Associates

Christine Allen
A business communications consultant, Christine Allen brings over 15 years of senior level marketing, corporate and employee communications experience to the team. Christine has spent the majority of her career helping high-tech companies focus and leverage their communications efforts to achieve their business and marketing goals. Christine has expertise in all marcom disciplines including advertising, collateral development, direct marketing, trade shows and events, and corporate identity and branding. Christine has served many top clients including Hewlett Packard, Infineon Technologies and C-Cube Microsystems. She has extensive experience across both the semiconductor and the computer industries. Christine holds a business degree from the University of Santa Clara.

Rachel Modena Barasch
Rachel’s strength in public relations is her strategic vision, coupled with a down-to-earth drive to get the job done. She has many years of high technology public relations experience across semiconductors and electronic design automation (EDA), Linux, communications, and the Internet. Companies she has worked with include LSI Logic, Cadence Design Systems, Philips, Santel, iDini Corporation and Linuxcare, where she has managed corporate and product PR programs. She obtained her start in public relations at Oak Ridge Public Relations where she was exposed to a variety of high technology clients and nonprofit agencies.

Arian Dasmalchi
Arian  has more than 17 years of experience as a project manager, writer, editor and design manager. Arian has successfully managed projects for many companies, including HP, Cisco, Visa, Ernst & Young and Kaiser Permanente. She graduated cum laude from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism, and is a past president of the Silicon Valley-IABC Board of Directors.

Susan Ditz
Throughout her career, Susan Ditz has successfully worn two professional hats: writer and communications consultant. Strong instincts as a working journalist have been integral to building a solid reputation as an innovative public relations practitioner. An insider’s understanding of how the media works and a knack for finding interesting story angles has helped obtain optimal exposure for a wide range of clients.

A former Mercury News columnist, she writes for magazines, newspapers and online, social media with a focus on business best practices, technology, real estate, emerging trends, and personality profiles.

Andrea Grindeland
Andrea Grindeland is a strategic communications consultant specializing in public relations and marketing communications. Over the years she has built communication programs for clients including Pacific Bell Information Services, Nickelodeon (Viacom), The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism, Autodesk, Netcentives, TravelNet, IDG’s Interactive Service Group and Covad Communications. In addition, Andrea served as a 10-year board member and part of the start-up team for one of the first web-based nonprofits, VolunteerMatch. She continues to serve the needs of nonprofits through pro bono work for organizations such as Universal Giving.

Steve Lillo
Steve is CEO of PlanetLink, a website development company that creates marketing driven websites for success minded companies. Since 1995, PlanetLink has been providing clients with goal focused website design, Internet consulting, hosting and promotion services. PlanetLink works with businesses that want to have an Internet game plan and a website that works.

Mike Malone
Michael S. Malone was the world’s first daily high technology reporter. Raised in Silicon Valley, he worked for Hewlett-Packard Co. before joining the San Jose Mercury-News in 1979, where he was twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Mike was a founding contributing editor to Upside Magazine, Fast Company and Forbes ASAP. Mike is the author of 15 books, and has produced four PBS television documentaries. Mike is currently Editor-in-Chief of the top SV online news site, Edgelings.com and writes a weekly column for ABC.com; his column “The Silicon Insider” is one of the most frequently visited columns on the Web. Mike is also a frequent op-ed contributor to the Wall Street Journal.

Amy Fritz
Amy specializes in building executive relationships that facilitate the ongoing, actionable exchange of ideas (“dialogues”) between companies and their key customers and partners. These dialogues increase revenue, accelerate the sales cycle, remove sales roadblocks, spark ideas for new products, provide market-focused prioritization for R & D spending, and cultivate enthusiastic customer references. Amy has developed proven methodologies for customer and partner advisory boards, executive briefing programs, and executive sponsor programs to build executive relationships and open ongoing, productive dialogues across Europe, Japan, China, the broader Asia-Pacific market, and North America.

Tom Greensmith
As a creative consultant and writer, Tom’s specialty is finding fresh and bold solutions to communications challenges. His 20 years of in-house experience (with Armstrong World Industries and Shaklee) give him valuable corporate insight. And his 14 years of freelance experience on over 600 projects give him a wide range of creative expertise. Tom’s client list includes AMD, California Micro Devices, Cisco Systems, Fujitsu, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, National Semiconductor, Philips and Xilinx.

Kwang Liew
Kwang’s services include design and production of visual branding systems, corporate identity systems, print and electronic collateral and web sites from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies including 3Com, Business Objects, Cadence Design Systems, Chartered Semiconductors, Cisco, Juniper Networks, Palm, and Marvell. Kwang is driven by the challenge of delivering high quality design under Silicon Valley’s famously tight deadlines. And he delivers it with a sense of humor that keeps clients smiling.

Ellen Martinez
Ellen provides marketing strategy and implementation consulting services to high tech companies. Her areas of expertise include go-to-market strategy, brand strategy development, business development, channel marketing and channel development, product marketing, market research, and program and project management. Ellen offers consulting services in all aspects of integrated marketing communications and programs. Positioning and messaging are a core competency.

Hailey Lynne McKeefry
Hailey brings over 13 years in high-technology journalism to the team, having held staff positions on a number of leading industry publications including Macintosh News’, Electronic Buyers’ News and Windows Magazine. She has written on a freelance basis for a broad range of newspapers and magazines and has written over 2,000 bylined articles for periodicals that include Electronic Engineering Times, Electronic Design News, TechTarget, CNET Enterprise, DemoMobile, Computer Reseller News, Computer Shopper and VARBusiness. In addition, over the past six years, Hailey has written white papers, product reviewer guides, customer success stories, articles, press releases and collateral marketing documents for a number of leading technology companies.

Elaine Starling
Elaine brings over 20 years of international agency and advertising experience to her clients in managing television, radio, magazines, newspapers, outdoor and web advertising as well as developing integrated media marketing plans. She has directed the strategic development of corporate media activity, handled product placement opportunities, managed Internet exposure, and worked with media, creative, and product placement agencies to develop and implement innovative and efficient advertising plans. Elaine consistently leverages client budgets to deliver 40-50% in savings and incremental value. Clients have included Sprint, Exodus Communications, Cable & Wireless, Keynote Systems and many others.

Beth Volz
Beth provides crisp, compelling and informative writing and editing services. She has more than 16 years experience in marketing communications, corporate communications and public relations for a range of fields from high-tech to health care and utilities. She approaches her work as a reporter and businessperson: asking well-targeted questions aimed at culling specific points for thorough context, then translating, tailoring, and positioning for specific audiences.

Karilee Wirthlin
Known as “KL” to her colleagues in the industry, Karilee Wirthlin combines her 12 years of sales support experience with her technical background to manage innovative, targeted, and effective communications programs. She provides immediate, in-depth knowledge of sales, marketing, and Internet technology to both achieve and accelerate a company’s strategic objectives. Karilee’s most valuable contribution to a project is her ability to tap individual talent and mobilize teams to think beyond current organizational structures and then produce outstanding results. Her passion for technology feeds her personal interest in using technology as a way to connect people and ideas.