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
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