Clodagh Larkin joins The Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay as Director of Meetings and Events

HALF MOON BAY, Calif. (PRWEB)
January 20, 2020

The Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay is pleased to welcome Ms. Clodagh Larkin as the oceanfront resort’s new Director of Meeting and Events. Joining the resort from The Ritz-Carlton, Aruba, Larkin brings dynamic international experience within The Ritz-Carlton portfolio.

While serving as the Director of Meetings and Special Events from The Ritz-Carlton, Aruba, Larkin oversaw the entire event experience from all group guests, by taking an active leadership role in the meetings and special events, banquet, and audio-visual teams. Throughout her tenure, Larkin was awarded the Global Event Management (GEM) award, completed the Emerging Leadership Program (ELP), and increased the meeting planner engagement score by 7.9 percent.

Prior to her experience at The Ritz-Carlton, Aruba, Larkin served as Senior Meetings and Special Events Manager at The Ritz-Carlton, Fort Lauderdale, and was awarded “Five Star Leader of the Quarter” for the first quarter of 2013. Preceding The Ritz-Carlton, Fort Lauderdale, Larkin served as Meetings and Special Events Manager at The Ritz-Carlton, Lake Tahoe and The Ritz-Carlton, Powerscourt. At The Ritz-Carlton, Powerscourt in Dublin, Ireland, Larkin assisted with a successful hotel opening as she managed the pre-opening calendar of events, opening ceremony and employee pep rally on behalf of the Meetings and Special Events team.

With global experience, leadership accomplishments, and management roles, Larkin represents the perfect addition to the iconic Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay.

High-resolution images of Ms. Larkin available HERE, and broader resort imagery can be found HERE (Credit: The Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay).

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About The Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay

Set atop a rugged bluff overlooking 50 miles of pristine California coastline, The Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay is a 261-room spa and golf resort offering a relaxing and romantic setting. As the San Francisco Bay Area’s only oceanfront resort, the timeless estate provides guests with a relaxed yet refined experience for a romantic getaway. For more information, please contact The Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay at 650-712-7000. For room reservations, contact your travel professional, visit ritzcarlton.com/HMB or call Ritz-Carlton worldwide reservations at 800-241-3333.

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Part of our focus for 2020 is to productize our first party data offering with Ranker Insights, which is the backbone of Watchworthy, a game-changing personalized TV recommendation app that we are launching this quarter.

LOS ANGELES (PRWEB)
January 20, 2020

Ranker, known as the world’s leading publisher for fan-powered rankings on just about everything, announced the continued expansion of its all-star team with the hiring of former Rovi/TiVo and Groove Mobile VP, David Yon, as General Manager and Senior Vice President of Ranker Insights.

Yon will be the evangelist for the development of Ranker Insights and go-to-market strategies, build revenue generating partnerships, and maintain a successful pipeline around Ranker’s emerging products.

“We’re thrilled to have a superstar like David who can bring solid product management expertise as we continue to expand in both the B2B and B2C marketplace,” said Clark Benson, Founder and CEO of Ranker. “Part of our focus for 2020 is to productize our first party data offering with Ranker Insights, which is the backbone of Watchworthy, a game-changing personalized TV recommendation app that we are launching this quarter. A mobile web version is in beta now and can be found here.”

With over 20 years of experience in the B2B entertainment data industry, Yon has led technology sales and management teams to launch innovative, award-winning products and generate new revenue streams for media and entertainment companies, including Rovi/TiVo, Groove Mobile, and LiveWire.

“I’m impressed with the amount of unique data from more than one billion votes Ranker has collected over the last 10 years, and how it compliments brands and studios on what their users consume,” said David Yon. “Coming from years of entertainment data experience, I can see how Ranker Insights can fill many of the ‘blind spots’ for our customers, and I’m excited for what the future holds.”

Yon has a Master of Science (MSc) in Management from SKEMA Business School (Nice, France), and a BA in Financial Markets & Economics and a BA in Commerce from University of Economics (Nice, France).

For more information, please visit Ranker.

About Ranker

Ranker, a Top 50 site in the US, attracts more than 40 million monthly unique visitors worldwide and is the leader in fan-powered rankings on just about everything. Whatever the topic – TV, movies, video games, sports, brands, food, lifestyle – Ranker puts the vote into the hands of millions rather than a few critics to answer the questions we are most passionate about. Over 1 billion votes now power Ranker Insights, a treasure trove of psychographic correlation data that delivers personalized consumer recommendations (“if you like X, you’ll also like Y, Z”), and also audience insights to marketers, studios, and platforms seeking a deeper understanding of consumer tastes and preferences. Headquartered in Los Angeles, Ranker also has offices in Chicago and NYC.

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We are pleased to have these three, talented individuals leading our commercial marine services. They bring a lot of experience and customer focus to each business line.

SEATTLE (PRWEB)
January 15, 2020

To better support the diverse needs of customers in the maritime industry, Crowley Maritime Corp. announced today that it has realigned its marine services organization and introduced new leadership.

Crowley Marine Services, part of the company’s Shipping group, will now be comprised of three distinct, yet interrelated business segments: offshore services, ship assist and tanker escort, and engineering services – those provided by Crowley and subsidiary Jensen Maritime Consultants. Jeff Andreini, Porter Sesnon and Coulston “Cole” van Gundy have been appointed to top leadership positions in each of these units respectively.

Andreini has rejoined Crowley after serving four years as the chief financial officer for Ardent Holdings, a global marine salvage business in which Crowley previously had a 50 percent ownership position. With Crowley, he now has profit and loss responsibilities for the company’s offshore division, which includes Crowley’s ocean-class tugboat and flat-deck barge fleets. This unit provides specialized cargo transportation to the offshore energy sector and the emerging U.S. offshore wind market. He will be based in Houston and report to Johan Sperling, vice president of marine services.

Sesnon is taking the lead role for the group’s ship assist and tanker escort services, which are provided in all major West Coast ports from north Puget Sound, Wash., to San Diego, Calif. Utilizing one of the most advanced fleets of ship assist and tanker escort tugs in North America, Crowley safely assists the ships through some of the tightest, most environmentally-sensitive waterways in the world. Crowley entered the ship assist business at the start of the 20th century, operating steam-powered tugs in San Francisco Bay in 1906. Sesnon, who will have profit and loss responsibilities for the division, will be based in Seattle and report to Sperling.

Within Crowley’s engineering group, van Gundy is taking the leadership role in business development to grow the company’s third-party project and construction management services, as well as engineering and design-related offerings provided by both Crowley and Seattle-based Jensen Maritime. Van Gundy will be based in Seattle and report to Jay Edgar, vice president of Jensen.

“We are pleased to have these three, talented individuals leading our commercial marine services,” said Sperling. “They bring a lot of experience and customer focus to each business line.”

“With their leadership and our business structure, we’re not only going to provide routine, daily marine services, but we’ll be able to collaborate to provide custom solutions to maritime-related challenges – whether that’s designing, building and operating vessels, installing an offshore wind farm, or towing and positioning a TLP for installation,” Sperling added.

Prior to joining Ardent, Andreini served at Crowley for 35 years beginning as a dispatcher/administration assistant in San Francisco and Long Beach for Crowley’s tug and barge services. He spent 20 years in Crowley’s Seattle office in numerous roles including director of finance for harbor services, manager of West Coast tug dispatch, and manager of business development. In 2013, Andreini relocated to Jacksonville to become the director of finance and strategic planning for the company’s solutions business unit before taking the position at Ardent. He earned a bachelor’s degree in finance and a master’s degree in business administration.

Prior to joining Crowley, Sesnon worked for five years as a corporate lawyer at K&L Gates LLP in Seattle where he represented private and public companies in a variety of transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, venture capital financing, corporate restructurings, joint ventures, and public offerings. Sesnon joined Crowley in August 2018 as a director of business development for the company’s marine services group and has been responsible for growing Crowley’s ship assist and escort services for tankers, container ships and other vessels on the U.S. West Coast.

Van Gundy joined Crowley in 2006 as an engineer supporting vessels managed from the Pacific Northwest. His first assignment was to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, supporting Crowley’s North Slope operations, and he later began supporting harbor and ocean tugs as a chief engineer. Moving ashore, van Gundy supported both Crowley and third-party vessel repair and new construction management programs. Most recently he managed Crowley’s offshore energy business development. Van Gundy holds his project management professional credential and is a graduate from the California Maritime Academy, where he earned a bachelor’s of science degree and master of science degree in transportation and engineering management, as well as his U.S. Coast Guard engineering license.

About Crowley

Jacksonville-based Crowley Holdings Inc., a holding company of the 128-year-old Crowley Maritime Corporation, is a privately held family- and employee-owned company that provides government, marine, energy and logistics services in domestic and international markets. Crowley operates under four business units: Crowley Logistics, a logistics supply chain division that includes ocean liner services; Crowley Shipping, which encompasses ownership, operations and management of conventional and dual fuel (LNG) vessels, including tankers, container ships, multipurpose, tugboats and barges; engineering; project management; and naval architecture through its subsidiary Jensen Maritime; Crowley Fuels, a fuel transportation, distribution and sales division that also provides liquefied natural gas (LNG) and related services; and Crowley Solutions, which focuses on global government services and program management, government ship management, expeditionary logistics and government-oriented freight transportation services. Additional information about Crowley, its subsidiaries and business units may be found at http://www.crowley.com.

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“The merger enabled us to deliver an even greater breadth of expertise and capabilities to achieve those goals by bringing enhanced value to clients, particularly those in high-touch and highly-regulated industries such as Sports, Entertainment, Cannabis, Alcohol/Beverage and FinTech.”

NEW YORK (PRWEB)
January 15, 2020

Wise Public Relations, Inc. (Wise PR), the integrated marketing agency, announced today that it has joined forces with industry veteran Robert Zimmerman and his boutique consultancy, Zimmerman Strategic Communications. Zimmerman will serve as Global Managing Director and Chief of Staff, responsible for overseeing Wise staff, operations, and client relations while expanding and strengthening Wise PR’s Sports, Media, Entertainment and Crisis/Reputation Management capabilities.

Both Wise and Zimmerman possess deep experience across the Cannabis, Technology, Sports, Media, Entertainment, FinTech, Crisis, and Consumer Lifestyle industries. The successful collaboration between the two companies on a number of clients over the past several years led naturally to this merger. As part of the merger, Zimmerman brings with him his client base that includes FIA Formula E and others.

“After laying a more than 12-year foundation of persistent, organic and measured growth delivering world-class marketing communications to some of the best clients, we’ve reached an inflection point,” said Harrison Wise, Founder and President of Wise Public Relations. “We are an ambitious team with our sights set on achieving market and category leadership. The merger enabled us to deliver an even greater breadth of expertise and capabilities to achieve those goals by bringing enhanced value to clients, particularly those in high-touch and highly-regulated industries such as Sports, Entertainment, Cannabis, Alcohol/Beverage and FinTech.”

“With Robert now an integral part of our senior leadership team our collective focus will be on bringing together the best strategy, tools and processes to enable our employees to deliver peak performance across, client, business & leadership goals both now and in the future,” added Wise.

“Harrison has done a fantastic job establishing Wise PR whose entrepreneurial values, creative spirit, and commitment to achieving client goals have made the company into a leading agency in key growth sectors, first with ad/marketing technology, FinTech and now in the Cannabis vertical,” said Zimmerman. “As Wise is at a new inflection point in its growth, I look forward to further building the agency’s brand, capabilities, and talent, offering clients a full-breadth of best-in-class branding, content, experiential and other integrated marketing services that will transform their businesses for the future.”

Zimmerman, who launched his consultancy in 2012, has represented such marquis clients as FIA Formula E Racing, Tough Mudder, Omnigon, Benjamin Restaurant Group, USGA, Jeff Jenkins Productions, You On Demand, Driver Digital and ACES Inc. He is also a partner in PR, Marketing and Media Czars, the online PR and Marketing community. From 2008-2012, Zimmerman served as the Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications, PR and Public Affairs for WWE. In that role, he ran the sports entertainment giant’s global communications, public affairs, and crisis management operations, where he conceived and launched WWE’s anti-bullying initiative – “Be a S.T.A.R” – which was praised in the Congressional Record; received numerous local and state accolades, as well as recognized by PR News as one of the “Best Cause Branding Campaigns.” Prior to WWE, he held senior executive roles at leading PR agencies serving as a trusted advisor to C-level executives and has helped guide some of the world’s best-known brands, products and personalities including Howard Stern, The Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition, FOX News, Donatella and Allegra Versace, House of Blues, Jay Leno, Bacardi, HGTV, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, Martin Guitars, Ziff-Davis, Foxwoods Resort and Casino, Wenner Media, Michael Eisner, and Sirius XM. Zimmerman holds a BA in Communications from the University of Pennsylvania.

About Wise Public Relations, Inc.

Founded in 2007, everything Wise Public Relations, Inc. does is purpose-driven to meet the precise needs of a particular client. And, of course, to resonate with the client’s target audiences.

From brand development and content creation, to social engagement and media relations, every step in the marketing process is executed with an unwavering commitment to a guiding purpose: Why your brand exists. As all these capabilities serve as the connective tissue in the Wise ecosystem, it’s clear to see how each step in the integrated marketing communications process must be done with intent and purpose.

Wise works across the Sports, Media, Entertainment, Technology and Cannabis verticals and was recently named by the Observer for the second year in a row as one of the most powerful PR firms in Cannabis. Wise has offices in NYC and LA. For more information visit http://www.wisepublicrelations.com.

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Eisenhower Fellowships 2020 USA Fellows

“These dynamic young doers join a vast network of Eisenhower Fellows who for more than six decades have used creative, collaborative solutions to address global challenges,” said Eisenhower Fellowships Chairman Robert M. Gates, former U.S. secretary of defense.

PHILADELPHIA (PRWEB)
January 15, 2020

Eisenhower Fellowships has selected 10 accomplished mid-career professionals from the worlds of education, finance, the arts, and technology to travel overseas in its 2020 USA Fellowship Program.

Beginning in spring 2020, these diverse American leaders will travel independently to one or two countries overseas, broadening their horizons as they pursue individual projects that will generate lasting impact in their communities. These USA Fellows will meet with Eisenhower Fellows abroad, unlocking a lifelong connection to an influential global network of like-minded change agents.

“These dynamic young doers join a vast network of Eisenhower Fellows who for more than six decades have used creative, collaborative solutions to address global challenges,” said Eisenhower Fellowships Chairman Robert M. Gates, former U.S. secretary of defense.

From the creation of a national community of gardeners to support healthy ecosystems, to addressing the twin challenges of homelessness and public health, the 2020 Eisenhower USA Fellows will travel to countries across Europe, Asia, Africa and the South Pacific to advance real change here at home in the United States.

“In a time of growing nationalism and retrenchment in many countries, I am confident these outstanding leaders will use their time overseas to build new bridges of understanding and then bring back and apply what they learn to better their communities,” said Eisenhower Fellowships President George de Lama.

The 2020 Eisenhower USA Fellows are:

Mohamed Abdel-Kader | Washington, DC

Executive Director, Stevens Initiative, Aspen Institute

Natalia Crujeiras | Miami, FL

Executive Director of Cultural Affairs, Miami Dade College

Sandy Fernandez | New York, NY

Director, North America, MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth

Margaret Fry | San Francisco, CA

Medical Director, Pediatric Service Line, Palo Alto Medical Foundation

Rachel Greenberger | Boston, MA

Director, Food Sol, Babson College

Christopher Gruits | Philadelphia, PA

Executive and Artistic Director, Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

Matthew Rader | Philadelphia, PA

President, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society

Timothy Reeves| St. Louis, MO

Assistant Treasurer and Director of Investor Relations, Emerson Electric

Anita Watkins | Raleigh, NC

Director of Strategic Innovation, UNC REX/REX Health Ventures

Kuliva Wilburn | Chicago, IL

Chief Executive Officer and President, Wilburn Strategic Solutions

Now in its 66th year and named for America’s 34th president, Eisenhower Fellowships brings together innovative leaders from all fields from around the globe who tackle big challenges to better the world around them. Since 1953, more than 2,400 mid-career leaders from 115 countries have benefited from the unique, customized experience of an Eisenhower Fellowship.

Eisenhower Fellowships identifies, empowers and connects innovative leaders through a transformative fellowship experience and lifelong engagement in a global network of dynamic change agents committed to creating a world more peaceful, prosperous and just.

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