Havas Media Group (HMG) has named agency veteran Courtney Cherry its managing director of global communications. Reporting to HMG’s chief global growth officer Erin Flaxman, Cherry is responsible for developing and implementing a growth-driven global marketing and communications strategy for the agency. This includes crafting the HMG story and advancing the agency’s Meaningful Media proposition, capabilities and thought leadership in the marketplace. Her remit will include external communications, media relations, internal communications, ownership of digital channels, industry partnerships and beyond. Cherry brings more than 18 years of strategic communications and agency leadership experience to HMG. Most recently, Cherry served as SVP, director of global communications at Publicis Groupe’s Starcom where she developed and led brand marketing communications programs, driving growth, client engagement and agency differentiation across more than 100 global markets. Before that, Cherry held a variety of leadership roles at Chicago-based corporate communications agency Reputation Partners with responsibility for setting agency growth strategy, unlocking organic client revenue, growing digital capabilities, cultivating talent and leading the agency’s largest accounts….
Minority-owned and Miami-headquartered mobile advertising and digital media company Adsmovil has named Maria Twena to serve as its first ever chief marketing officer. Twena, who has 30+ years industry experience, was most recently EVP of brand and marketing at WelcomeTech. She previously served as CMO of Entravision Communications and Pulpo Media, and through the years has been the president, CEO, and/or managing partner of several major agencies, including GH Latino, and her own Second Generation Soy. During her tenure at McCann Worldgroup, Twena founded a division that targeted the bilingual/bicultural Hispanic cohort online. While there, she received an ADCOLOR Award (2009) for her groundbreaking work on identifying, segmenting and targeting bicultural Hispanics, and developed industry best practices for driving acquisition. Twena has served as an ANA faculty member (Multicultural Marketing), as a board member of AHAA (now the Hispanic Marketing Council), and as a ThinkNow advisory board member….
First-Time Feature Directors Make Major Splash At AFI Fest, Generate Oscar Buzz
Two first-time feature directors who are generating Oscar buzz this awards season were front and center this past weekend at AFI Fest in Hollywood. Rachel Morrison, who made history as the first woman nominated for a Best Cinematography Oscar---on the strength of Mudbound in 2018--brought her feature directorial debut, The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM Studios), to the festival on Sunday (10/27), and shared insights into the film during a conversation session immediately following the screening. This came a day after William Goldenberg, an Oscar-winning editor for Argo in 2013, had his initial foray into feature directing, Unstoppable (Amazon MGM Studios), showcased at the AFI proceedings. He too spoke after the screening during a panel discussion. The Fire Inside--which made its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival--tells the story of Claressa “T-Rex” Shields (portrayed by Ryan Destiny), a Black boxer from Flint, Mich., who trained to become the first woman in U.S. history to win an Olympic Gold Medal in the sport. She achieved this feat--with the help of coach Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry)--only to find that her victory at the Summer Games came with relatively little fanfare and no endorsement deals. So much for the hope that the historic accomplishment would be a ticket out of socioeconomic purgatory for Shields and her family. It seemed like yet another setback in a cycle of adversity throughout Shields’ life but she persevered, going on to win her second Gold Medal at the next Olympics and becoming a champion for gender equality and equitable pay for women in sports. Shields has served as a source of inspiration for woman athletes worldwide--as well as to the community of... Read More