahoma City.
BIOGRAPHIES
Heather Rast
Social Media Writer and Strategist
Heather is a customer-centric brand strategist interested in building stronger relationships between brands and those they serve. She helps brands shape their communications to target relevance, value, and emotional fulfillment by focusing on customer needs.
Heather has worked with clients in health care, telecommunications, food service, retail, eCommerce and utility sectors for 18 years. An entrepreneur and small business owner, she holds a BA degree from Florida State University in English and Journalism, and a MA degree from Middle Tennessee State University in Mass Communications. A prolific reader and writer, she writes her own blog, insightsandingenuity.com, while contributing to several industry blogs which includes the Creative Concepts blog.
BIOGRAPHIES
Ann Karrick
Social Media Manager
Ann has an extensive business background and has worked as a marketing, public relations, and organizational & efficiency consultant. Her clients and employers have included IBM, AT&T, and Golf Digest as well as sports marketing companies, public relations agencies and a dot.com company. Ann has also done pro-bono media and public relations work for a local non-profit group. In her pro-bono position, the non-profit group was featured on a Travel Channel show as well as local television programs out of Hartford, and numerous local newspapers. Adding to this experience, Ann has also been a talk show host and news anchor in television and radio in both Connecticut and New York.
Ann is very involved with local business and community organizations including the Westport Chamber of Commerce as an Ambassador, Westport Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), the Congressional District Advisory Council for the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW), and is a former director/leader of both the Women in Sports Careers (WISC) Network and the Fairfield Network of Executive Women (FNEW).
Ann now comes to Creative Concepts as a Client Development Manager where she will help to support each clients’ needs both with public relations and social media projects.
BIOGRAPHIES
Deb Karazin Owens
Social Media Manager
Writing has been an important part of Deb’s world since the age of eight, when she began writing, editing and publishing a monthly family newspaper. As she continued her education, she kept a hand in journalism, becoming the Editor in Chief of both her high school newspaper and, later, The Dartmouth, America’s oldest daily college newspaper. She worked briefly at The New York Times during college and eventually found herself writing legal briefs after graduating from Harvard Law School. While taking a break from the law to raise two young children, Deb wrote for several local publications and soon became the editor of Fairfield Magazine.
Born and raised in Westport, Connecticut, Deb has lived in Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, DC. She now makes her home in Fairfield, CT.
Deb joined Creative Concepts in 2009 and now actively blogs for several clients while also working to expand their social networking presence.
BIOGRAPHIES
Katie Skow
Social Media Manager
Katie was born in Florida, lived in Washington, and returned to Florida for sunshine and college. She graduated from Eckerd College with a double major in International Relations & Global Affairs and Spanish.
Both living and working abroad has given her perspective of global business and the power of social media as a communications tool. Katie has experience working in international event planning as well as public relations.
These days, social media is an everyday part of her life and she enjoys staying active in the online community for both business and pleasure. As a social media coordinator for Creative Concepts, Katie not only reaches out to diverse communities but she also builds long term connections for the clients of Creative Concepts.
Katie is passionate about travel, languages, interesting wines, bike riding, and the beautiful Southern California sunshine. She speaks fluent French and Spanish.
BIOGRAPHIES
Jerelyn Luther
Social Media Writer and Business Services Coordinator
Jerelyn Luther’s work for Creative Concepts includes client research, blog writing as the teen expert on the Creative Concepts blog, community outreach on behalf of clients as well as having a hand in the payroll for the Creative Concepts team.
Jerelyn currently lives in Fairfield, Connecticut where she attends Fairfield Warde High School as a Senior and will be attending Yale University in the fall of 2012. As part of the National Honor Society, Jerelyn is in honors and Advanced Placement classes and plays Varsity basketball and volleyball. In addition to her studies and sports, she also plays the viola in her school orchestra. Jerelyn enjoys listening to music, reading in her free time and running with her dog!
BIOGRAPHIES
Brandhi Williamson
Social Media Writer
Brandhi Williamson is a writer and certified personal trainer. She has had the pleasure of working with Creative Concepts as a blog writer since the summer of 2008. Brandhi also writes for SPORT!NG, her healthy lifestyle blog, and lives in New York City.
BIOGRAPHIES
Ben Gwin
Technical Administrator
Ben grew up in Titusville, NJ. In 2006, he graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a bachelor’s in English Writing, and is currently enrolled in Chatham University where he is pursuing his MFA in Fiction Writing. He enjoys playing amateur baseball in the Pittsburgh NABA, literature, and spending time with his daughter Rosalie and of course working with all of the clients of Creative Concepts as the technical administrator on the blogs.
® 2003-2012 Creative Concepts Consultants LLC
