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ANA Announces Rising Marketing Stars

Young Executives from GroupM, Bloomberg Media, Aflac, and AB InBev Honored at Masters of Marketing Conference

ORLANDO (October 26, 2022) — The ANA today celebrated the 2022 recipients of its Rising Marketing Star Awards. The four honorees, all age 30 or under, were nominated by senior executives at their companies for having met the following criteria:

  • Made valuable contributions to the overall excellence/effectiveness of their marketing organization
  • Demonstrated leadership, innovation, creativity, and accountability in executing their marketing responsibilities
  • Exemplified skill in integrating marketing disciplines and working with other professionals
  • Exhibited knowledge of current issues in advertising and familiarity with the tools marketers are using to reach their audiences.

The ANA also announced a new award—A FUTURE Rising Marketing Star.  The inaugural recipient of this award was selected from the 2022 class of ANA Educational Foundation Marketing and Advertising Education interns and exemplifies the creativity, critical thinking capability and collaborative spirit that will define our next generation of marketing and advertising leaders. 

This year’s award recipients are:

Kelly Castellon
Associate Director, Inclusive Insights & Analytics
GroupM
Kelly works with agencies across the GroupM portfolio to tell compelling, multi-dimensional stories of who diverse consumers are, how best to reach them, and how clients can relevantly engage with them to grow their business.  Additionally, she co-leads Amplify, GroupM’s Employee Resource Group for Black & Hispanic/Latinx Employees.  Outside GroupM, Kelly serves on the Board of Trustees and Cultural Effectiveness Council of the Advertising Research Foundation.

Grant Germano
Marketing Technology Strategy Lead
Bloomberg Media
Grant is responsible for building a best-in-class B2C martech stack, reinventing how the company thinks about measuring the efficacy of marketing investments, and scaling the use of first party data offsite. Prior to joining Bloomberg, Grant worked on the agency-side at Kepler and Veeva Crossix, leading marketing analytics for clients within the CPG and pharmaceutical industries.

Alex Marie Skiles
Brand Manager of Content
Aflac
In her role as Brand Manager of Content, Alex leads efforts for Aflac’s national advertising campaigns.  She manages a multi-million-dollar budget in which she identifies and optimizes cost saving opportunities and delivers a holistic brand strategy for the company with an iconic mascot - the Aflac Duck. 

Meredith Ruskin
Senior Global Director of Premium Focus Brands
AB InBev
Meredith is an experienced strategy and marketing executive based in New York City.  For the past two years, she has served as the Global Director of Corona Innovation and Branded Content, where she led the global launch of several new products including Corona Tropical – an alcoholic sparkling water with real fruit juice – and Corona Sunbrew, the world’s first non-alcoholic beer infused with vitamin D.

The FUTURE Rising Marketing Star award was created by the ANA Educational Foundation, whose mission is the bridge that connects the advertising, marketing, and academic communities.  This year’s recipient is:

Jordan Alperin
Jordan is a Junior Communications Strategist at Droga5 who received her Bachelor of Science in Marketing from the W.P Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.  Jordan was president of ASU’s in-house agency, Adworks. She also interned at NBCUniversal in 2021 as part of the ANA MADE internship program.  At Droga5, she is making her mark developing trend analyses and consumer insights for major packaged goods brands and working closely with creative teams to develop social media strategies.

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ABOUT THE ANA
The ANA (Association of National Advertisers)’s mission is to drive growth for marketing professionals, for brands and businesses, and for the industry. Growth is foundational for all participants in the ecosystem. The ANA seeks to align those interests by leveraging the 12-point ANA Growth Agenda, which has been endorsed and embraced by the ANA Board of Directors and the Global CMO Growth Council. The ANA’s membership consists of over 1,400 domestic and international companies, including more than 900 client-side marketers and nonprofit fundraisers and 500 marketing solutions providers (data science and technology companies, ad agencies, publishers, media companies, suppliers, and vendors). Collectively, ANA member companies represent 20,000 brands, engage 50,000 industry professionals, and invest more than $400 billion in marketing and advertising annually.

MEDIA CONTACT:
John Wolfe
ANA
Director of Communications
Office: 212.455.8011
Cell: 914.659.8663
Email: jwolfe@ana.net