Creative content company Alkemy X has added Katharine Starsinic as director of client services & operations, and Jay Halbert as SVP of finance to its management team. Starsinic is tasked with increasing the company’s visibility and working with brand and advertiser clients while Halbert will lead all aspects of its financial functions.
Starsinic was most recently with Comcast, where she served as director of marketing & communications, dedicating five years to building the B2B brand and developing the marketing programs for Comcast Business. She was involved in planning and executing a full range of marketing efforts, including new product launches, sponsorships and demand generation campaigns.
Prior to Comcast, Starsinic spent 10 years as an account director at Wunderman Advertising in New York City. There, she led integrated and direct teams for the agency’s marquee clients, such as Citi, AT&T, Microsoft, HP and Pfizer.
Halbert was most recently SVP of a manufacturing company, and prior to that was president/owner of a laser rental and sales company, both based in the Philadelphia region. Before that, he spent nearly a decade as chief financial officer for a series of companies in the sports, media and entertainment business, including Comcast Spectacor, which owned the Philadelphia Flyers, the Philadelphia 76ers, the Wells Fargo Center, and six other complementary businesses.
After earning his accounting degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and his law degree from New York University School of Law, Halbert practiced in the corporate law department at the New York-based international law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell before leaving for the business world. He then went to work with PricewaterhouseCoopers Securities as an associate investment banker, before taking a position as CFO and principal of New Spring Capital, a venture capital fund based in the Mid-Atlantic Region.
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More