Our Team

The Brand Guild was founded in 2010 by Barbara Martin and Jayne Sandman. The company grew from a shared belief that dynamic brands need a collaborative communications and marketing strategy to succeed in today’s ever-changing landscape. Jayne and Barbara have built an agency of specialists, with expertise in-house across our departments—Public Relations, Marketing, Events and Creative—to deliver meaningful results to our clients.

The duo has been profiled in The New York Times’ Sunday Styles cover story as “the architects of the new Washington,” named to the Washington Business Journal’s Power 100 List, cited by GQ Magazine as one of the “50 Most Powerful People in Washington,” and selected by BizBash magazine as among the top event innovators in the country.

At The Brand Guild, we believe that diverse ideas, perspectives and backgrounds create a stronger and more creative agency that delivers better results. We strive to be a wholly inclusive workplace, where everyone feels empowered to bring their full, authentic selves to work. We are committed to building a team, cultivating leaders and establishing a culture that upholds these values.

Principals

Barbara Martin

Co-CEO and Co-Founder

Jayne Sandman

Jayne Sandman

Co-CEO and Co-Founder

Leadership

Katharine Ragsdale Bared

Executive Vice President, Operations

Katharine leads the operations department at The Brand Guild, overseeing the accounting, legal, HR, staffing, recruiting and property management for both the DC and NY offices. Focusing on both the day-to-day operations as well as strategic long-term planning, Katharine works across all departments to ensure The Brand Guild is optimized for growth and meets organizational goals. With over a decade of experience in client services and media – from POLITICO to Washingtonian Magazine to The Brand Guild when it was BrandLinkDC – Katharine brings a wealth of experience to the organization.

Amy Clark

Executive Vice President, Public Relations

Amy oversees the creation of communications strategies and the execution of media outreach for The Brand Guild’s portfolio of clients. She leads the press team’s three divisions in the areas of consumer lifestyle brands, F&B & hospitality, and real estate. A seasoned communications specialist, Amy has two decades of PR agency experience in New York and Washington DC, guiding some of the most iconic consumer brands in the world, including Jameson Irish Whiskey, JUST Water, Ace Hardware and Hasbro. She has a developed expertise in all areas of communications, including developing strategic campaigns, brand positioning and messaging, and media training. She has extensive relationships with top-tier media.

Annie Perezchica

Executive Vice President, Events

Annie leads The Brand Guild’s events department where she successfully oversees more than 100 events per year ranging from brand launch parties targeting the country’s top influencers to 20,000-person ticketed festivals. Whether she’s working with iconic brands like Brooks Brothers and Kiehl’s, rapidly-scaling startups like Sweetgreen or SoulCycle  or powerhouse corporate clients like Amazon and Bloomberg, Annie brings unique concepts and dynamic experiences to every event she creates. With more than 15 years of high-level event planning experience, Annie began her career at one of DC’s premier event planning and catering companies, where she worked on the most high-profile events including the Vanity Fair/Bloomberg White House Correspondents’ After Party, Washington Times 35th Anniversary with President George H.W. Bush and numerous Presidential inaugural events including the Presidential Inaugural Luncheon for President Barack Obama.

Andrea Frederick

Senior Vice President, Brand Marketing

Andrea leads the Marketing Department at The Brand Guild, overseeing the Agency’s integrated and digital marketing, content and creative teams. With over 20 years of  experience leading marketing and client service teams for brands such as Playstation, IBM, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lenovo, and Neiman Marcus, her projects have spanned channels from brand strategy to campaign production to website design and development.

Lance Hayden

Vice President, Creative

Lance oversees the creative team at The Brand Guild, helping deliver thoughtful, innovative work across the social media and visual studios. Whether he is developing complete branding solutions for Fortune 500 real estate companies, creating memorable campaigns for top tech companies and consumer brands, or even helping save the dollar bill (you’ll have to ask him about that one!), Lance has guided his clients to elegant design solutions for complex problems. With close to two decades of experience in branding, marketing, identity design, collateral and UX/UI design, and a career spanning technology, consumer goods and real estate industries, Lance brings a varied background and wide range of expertise to his work at The Brand Guild.

Giselle-Marie Roig

Vice President, Lifestyle, Food & Beverage PR

Giselle leads the PR team focused on Lifestyle, F&B, and hospitality clients. She has 14 years of experience helping brands tell their story, including Sweetgreen, Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, &pizza, and Imperfect Foods, generating billions of earned media impressions. Additionally, she has overseen press for over $150 million in hotel renovations and launches for hospitality brands within the Marriott family. Prior to joining The Brand Guild, Giselle created and managed press campaigns for New York Times bestselling authors at some of the world’s top publishing houses.

Sofia Royce

Vice President, Real Estate and New Economy PR

Sofia leads The Brand Guild’s Real Estate team and crisis response services. She specializes in developing and executing impactful media messaging and strategies as well as providing ongoing counsel to clients in real estate, government, sports, and tech. Sofia’s successes include masterminding the press efforts of The Wharf, one of the largest waterfront development projects in the country, resulting in 3 billion press impressions in the opening week alone. She also leads press efforts for large-scale development projects and their corporate executives across the country, leading a team that consistently secures coverage in media outlets ranging from local broadcast and regional trade publications to national lifestyle and top-tier business outlets. Prior to joining The Brand Guild, Sofia managed communications campaigns for a variety of policy-focused clients ranging from immigration to education to presidential candidates to documentary films. She has also created and worked on crisis and corporate social responsibility campaigns for some of the world’s largest energy companies and is experienced in C-suite media training.

Betsy Tucker

Associate Vice President, HR

Betsy leads the HR team at The Brand Guild, overseeing all aspects of people operations and culture at the agency as well as recruiting and hiring. In her years working within the Operations Department, Betsy has implemented processes, policies and professional tools that have streamlined the HR function for a team that has more than doubled in size during her tenure. Betsy takes a very people-centric approach to HR – understanding that our people are our most valuable asset and focusing on employee wellness and wellbeing is above all else.  As recognition of her excellent work in the area of HR, Betsy was recently a recipient of the Top Women in Wellness and HR Award.

Team

Abby Colby

Senior Social Media Director

Jessica Davis

Senior Public Relations Director

Deanna Fleming

Senior Director of Digital Marketing

Alex Miller Murphy

Senior Public Relations Director

Ashley Cook

Public Relations Director

Erin Doyle

Art Director

Isabel Lamb

Public Relations Director

Katina Stevenson

Marketing Director

Clare Zenczak-Murray

Public Relations Director

Katie Smith

Associate Director, Public Relations

Yasmin Atef

Senior Events Manager

Maddie Caywood

Senior Public Relations Manager

Christina Daly

Senior Social Media Manager

Julia DiBenedetto

Senior Events Manager

Meredith Elliott

Senior Public Relations Manager

Nina Fomufod

Senior Operations Manager

Mackenzie Groarke

Senior Events Manager

Amanda Katz

Senior Public Relations Manager

Gracie Aaronson

Public Relations Manager

Hannah Correll

Public Relations Manager

Lucas Crampton

Office Manager

Lauren Kottcamp

Growth Manager

Vanessa Larrieux

Accountant

Liv Messineo

Public Relations Manager

Natalie Jaffe Parker

Events Manager

Mary Louise Randolph

Graphic Designer

Avery Alford

Marketing Associate

Emma Ballantyne

Marketing Associate

Caroline Harlin

Social Media Associate

Rose Harris

Events Associate

Lauren Matzer

Public Relations Associate

Maria Prymak

Public Relations Associate

Rachel Rosenheim

Social Media Associate

Hazel Valentine

Public Relations Associate

Sadie Aram

Public Relations Assistant

Hannah Jemsek

Public Relations Assistant

Mira Malik

Digital Marketing Assistant

Torri McFarlane

Public Relations Assistant

Maggie Smith

Public Relations Assistant