ESTHER DOWNTON (Moderator) – Production Director, Sub Rosa
Esther leads and directs Sub Rosa’s diverse production department consisting of a broad range of highly skilled producers delivering complex and original work. Esther brings over 15 years of creative agency experience as well as strong commercial production knowledge and a background heavily rooted within the digital space.

Moving from her native London to New York in 2012, she joined the Executive Producer team at Stinkdigital driving a raft of award winning digital work for a range of  HP, IBM, Philips and EA. In London Esther was part of a small innovative digital production team at AMV BBDO instrumental in transforming the digital offering for the Agencies existing client base. Esther worked directly with creative partners to help conceive and produce cutting edge projects such as the iOS audio game “The Nightjar” for Wrigleys which gave AMV its first BAFTA Games nomination for branded content.

MARISSA FREEMAN – VP Global Brand Experience, Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Marissa Freeman brings 20+ years of experience in building brands and developing campaigns that create engagement, build long-term brand equity and increase demand. Freeman is the Vice President of Brand Experience at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. In this role, she is responsible for leading brand strategy, identity, insights, activation, thought leadership content development and brand advertising.  Freeman also heads up the Global Customer References team, gathering and telling customer stories across the customer journey.  This year, Freeman has spearheaded the launch of the new Hewlett Packard Enterprise brand, and the brand positioning of HP Inc. Prior to joining HP, she was Senior Vice President of Brand Strategy for Time Warner Cable, the second largest US cable company. At TWC, Freeman architected and implemented a corporate re-branding of the largest scale, and created award-winning advertising campaigns, one recognized by Telco industry analysts as “the best ad campaign by a cable co ever.” Prior to making the shift to the client side, Freeman held executive level positions at world-class advertising agencies, including BBDO and DDB, where she managed some of the agencies’ largest accounts, including Gillette, Hasbro, Staples, AT&T, Walt Disney and Coty.

Her creative work has received national recognition including the AMA Marketer of the Year Award for with Staples, and several prestigious Fragrance Foundation Awards for Coty. She received Omnicom’s Catalyst Award for Integration in addition to being recognized as one of the “Most Powerful Women in Cable.”Freeman graduated from Montclair State University with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. She is an adviser to the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy, and has guest lectured at Columbia Business School and New York University.

She is based in the company’s New York City office, and resides in Brooklyn with her husband and 6 year old twins.

KIM MCDONNELL – Managing Director Publicis CUBED, Founder Thankful
Kim has worked for over 20 years in the Australian advertising and marketing industry. Before starting her own business, she worked for a number of international agencies including Leo Burnett. She Founded CUBED Communications which enjoyed 10 years of success, working on international award-winning campaigns and included in the BRW Fast 100 – fastest growing Australian companies. In 2014 CUBED became part of the Publicis network. She has been nominated for the Australian Business Woman of the Year and is a regular public speaker and mentor.

Kim is also the Founder of Thankful, a global social movement committed to helping individuals recognize Thankful Moments and creating Thankful Moments for those less fortunate. Thankful is in discussions with global brands and also have a partnership agreement in place with the United Nations Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence Against Women and are delighted to be partnering with them to create awareness and programs to ensure women and girls everywhere enjoy gender equality. Kim is publishing a book, which is due for release in March 2016.

Kim is also a wife and mother to 5 daughters!

MARA GERSTEIN – Creative Executive, most recently NY Studio Director at Second Story
Mara has over 15 years experience spanning business development, content creation, user centered design and creative delivery of products and services across the digital ecosystem. Most recently, Mara served as the NY Studio Director at Second Story, a design agency that focuses on responsive environments and storytelling innovation. She is an award-winning audio producer with a passion for experimental sound and spent the better part of her twenties writing and performing sketch comedy with the SF-based group Killing My Lobster.  Mara gets to come home to cuddle with her 16-month old daughter and her crazy, loving canine, Wally.

RAE COHEN BERNAMOFF – Associate Creative Director at Sub Rosa, Co-Founder of Mile End Deli and Black Seed Bagels
Rae Cohen Bernamoff is an enterprising experience designer. As the Associate Creative Director at Sub Rosa, Rae cultivates synergy across the studio and leads teams in ideation towards impact.

Rae first honed her sense of storytelling while creating audio guides and multi-media tours for clients including The Metropolitan Museum, The Whitney and The Guggenheim. Leveraging this experience in communicating culture, Rae built a critically acclaimed restaurant business that is firmly rooted in tradition. She spearheaded all branding, marketing, and public relations for Mile End Delicatessen, which has since grown into a management portfolio that includes Mile End, Black Seed Bagels and Grand Army. As the founding partner responsible for brand identity, Rae co-authored The Mile End Cookbook and was recently recognized as one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30. Over the last two and a half years she has brought her entrepreneurial acumen and art minded approach to solving strategic challenges for Sub Rosa’s client partners.