As Havas Formula’s first female CEO, Tara Reid oversees $34M+ in agency revenue and practice areas including general market and multicultural PR, digital/social, and crisis management. An
accomplished PR executive with 20 years’ experience, Tara led the agency’s Midwest expansion as president and became an integral part of the Havas Chicago Village’s leadership group. As CEO, she provides strategy and creative oversight and is dedicated to driving positive culture while continuing the agency’s impressive record of growth. With a focus on inspiring and empowering people and brands to reach their fullest potential, Tara has successfully guided and overseen best-in-class integrated marcom programs for signature B2C and B2B brands including Jaguar Land

Rover, Keurig Dr Pepper and Chase Consumer Banking, across categories such as food, CPG, financial services, retail, professional services and technology. A 2023 PRWeek Women of Distinction winner, Tara’s focused on cultivating a culture of collaboration, fostering talent growth, and unlocking new business opportunities to make a meaningful difference. Tara resides in Chicago with her husband, two sons (10 and 7), and Labradoodle. In her downtime, she can be found rooting on her kids’ baseball, basketball, and soccer teams, and enjoying the outdoors with her family.

Adrienne Cadena launched Havas Formula’s experiential arm, Havas Street, in 2006. For the past 17 years, she has played an instrumental role in driving Street’s dramatic growth and raising its profile to become one of the foremost activation agencies in the country. As CEO, she leads her group, providing guidance on diverse capabilities ranging from large-scale live events and mobile marketing tours to sampling campaigns, pop-ups and stunts.

Under Adrienne’s charge, Havas Street has executed activation programs for some of the world’s most revered brands, including Nike, Beam Suntory, PepsiCo, JPMorgan Chase, Heineken USA, and LEGO. A former PRWeek “40 Under 40 Award” winner, Adrienne is poised to drive the agency forward by inspiring her team to create meaningful experiences that have a positive impact on the community.

When she’s not busy working in her many Excel spreadsheets, Alexis McCance enjoys playing golf and camping with her husband and two kids. The only one at Havas Formula to have her own private mini-fridge—stocked with beverage essentials Diet Coke and wine—this D.C. transplant can be found starting her mornings with French Vanilla Coffee and occasionally raiding the Havas Formula snack bar as a substitute for lunch.

Alexis has more than 20 years’ experience in the operations field and is principally responsible for working with the presidents in strategic planning for Havas Formula, Havas Street, Havas ATTN, Havas Trust and Havas FORMULATIN. Joining Havas Formula in 1999, she currently oversees the agency’s operations, accounting, human resources, and IT departments. Additionally, she plays a key role in optimizing the company’s structure.

As one of Havas Formula’s longest-standing employees, Alexis has dedicated herself to expanding the company’s business and improving the overall efficiency of operations. In her time at Havas Formula, she has grown her department from two to a 15-person team, expanding the accounting department and bringing HR and IT in-house. She also plays an integral role in sustaining a vibrant company culture and is always prepared for a last-minute BBQ or happy hour.

With more than 24 years of PR and marketing strategy experience, Jarrod serves as Chief Creative Officer (CCO) of Havas Formula, overseeing research, insights, strategy, creative and design, as well as the agency’s creative and strategy team. 

A seasoned strategist and storyteller, Jarrod leverages actionable insights and cultural truths to develop brand positioning and program strategies that merge earned, social and experiential to help brands meaningfully connect with key stakeholders. He has driven successful brand marketing programs for numerous brands in a wide range of industries including food and beverage, spirits, consumer packaged goods, fin tech, ad tech, travel/hospitality, luxury and automotive. 

On a perpetual quest for further education, he earned his master’s in strategic communications from Columbia University and holds APR accreditation through the Public Relations Society of America. He is also well versed in nutrition and is certified as an integrative health coach from the IIN (Institute for Integrative Nutrition.) 

A PR industry veteran, Emily Porter has been instrumental in building the profiles of both B-to-B and consumer brands across a wide range of industries including technology, travel, automotive, professional services, food and beverage, and real estate. Known for her strong leadership, creativity, and problem-solving skills Emily has contributed significantly to the agency’s success over the past 18 years having led multiple divisions within the agency and serving as a regional president. Responsible for the agency’s marketing efforts, Emily champions the agency’s thought leadership, social media endeavors and awards program. Under her leadership, the agency has won numerous accolades including being named “Agency of the Year” by PR News, an Inc. Power Partner, and listed to PR News’ Elite 100. As chief growth and marketing officer Emily also oversees all new business efforts for the agency’s public relations, digital, multicultural and activation groups. Emily holds a bachelor’s degree in English and Communications from the University of Kansas and a master’s degree in public relations from Boston University. Additionally, Emily was named by San Diego Business Journal as a “Leader of Influencer” in PR. Beyond work, Emily loves spending time with her two kids, cooking, reading, running on the daily, wine-tasting, and tinkering with her classic car. She is also very involved in community charitable giving and the development of women leaders as a member of Junior League.

Katie Lippman’s energy can fuel a city. Armed with sharp insights and an engaging personality, she’s been helping partners identify creative solutions to some of the most difficult business and brand challenges for over two decades while consistently growing and expanding the agency’s Consumer Practice. She believes in connecting brands to culture through meaningful storytelling and has helped dozens of high-profile companies do exactly that.

As President, she is responsible for strategic business oversight for the agency’s consumer practice, with direct reports leading key pieces of business across a variety of verticals including food and beverage, CPG, health and wellness, QSR, home goods, and more. Katie also plays an integral part in new business development efforts driving agency revenue growth.

Katie has held various positions at Havas Formula since joining the agency in 2007, leading award-winning, best-in-class programs. Her diverse client background has helped her to create unconventional, breakthrough campaigns. She passionately believes in and fosters omni-channel collaboration to deliver results that consistently meet or exceed client expectations.

Katie loves vacationing with her family anywhere near a body of water, watching her girls play sports (namely soccer and volleyball), and enjoys reading a good book as much as she enjoys watching Reality TV.

John’s role at Havas Street has been constantly evolving since he joined the team in early 2016. Now serving as the President of Havas Street, he oversees the strategy and creative for client work while also advising the team in terms of the operations and logistics for client programming. Previously serving as the Operations Director and SVP for the division, John has a deep understanding of the operational nuances that go into successful client programming. Constantly seeking out cost and operational efficiencies for clients, Marchini also spearheads continuing education for the division which includes emerging trends and industry insights, along with ever changing regulations on the regional and national levels. 

Over the course of his nearly 20 years in experiential marketing, he has worked on numerous national programs for clients including Hormel/MegaMex, PepsiCo and Beam Suntory. John has played an integral part in all facets of event activation from strategic planning and creative to in-the-field execution and management. In his role as President Marchini is constantly working with the team to identify new technologies and vendors to ensure the consumer experience is as immersive and engaging as possible. 

Currently living in El Segundo with his wife and dog, John can often be found in his woodshop where he crafts furniture, cutting boards, and other custom projects for friends and family.

Alexis prefers to always run at a high speed. When she’s away from her desk, you’ll likely find her doing all-out sprints at Orange Theory, racing down the snowy slopes of Breckenridge, Colo., or chasing after her two rambunctious boys and Swissy puppy. Fitness, family and getting outdoors is what recharges this California beach girl turned Colorado explorer.

Alexis is an award-winning PR leader with 20 years of agency experience in strategic communications for both B2B and B2C brands including global, FORTUNE 500 brands. As the president of the agency’s B2B practice area, Alexis advises U.S. and global companies such J.P. Morgan Chase and RE/MAX, on earned media strategy, creative campaigns, product/service launches, executive thought leadership and issues management. She is part of the agency’s executive leadership team to steward the firm’s growth and vision, and in 2022 was selected out of thousands of global leaders to be part of Havas NextGen, an intensive executive leadership development program.

Alexis first joined Havas Formula in 2005 as an assistant account executive and later returned to the agency in 2017 as an associate vice president.

With 30 years’ experience developing award-winning public relations programs for her clients, Ditas Mauricio currently provides strategic leadership to Havas Formula’s newly created Amp’d division, guiding leading national consumer and B2B-focused companies and emerging businesses through everything from successful product launches to brand-building and integrated marketing experiences. Her work spans a wide range of respected, national brands across a variety of industries, including health/wellness, food/beverage, consumer packaged goods, home and décor, retail, and technology. Previously, she headed up the agency’s Consumer West division for nearly two decades, and earned her PR chops in the Greater Boston area working in both agency and corporate environments.

Anyone who works with Ditas knows she absolutely loves what she does and takes pride in helping her client partners and team members grow and succeed. As a result of several long-standing relationships, Ditas has developed a keen understanding of emerging businesses and what it takes to make them successful. Beyond affording her friendships with a stable of incredible marketing leaders, her work has also nurtured Ditas’ passion for natural products and her penchant for healthy living. Continuously pushing herself and her team to offer new insights and creative ideas, as well as closely follow industry trends, she seeks to educate her clients on best practices for consumer and influencer engagement programs that will ultimately drive purchase intent.

Since uprooting from New England nearly two decades ago, Ditas continues to delight in living along the coast and soaking up the San Diego sunshine. In her down time, she enjoys cooking, reading, running and travel and is a new fan of Pilates and barre. On weekends, Ditas can often be found cheering proudly on the volleyball sidelines for her two daughters or walking to the beach with her two dogs, Mochi and Louie.

A tenured B-to-B technology marketing leader and former Havas Formula client, Anita joined the agency following extensive in-house experience at leading brands Qualcomm, Sony and Gateway. Providing senior-level strategic program and team leadership to drive outstanding results for high tech and B2B clients, she serves as a trusted advisor with broad-based perspective rooted in a multifaceted professional background.

Anita is avid traveler, lifelong swimmer, political junkie, Bravo TV fan, and occasional garden putterer. When she’s not working, Anita enjoys watching her middle schooler quarterback his flag football team and her high schooler progress her guitar-playing skills.

Brandy Stone, or as we like to call her ‘Queen B’, is an award-winning, public relations and integrated marketing specialist with over 10 years of experience across CPG, B2B, tech, fashion, lifestyle, food/beverage, health, crisis, entertainment and more. With a deep passion and wealth of experience for working with challenger, new/emerging and prominent household brands, Brandy’s strategic communications approach goes beyond traditional media relations to create dynamic, disruptive, and meaningful campaigns. Based in Southern California, Brandy has been with Havas Formula since 2016 and currently oversees the agency’s Consumer LA and B2C Divisions as Senior Vice President. Playing an integral role in helping her clients differentiate themselves in the marketplace, Brandy has experience working with a range of brands from emerging start-ups and family-owned businesses to category disruptors and Fortune 500 corporations. Beyond client service, Brandy is a true mentor at heart. She has a natural skill for fostering professional relationships that inspires the growth and development of others, as her positive energy/outlook towards this industry is unmatched. Brandy has a Masters of Arts in Communication Management from the University of Southern California, and a Bachelors of Arts in Journalism from California State University, Northridge.

Outside of work, Brandy would describe herself as an “experience seeker” – as she is someone who is always willing and interested in doing/having fun, living life to the fullest. It’s about the good vibes – so that includes anything from bottomless mimosas to Beyoncé.

A hybrid strategic thinker, Lisa Ruiz-Rogers marries left-brain analytics and right-brain creativity to develop marketing solutions that engage consumers through branded entertainment, experiences and influencer marketing while delivering on ROI. Her extensive experience working across categories in brand strategy, entertainment and specializing in connecting brands with diverse populations in the U.S. through media relations, social media and community engagement, have broadened her perspective and diversified her skill set — enabling a holistic and integrated approach to managing and growing client business. She enjoys the planning, ideation and building of programs across multiple platforms, including but not limited to, brand positioning, messaging, social media, product integration, influencer partnerships, and content strategy.

Lisa flourishes both at the design and delivery stages of campaign activities – immersed in the trenches – listening, watching, engaging, executing. Over the course of her career, Lisa’s creative portfolio features serving as key PR campaign architect for some of the most beloved national and global consumer brands, including but not limited to, the iconic ‘got milk?’, Domino’s Pizza, and a multitude of P&G CPG brands – from the beloved Lovemark brand, Pampers, to the multi-award winning, record-breaking Mr. Clean Super Bowl campaign; to Swiffer, Febreze; and Dawn dish soap’s legacy cause-marketing initiative, Dawn Helps Save Wildlife.

Prior to joining the Havas Formula team as senior vice president overseeing Lifestyle East and FORMULATIN, Lisa previously led bilingual, bicultural PR campaigns for Chick-fil-A, California Strawberry Commission, DoorDash, Nike, Telemundo’s CSR initiative, ‘El Poder en Ti’, and most recently, the Alzheimer’s Association Music Moments campaign.

Ruiz-Rogers is a recognized thought-leader who has received multiple awards and honors for her work including an Effie, Drum Award for Multicultural Excellence, Global SABRE, ANA Multicultural Excellence, Silver Shorty for Good, Global SABRE, and multiple Gold SABRE, Silver Anvil, PR Week, PRSA Prism, REGGIE, and Big Apple honors.

Ruiz-Rogers was graduated from the University of Southern California with a B.A. in English Literature & Language and a minor in Theatre Arts.

SoCal Native, Victoria Armas, bleeds Dodger blue and is a self-proclaimed music enthusiast. Mother of 2 children and 2 Frenchies, Victoria enjoys family time at the beach and has a ‘thing’ for seafood and sushi. She likes to stay active taking exercise classes in muy thai, pilates, and most recently sought out yoga to help provide some balance to her busy schedule.

Working in the industry for 12+ years, Victoria truly understands what it takes to be successful in the field. Her career in field marketing started with Red Bull Energy drink where she worked as a brand ambassador, quickly working her way up to market and regional manager roles supporting brands such as Miller Brewing Company, New Balance, and HobNob Wines.

Victoria joined Havas Street in 2010 and has played an integral role in the day-to-day field operations for one of Havas largest clients, Heineken USA. Her get-it-done attitude and process implementation helped to increase the agencies scope on the Heineken business that began as a regional program soon evolving to a national program for the brand portfolio.

Having grown up in a large family, Victoria works hard to foster a family environment within her field teams encouraging best practice sharing and collaborative efforts. Leading a national structure, Victoria always has her finger on the pulse of all market happenings, whether it be a traditional sampling event in a neighborhood sports bar or an onsite activation at Coachella.

As an AVP, Victoria supports clients by helping to ensure consistency across markets, execution strategy, best-in-class reporting, KPI tracking, and budget management.
Victoria’s scrappiness, solutions, persistence and hardworking ways have made her a trusted “go-to” for all national field programs.

Chicago-native and die-hard Chicago (White Sox fan), Alison Bruder loves nearly everything about the city (minus maybe those negative degree winter days). When she’s not soaking up the time in the River North office, she can be found exploring new parks, farmer’s markets and restaurants and most frequently – in the stands at a White Sox game with her (Detroit Tigers-loving) husband and two kids (who are hopefully siding with mom).

Alison proudly holds 15+ years of PR agency experience, with companies both large and small. At Havas Formula she leads the B2BMW division and manages strategy and client counsel, as well as a talented team of staff. Through her work at the agency, Alison connects teams and ideas to help make client work stronger and is always up to support the greater team.

Leading with empathy and confidence from a background that includes CPG, food, grocery, retail, home and professional services – and nearly every other industry in between – Alison brings a positive attitude and persistent curiosity and creativity to her work every day. Find her smiling and looking for the bright side.

Born in Indiana, and raised in Southern California, with a 5-year stopover in NYC, Tracy McMahon is the Vice President of Human Resources with over 20 years of experience. She joined Havas Formula in August 2016, where she oversees Talent Management and Acquisition. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Management and Human Resources from Cal Poly Pomona, and is certified by SHRM and HRCI. Her previous HR experience was in advertising, finance, non-profit, and biotech industries. She enjoys coming up with new and creative ways of developing current talent and building and maintaining a community culture of diverse, equitable and inclusive employees.

Tracy lives in San Diego with her partner and fur babies, Ollie, a Cavapoo, and Wednesday, a very rotund black cat. On the weekends you can find her exploring the city, walking Ollie, enjoying a Pilates class, or testing out a new vegan recipe.

Leigh Powell began her career at Havas Formula right out of college, which meant she only had to move down the hill from the University of San Diego to the company’s San Diego office. In the nearly 10 years since starting as an intern with the agency, she’s made up for that short commute by spending time in the New York and Chicago offices, and took the unique opportunity to spend one month in the Madrid office as a part of “Havas Lofts” – an agency exchange program.

With 10 years’ public relations experience, Leigh has been instrumental in driving program strategy, creative ideation and exceptional client results for both B2B and B2C brands. She has successfully led numerous earned and integrated campaigns with thoughtful strategy and counsel for clients including Shure, JPMorgan Chase, Sound United, Ormco, Suneva Medical and more. Leigh has worked closely with her mentors over the years to build and grow a team that now spans multiple cities and offices. Resourceful, calm under pressure and a problem-solver at heart, Leigh feels most successful when her team succeeds.

When Leigh isn’t mastering the world of PR, you can find her spending time with her golden retriever, Sandy, traveling whenever possible, or following in her husband’s footsteps of becoming a lifelong fan of the Kansas City Chiefs.

Born and raised in Peru, Chloe Zuanich has a passion for exploring and immersing herself in new cultures, as evidenced by her love of travel. She loves to cook everything from scratch – from bread to pasta and mozzarella cheese – you name it, she’s cooked it. She’s an avid podcast listener, Peloton enthusiast, loves shopping for her wardrobe and home, and can’t resist a good dirty martini. Chloe is bilingual in English and Spanish.

With a decade’s worth of PR experience under her belt, Chloe has developed strong expertise in the QSR, consumer and lifestyle, health, entertainment, retail, and tech industries, among others. She has a passion for developing unique and creative campaigns for her clients and has managed day-to-day programs for brands like Rite Aid, Sears, Panda Express, Smashburger, and Merrell. Chloe’s vast skillset includes planning and execution of events, writing award submissions, brand messaging development, managing influencer programs, developing strategies for new product launches, and more. She is a strong mentor who deeply cares for the success of her team members, both professionally and personally.

Chloe is one of our most adaptable employees, having worked across several teams within the agency. She began her tenure at Havas Formula in 2013 as an intern in the San Diego office, moved to Chicago in 2017, and ultimately transitioned to Los Angeles in 2020. She was even selected to represent the agency internationally and worked in Havas Dublin in Ireland, helping launch the city’s first-ever Ice Bar activation. In her current role, Chloe oversees the Consumer LA division, playing a key role in program strategy and team development.

Amy is a seasoned experiential marketer with previous experience in the adult beverage space on brands like Guinness, Absolut, Jose Cuervo and Dos Equis. Over the past 10 years, she helped build a successful 40+ market on-going experiential program for State Farm. Most recently, Amy spent the last year leading a small agency with clients such as Tim McGraw, ESPN, ACC, adidas, USA Today and NFL Green. Her recent work included overhauling the Atlantic Coast Conference’s fan experiences to be focused on sustainability, inclusion, philanthropy and health & wellness. Similarly, she managed a recent adidas program focused on the brand’s sustainable events and vision to elevate sport through philanthropy/inclusion practices.

Coming full circle, she is back in spirits leading the Jim Beam experiential business, overseeing client development, program creation, budget management and program strategy.

With over 14+ years working in the field marketing and experiential industry, Erika understands what it takes to build impactful programs for her clients. The start of her career began with executing grassroots field marketing activations as a team lead to quickly being promoted to region manager roles to build major CPG brands such as vitaminwater, smartwater, NOS Energy and Keurig.

Since joining Havas Street in 2019 as an Account Director, Erika has played a pivotal role in the planning and execution of Covid-safe activations for her clients. Keeping a pulse on industry insights, continuously changing regional/national mandates and the implementation of rigorous brainstorms, Erika has been able to successfully design meaningful experiences by listening to the needs of her clients target consumers for brands including Farmer John, Farmland, Nature’s Bakery, Chase, Real Food From The Ground Up Snacks and LEGO. Thus, driving the business forward with these existing and newly cultivated relationships.

In her current VP role, Erika supports her clients by maintaining transparency with her clients through the development of their programs, which includes strategic planning, concept ideating, budget management, KPI tracking and industry leading reporting tactics.

When Erika isn’t grinding with her work family, she’s spending time with her husband, 3 children (two of which are twins) and 2 tuxedo cats. Erika enjoys family time playing in the outdoors, exploring new restaurants, catching a game at Dodgers stadium and hitting up a local music venue on her off-time. Finding balance between it all can prove to be challenging at times, but working with a supportive and well-structured team, makes the day-to-day more than manageable and rewarding when you see the fruits of your labor come to life.

Outside of the fast-paced world of PR, Jamie Casarola spends the other part of her time in the fast-paced role of wife and mom—which she couldn’t love more. She’s a big fan of entertaining and throwing a killer theme party, but also loves balancing it all with relaxing (as relaxing as it can be with two little ones) days at the shore and a good glass of red or rose. Her family and friends fuel her drive and passion for life…along with the support of iced coffee, of course.

Jamie has just under a decade of experience developing and executing strategic and creative media relations programs, influencer campaigns and 360 degree marketing programs for a number of clients across the lifestyle, food / bev and CPG landscape. As associate vice president of the consumer division based in New York, Jamie provides client counsel, creative program ideation and development for her clients including method, Sunbasket, Maui Jim, Airwick and Ithaca among others, and manages and incredibly talented team. She enjoys not only bringing best-in-class programs to life for her clients, but mentoring the future of Havas Formula by sharing her history and wealth of agency knowledge.

As with many of our talented leadership team, Jamie started her career in PR with Havas Formula as a bright-eyed and driven intern back in 2013. She’s had incredible growth opportunities over the years and attributes her success to the many great mentors she’s been able to work alongside during her tenure at the agency. A true work hard play hard mentality, Jamie also takes pride in being part of the many company culture-driven initiatives launched over the years—never turning down a night of fun with her “Formula Fam.”

Dwayne is a San Diego native and graduate of San Diego State University. He has over two decades of progressive experience in accounting and finance. His professional journey includes roles at The State of California, Sharp HeathCare, Cricket Wireless/AT&T, Cutwater Spirits/Anheuser-Busch and Intuit. While at Sharp HeathCare as an Internal Auditor, he was responsible for developing recommendations for improvements that addressed root causes, added value and were cost effective. As the Controller at Cutwater Spirits, Dwayne was responsible for the transition from Quickbooks to a distillery-based accounting software. He often volunteered as a product tester.

Notably, during his time with the State of California, Department of Justice, he actively participated in armed raids targeting Medi-Cal Fraud.

During his non-working hours he enjoys bike rides. playing golf and attending concerts. He is happily married and has a daughter currently attending UCLA.

Morgan Gibeaut brings over 15 years of comprehensive experience in agency operations, project management, office, and strategic workforce planning.

As the Vice President of Operations, she plays a pivotal role in driving efficiency, optimizing processes, and enhancing overall organizational performance. With a proven track record of success, Morgan has spearheaded numerous programs and initiatives alongside the leadership team resulting in streamlined processes, improved productivity, and key financial efficacies. She is known for her ability to develop and implement innovative solutions that address complex challenges while aligning with the company’s objectives.

Growing up and traveling the world in a military family, Morgan spent most of her childhood abroad. After her father’s retirement, Morgan settled in California where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management from Chico State. Currently living in San Diego, Morgan enjoys gardening, weekend brunches, and heading to the beach with her husband and daughter.