Allen & Gerritsen Hires and Promotes 5 Women in Leadership Roles

BOSTON and PHILADELPHIA (April 22, 2019) – Allen & Gerritsen announced the hire and promotions of five executive level women at the agency in the areas of strategy, public relations, analytics and finance.

“I’m incredibly proud that so many talented women have chosen to grow their careers here. As an industry, we still have work to do to ensure that women in advertising agencies grow into senior leadership positions at the same rate as their male counterparts. We’re working hard to ensure that all of our talent have the resources they need to grow into our senior leaders within the A&G community,” said Andrew Graff, CEO, Allen & Gerritsen.

Former brand marketer (CVS Health, Reebok) Jessica Ruscito joined Allen & Gerritsen as VP of Strategy & Engagement where she focuses on the intersection of brand, media, marketing and technology to connect clients to audiences. Prior to A&G, Jessica was Director of Digital Media at CVS, leading the team responsible for the company’s Social Media strategy and execution across the enterprise. Before joining CVS, she was Reebok’s Director of Global Media, overseeing some of the largest product and brand campaign launches in the company’s history. Jessica began her career with roles at some of Boston’s leading agencies including Arnold Worldwide, Marketing Drive and Digitas.

Brenna Fitzgerald has been elevated to Senior Vice President within A&G’s PR practice from Vice President. During her five years at Allen & Gerritsen, she has worked with clients including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Ameresco, AmeriHealth Caritas, Citrix, DST, Meetup, Upworthy and more. Brenna’s PR leadership expertise spans corporate, consumer and B2B communications. She grew up in the agency world at global firm FleishmanHillard, where she focused on championing technology brands and worked on businesses spanning from Fortune 10 companies to innovative startups. Brenna also worked in-house, managing PR for online video pioneer Brightcove.

Brenna was the lead PR strategist for A&G’s Action & Goodness/ Mobile Stu pro bono campaign, which yielded numerous tier-one placements, including NBC Nightly News and The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and won a Shorty Social Good award for Best in Social Justice and a PR Week award for Best in Community Relations.

Yeva Kulidzhanova was promoted to Vice President, Analytics (from Director, Analytics). Yeva joined Allen & Gerritsen in 2015 from Liberty Mutual, where she helped establish the marketing analytics practice. At A&G, Yeva solves complex business problems for clients spanning both consumer and business audiences including financial services clients (First Citizens Bank and Hartford Funds), software and tech clients (Citrix ShareFile and DST Systems), brand marketing clients (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Bright Horizons and Comcast) and specialized B2B clients (Waters Corporation).

A fifteen-year veteran at Allen & Gerritsen, Nadia Steidel has been promoted to Vice President of Accounting from Director of Accounting (she started out at the agency as an Accounting Assistant in 2004). As VP of Accounting, Nadia reports directly to A&G’s CFO, Kevin Sweeney and oversees a finance team. She’s responsible for all aspects of accounting operations and financial reporting for both the Boston and Philadelphia offices. During Nadia’s tenure, she has been instrumental to building and leading the agency’s Finance department and helping to “Modernize Finance” at Allen & Gerritsen.

Eva Wasko has been promoted to Director, Public Relations at Allen & Gerritsen Philadelphia. As Director of Public Relations, Eva collaborates cross functionally among A&G’s integrated departments and leads a multi-city PR team in Philadelphia and Boston on a range of categories and specialties including consumer PR, tech, healthcare, higher education and influencer marketing. Her most recent coup was a 5 minute segment on the Today Show for Clarion’s Lipo-Flavonoid, centered on its “Sounds of Tinnitus” campaign, which featured an Oscar-winning Foley Artist who captured the varying sounds that tinnitus sufferers described, raising awareness for the condition and the brand.

Prior to A&G, Eva served as an account supervisor in the Los Angeles and New York City offices of global PR agency Cohn & Wolfe, leading PR, social media, content development and influencer marketing efforts for a diverse range of brands including 3M, Microsoft, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and The J.M. Smucker Company. She was also a member of Cohn & Wolfe’s global Digital Innovation Group. She began her career with Parasol Marketing with an emphasis on luxury hospitality brands in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

“A&G is a better agency for the diversity of experience our team members bring to work with them every day and we truly value Jess, Brenna, Yeva, Nadia and Eva’s contributions to our team,” added Graff.

About Allen & Gerritsen
Allen & Gerritsen (A&G) is an independent, integrated, creative-led agency that is driven by strategy, data and humanity to generate sustainable results for modern brands. Our agency brings out a brand’s best self through strategies that truly understand people and the ideas that connect to them. Our headquarters are located in Boston and Philadelphia and our clients include Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Citrix Sharefile, Comcast, First Citizens Bank, Fresenius Medical Care North America, National Organization on Disability, The TJX Companies and more. A&G builds our own best self by embracing the diversity in our talent and taking pride in creating a warm, curious, genuine, thoughtful culture. A&G was ranked twice by Advertising Age as the #1 “Best Place to Work in Marketing & Media.” To learn more, check out http://www.a-g.com/ and follow the agency on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

###