We sat down with the Global PAT to talk about the mission of the group, what great work looks like in 2021, where they go for creative inspiration and what being part of the Human Experience Company means to them. 

Kathy Kline
Global Chief Strategy Officer
Why are you excited to be a part of Starcom’s Global PAT?
Kathy: I’m thrilled to lead this team and be a part of this community of passionate, smart, thoughtful leaders because they inspire me every day and I learn so much from them.  And I love the HX Awards because it gives me the chance to see great work from all corners of our network.

Damien Barbe
Senior Strategic Planner, Starcom France
What does great work look like in 2021?
Damien: Being even more empathetic will help us deliver greater work in 2021 and beyond. Listening, anticipating and delivering genuinely meaningful solutions and experiences to people and brands has never been more important.

Julia Basten
Director Strategy, Starcom Germany 
What does being part of the Human Experience Company mean to you?
Julia: It means that I am working at a place, that hardly feels like a workplace – because it means engaging with people that not only share the same attitude towards the job, but more so the same attitude towards engaging with people and human beings in general.

Bohb Blair
Global Chief Experience Officer, Starcom Worldwide
Where do you turn when you’re in need of a dose of creative inspiration?
Bohb: I turn to my kids. Between the teens and the toddler, one is bound to have a good answer.

Christina Boldt
SVP, Global Strategy, Samsung
Where do you turn when you’re in need of a dose of creative inspiration?
Christina: Art, food, music, dance, philosophy, kids – human expression is so rich and nuggets of pioneering thought can be found everywhere.

Andrea Bozzo
Strategy Manager, Starcom Italy
What does great work look like in 2021?
Andrea: Work in which data and creativity will build a symbiotic relationship to maximize and elevate advertising effectiveness. Most of the time, the focus was to use data for better targeting rather than using them to improve creatives. With the market becoming every day more competitive, the most captivating creative (build using data insight) is the only one that is going to truly catch our audience.

Caterina Camerata
Head of Strategy, Starcom China 
Where do you turn when you’re in need of a dose of creative inspiration?
Caterina: When I am in need of a dose of inspiration, I turn to the younger team members (Post 95 generation) who always have an interesting perspective on what’s next in the cultural and media landscape in China. 

Courtney Cherry
Director of Global Communications, Starcom Worldwide
Why are you excited to be a part of the Global PAT?
Courtney: Our Human Experience-centered culture is one of the many things that makes Starcom so special. I look forward to working with the PAT to elevate our culture of product excellence, celebrate great work and recognize the teams that make it possible.

Mark Duffy
National Head of Digital and Investment, Starcom Australia
Why are you excited to be a part of the Global PAT?
Mark: Working with such a talented group of global Starcom experts to collaborate and accelerate product and solutions for our clients.

Steven Feldman 
SVP, NA Account Lead – Visa 
Why are you excited to be part of the Global PAT?
Steven: Simply put, the opportunity to work with great people doing great work!

Pedro Gandara
Executive Director, Publicis Groupe Portugal
What does great work look like in 2021?
Pedro: Human-centric experience, driven by a meaningful insight (a data based), that can deliver on brand needs and objectives, wrapped by a surprising and engaging creativity.

Rajiv Gopinath
Chief Client Officer, Starcom India
What does great work look like in 2021?
Rajiv: Work that mirrors society, drives purpose while demonstrating commercial success.

Marta Gorecka 
Senior Strategy & Innovations Manager, Starcom Poland 
What does great work look like in 2021?
Marta: 2021 will be a year of great challenges and establishing “new normal” – our work would need reflect that, we need to be more curious, watchful and bold thinking than ever before.

Macarena Gutierrez
Strategy Director and New Business, Starcom Argentina
Why are you excited to be a part of the Global PAT? 
Macarena: I’ve found best ideas come from sharing and talking with inspiring people so I’m super excited to join this group for the first time.

Mani Hari 
Business Lead, Starcom UAE 
What does great work look like in 2021?
Mani: In a world that has gotten used to contactless connectivity, brands that are able to humanize technology to bring people together for the collective good are the ones that will win in the market.

Roman Kazykhanov
Strategic Group Lead, Starcom Russia
What does being part of the Human Experience company mean to you?
Roman: A lot! It is a great opportunity to take theoretical social, philosophic, psychological studies, describing and explaining human behavior, our ways of thinking and feeling and use all this knowledge to create practical marcom solutions – valuable meaningful experiences, making brands and people parts of one holistic, engaging story.

Esther Marina 
General Manager Madrid, Starcom Spain
Why are you excited to be a part of Starcom’s Global PAT?
Esther: It is a luxury for me to have direct access to the excellent work carried out across our network. I enjoy the connection with such a great group of professionals and am inspired by the broad vision of the PAT to deliver great work for our clients.

Sara Metwally
General Manager, Starcom Egypt
What does great work look like in 2021?
Sara: Great work will be work that moves people; both physically to evoke a behavioral change in an era of resistance, and mentally to evoke emotion.

Antonella Montesano
Content Supervisor, Publicis Media Italy
What does being part of the Human Experience Company mean to you?
Antonella: I feel part of a great network guided by a simple but brilliant principle: always try to see things from the eyes if the customer and never lose contact with the basic, simple emotions and needs that might guide a purchase or a choice. This humanistic approach is not to be taken for granted in a world of complex data.

Rodica Mihalache
Data Intelligence Lead, Starcom Romania
What does great work look like in 2021? 
Great work in 2021 is the one that makes a difference, either in our business, in clients’ business or in a consumers’ life.

Catharine Mitlid 
Strategy Director, Starcom Norway 
What does great work look like in 2021?
Catharine: Great work is when we are able to create innovative and meaningful experiences based on true human understanding – not mere data, but human insights and business understanding.

Dan Plant
Executive Head of Strategy, Starcom UK
Where do you go for creative inspiration?
Dan: I try to explain the challenge to my 9-year-old daughter and see what her take is. You’d be amazed how often that sheds light on the problem, both in finding a way to articulate the problem and in hearing a completely innocent response. 

Laurence Phillips
Managing Partner, Starcom Germany
What does being part of the Human Experience company mean to you?
Laurence: We are the orchestrators of experiences. That gives us the mandate to go far beyond the traditional and to build solutions that connect complete experiences through the consumer journey.

Jessica Rafalaski 
Business Transformation Director – Strategy, Publicis Groupe Russia 
Why are you excited to be a part of Starcom’s Global PAT?
Jessica: To spend time with like-minded individuals who also have wildly different perspectives on great work is so inspiring; I leave our PAT sessions feeling energized and with amazing thought-starters to take back to my “day job.” 

Debbie Rubinstein
Global Client Lead – Grupo Bimbo, Starcom Mexico Mexico
Why are you excited to be a part of the Global PAT?  
Debbie: Im always inspired when working with a team of amazingly bright and creative people. I can’t wait to share all this new insight with the Mexico office as we continue to grow and deliver great work to our clients.

Dave Rusli
EVP, Head of Strategy and Data Science, Publicis Media Canada  
What does great work look like in 2021?
Dave: Intimately humane, extremely relatable, and technologically enabled.

Tommy Tan
Strategic Planner, Starcom Singapore
Where do you turn when you’re in need of a dose of creative inspiration?
Tommy: I find inspiration from card & board games and books. Sometimes even casual conversations - “they don’t make them like they used to...” - can trigger a lot of ideas.

Joanna Tapio
SVP Director, Experience Planning, Starcom USA
Why are you excited to be a part of the Global PAT?
Joanna: I’m excited to join the Global PAT to learn from my colleagues around the world and inspire one another! 

Suchinda Tungkittisuwan
Planning Director, Thailand 
What does being part of the Human Experience Company mean to you? 
Suchinda: It’s a lot more enjoyable to work beyond touchpoint planning, but on what people see, hear, sense, think, feel, do, and so on.