People
People
An agency is only as good as its people. As such, we are dedicated to creating an equitable environment, free from bias and barrier, offering the same opportunities for contribution, mentorship and progression to everyone.
In addition to leading their unique disciplines, it is the job of the team below to manage a culture where all employees can bring their most authentic selves to work 100% of the time. And to know that we’ll be a better agency for having done so.
Leadership
Allison Bart
Director of people
Despite being an Alabama Hatfield by lineage (of the famous feuding Hatfields and McCoys), Allison brings a special brand of sweetness and light to the agency. She takes care of us. She keeps us honest. She explains convoluted insurance bullshit. And she emcees the DC pre-Thanksgiving breakfast shot that has become as much a part of our collective holiday as turkey and stuffing. Allie began her career at Jack Nadel in LA, before relocating to SF to work at Hal Riney, then Grey. Should you come for an interview, it is likely her smiling face that will greet you. Unless you’re a McCoy, in which case, you might as well go on and git.
Andy Berkenfield
CEO, partner
Andy began his career working for DMB&B, Warwick and Lintas:NY in New York before transplanting his life to San Francisco in ’92. After an 8-year stint at FCB/SF, he joined DC and has never looked back. Andy simplifies complex challenges to deliver insight-driven strategies that resonate across industries, from technology and packaged goods to fashion and public health. Since Andy’s arrival, DC has earned national acclaim and become a leader in public health and social impact marketing. The agency’s work, blending creativity with purpose, has earned recognition for its effectiveness and cultural impact. Andy is driven by a deep commitment to understanding human emotion and behavior. His passion for fostering authentic relationships extends beyond how we engage with our clients – it has helped shape DC’s culture as a place where creativity thrives and collaboration rules. Capable in French after spending part of his childhood in Paris, Andy brings a global perspective to his work. Outside the office, he’s a dedicated photographer, wine enthusiast, fitness aficionado, and… knife collector? Don’t ask. Really.
Shannon Burns
Design director
With over 15 years of experience in the creative industry, Shannon’s expertise spans design in print, digital, out-of-home, with art direction in motion graphics and photography. She enjoys the challenges of creating thoughtful and unique design systems that also satisfy strategic goals. Throughout her career, She’s worked with clients across the spectrum, such as —The Golden State Warriors, UNDO, Outrigger, Golden Road, Sweetarts, Rakuten, Viator, and Kona Brewing. Her work has been recognized by organizations including Graphis, Effies, Communication Arts, AIGA, and SF Addy. Prior to DC, Shannon freelanced and was a designer for The Santa Cruz Sentinel newspaper where she handled production in both print and digital for clients and in-house marketing. In her spare time she chases around her two young children and spends as much time outdoors as possible.
Parker Channon
CMO, partner
After earning scores of creative honors and setting sales records for clients like StubHub, DriveTime and Kona Brewing, Parker now devotes the bulk of his time to “advertising” the advertising agency he co-founded with Robert Duncan. He works to raise the company’s creative profile, preserve its nefarious and sordid culture and seek out those new clients ready to do the most memorable and effective work around. As a side hustle, Parker still works as a humble copywriter on various client businesses just like he did when he first started right out of school at FCB/San Francisco. (It’s probably his favorite part of the job.)
Cristián Costa
Group creative director
Driven by bold ideas that provoke thought, change behavior, and spark the right conversations, Cristián focuses on inspiring, supporting, and protecting the best work across creative teams, trusting that honest ideas always lead to something great. With over 15 years of experience at agencies like RGA New York, Saatchi & Saatchi LA, 180LA, Ogilvy, and Y&R, he has helped brands shape their vision, find their voice, build creative platforms, mentor teams, and craft award-winning campaigns. His impactful work has created real-world change for inclusive organizations, including influencing members of the US Congress to update outdated laws in support of the Down Syndrome community. He has developed global campaigns for iconic brands such as Toyota, The Paralympic Games, Got Milk?, Walmart, Crest, DuPont, and Colgate, which have earned recognition at top festivals worldwide, including 10 Cannes Lions, Grand Prix at the Clio Awards, and golds at the Effies, London International Awards, D&AD, The One Show, and The New York Festivals, accumulating over 100 international awards.
Amy Cotteleer
Chief experience officer, partner
Amy founded award-winning experiential and social influencer agency, A2G, 15 years ago. A pioneer in the space, Amy’s agency landed household names like Gap, Citibank, Samsung and Nintendo. A2G was twice named a small agency of the year by Advertising Age and their work for Product (RED) was awarded Promotion of the Year. An expert in helping companies harness the power of social media to amplify consumer experiences, while inspiring trial, conversion and sales, Amy’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, O Magazine and USA Today. As CXO, Amy leads the development of social, influencer and live experiences that create two-way relationships between brands and customers. It’s her job to ensure that integrated ideas for clients and prospects have online and offline experiences built into their DNA. She is a magna cum laude graduate of USC’s Marshall School of Business (Go Trojans!) and the mother to two young daughters and a Jack Russell Terrier named Wrigley (Go Cubs!).
Kumi Croom
Managing director
With a degree in journalism from San Diego State, Kumi actually began her career writing for the 11 o’clock news. Shifting quickly to the slightly more lucrative field of advertising, she worked in account services at agencies like Young & Rubicam and the Attik. She has collaborated with and led teams whose work has won Effies, Clios and a 4As Jay Chiat Award. In 2024, she was recognized by Campaign US’s Inspiring Women Award for being a Champion of Change. At DC, Kumi leads the account, project management and equity, diversity and inclusion teams. In addition, she has led the cross-function teams for two massive California Department of Public Health programs: California Tobacco Prevention Program and the COVID Vaccine account — each requiring herculean effort and serious juggling skills. Kumi’s expertise in integrated marketing consists of result-driven programs for world-leading brands, including McDonald’s, Mattel, Hilton Hotels, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Toshiba, Chase and Scion. Raised by a family of singers, Kumi can, upon occasion, be “persuaded” to belt out a tune, and a sweeter sound you will never hear.
MJ Deery
Creative director
MJ is a creative leader with two decades of experience in narrative-building. She began her career with a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, and went on to develop her branding craft and thought leadership at both agencies and in-house. MJ is one of Duncan Channon’s boomerang team members. Her initial stint was a five-year run where she helped advance the California Department of Public Health’s gains against the teen vaping epidemic. And she returned to jump back into the mix of public service campaigns including more of the state’s public health efforts with the addition of PG&E. In the interim she co-led the creative department at boutique social impact consultancy Matter Unlimited in NY where she produced campaigns for Gates Foundation, Save the Music, Engineers Without Borders, Color of Change, and World Hunger Project. Her work has been recognized by One Show, Clios, Effies, and Shorties. In her spare time, MJ supports under-resourced students in their college essay writing, takes political action with fiery women friends, and hangs out with her two college-aged kids for what amounts to never enough time.
Leslie Diard
Executive director, media + analytics
While one supposes it’s important to tell you that Leslie Diard is our deeply experienced communications planning director, one can barely wait to say that she started her professional life as a purchasing agent for Shell Oil in Houston, wore a hard hat to work and frequently visited offshore drilling platforms. Since then, Leslie has veered sharply toward the marketing mainstream, serving as a media supervisor at Foote, Cone & Belding/San Francisco, as a VP, group account director, at Hawk Media and as media director at Swirl. Her pre-DC client experience includes Taco Bell, Dreyer’s Ice Cream, MGM Grand Hotel & Casino, Pearle Vision and The Wine Group. And at DC, she oversees a communications planning department that has over the years been responsible for the planning and purchasing of media for, among others, StubHub, John Muir Health, Tishman Speyer, Clos du Bois, the Palms and Hard Rock. Leslie has an MBA from the renowned Thunderbird School of Global Management. She is also a former professor at the Art Institute of California, and, in recent years, was elected president of the American Marketing Association, San Francisco chapter.
Genevieve Gray
Group account director
Genevieve (we call her GG) is a seasoned marketing professional, born and raised in the Bay Area, with deep experience delivering strategic account leadership for some of the world’s most recognizable brands. As Group Account Director, she applies storytelling expertise and strategic vision to drive business impact for the agency’s largest CDPH and CPG accounts. A passionate advocate for nurturing diverse, high-performing teams, Genevieve contributes a Latine-focused perspective to “the Collective,” our practice to ensure campaigns are culturally resonant and authentic. Genevieve began her career in NYC, managing omnichannel campaigns for leading brands like Verizon, Canon, Clorox, Charles Schwab, and The Wine Group. 5 Big Apple winters brought her home. A proud alumna of UC Santa Cruz (go Slugs), Genevieve holds a double major in Politics and Latin American-Latino Studies. With a steadfast commitment to impactful, culturally relevant solutions, she remains a driving force in shaping innovative campaigns that deliver meaningful results in the ever-evolving advertising landscape.
Rob Griffin
Group director, digital + analytics
Rob began his career in finance but transitioned to advertising after relocating to the Pacific Northwest. He took on an analyst role at Placed, a Seattle-based location analytics startup (now part of Foursquare), where he built a strong foundation in digital advertising and ad-tech. He then led the analytics team at Media Plus, a Seattle media agency. In 2021, Rob moved to DC to lead our analytics practice, including DC’s proprietary analytics platform, the Table. He leads the analytics, SEM, and programmatic teams and is passionate about democratizing access to data across the agency, our partners and clients. Rob studied economics at Marquette for undergrad and grad school, where he fell in love with college basketball (go Golden Eagles) and his wife, Josie, in that order. Rob, Josie, and daughter Marlow reside in the Minneapolis suburbs where they spend most of their time turning a former train depot into their home.
Jessea Hankins
Creative director
Jessea (rhymes with messy) is an extremely online creative director and writer who was pulled into the vortex of advertising by fate. Her decades-long career began at Wieden+Kennedy (in the finance department! With a poetry degree!), flew through Bartle Bogle Hegarty, and landed at Duncan Channon lo these many years hence. She can be blamed for work on such brands as Sephora, Kettle Chips, the United Nations, Kona Big Wave, Horizon Organic and the CA Department of Public Health – from their very first anti-vaping campaign to the recent fentanyl overdose prevention effort, “Facts Fight Fentanyl.” Somewhere in there was a 4-year hiatus spent at various agencies in the advertising wilderness, after which she boomeranged back to DC to continue her mission of being very silly and very serious all at once forever. Jessea holds an MFA in poetry from Mills College. She has also published two young adult novels under her not-so-secret pen name, Avery Williams. In her free time she ponders the way algorithms mirror biological systems and plays Fortnite.
Keenan Hemje
Head of TV and content production
Ever met a metal guitarist who cycles to BART, cries at commercials, and bleeds red and gold for the San Francisco 49ers? Meet Keenan. His special brand of leadership — think kindhearted straight talk — earns him the trust of production partners at every level. If Keenan were the prideful type, he’d pride himself on his grace under pressure. As head of broadcast production (not to mention dad of two small children and one incorrigible cat) Keenan navigates all manner of bumps in the road. Yet, as far as anyone else is concerned, the ride is perfectly smooth. And his tunes are seriously hardcore.
Eric Kozak
Head of digital production
Eric embodies eclecticism, adaptability, and innovation, both personally and professionally. He began his career at a non-traditional design shop serving the underground music scene. This led to work with cutting-edge independent agencies (and a couple of sprawling conglomerates), where his DIY attitude translated into getting exceptional creative work into the world. He believes that while technology changes, quality design and storytelling endure. His portfolio ranges from [insert trendy creative technology here] to a literal exploding analog billboard, not to mention boring standard campaign deliverables. Recently, like much of the world, he’s been contemplating what it means to be human in the age of emerging AI. To counterbalance the existential dread of that inquiry, he now prioritizes Vipassana meditation and father-daughter nature excursions over 48-hour parties at Berghain.
Shaz Kuerschner
Director of art buying and print production
Shaz began her advertising career at Y&R Australia, after realizing her prior stint at a men’s shoe factory wasn’t the stellar career trajectory she sought. Embracing her production assistant role with wide eyes and big dreams, she soon became a dedicated and nimble producer. With production experience and green card in hand, she landed in San Francisco with one suitcase and a husband, quickly finding good fortune at agencies such as OWNP, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Popgun Design, BBDO, Eleven and Williams Sonoma. From a helicopter shoot of Hawaii’s volcanic landscape to meeting Steph Curry and Questlove, Shaz has produced work for clients such as Electronic Arts, Teva, Saturn, H-P, GAP, Apple, Visa, Oakley, Haagen Daas, Adobe, CTCP and the Golden State Warriors. Shaz loves bringing great ideas to life and sprinkles her Aussie sense of humor on every project she touches. On that note, she will tell you that Grease-era ONJ has been her guiding star and life coach.
Michael Lemme
Chief creative officer, partner
Designer turned Chief Creative Officer, Mike’s background is equal parts brand strategy, design and advertising. He has led rebrand and creative efforts for, among others, Rakuten, StubHub, Sephora, Kona Brewing, Viator, Outrigger Resorts, Autodesk, Esurance and Hard Rock International, winner of the Global Rebrand 100 Award. He has been recognized in Communication Arts’ Advertising, Typography and Interactive annuals, and was a One Show Interactive winner for SFMOMA’s “Making Sense of Modern Art” interface. As CCO at DC, he is responsible for continuously elevating the agency’s creative standards, if not its morals. His social feeds are almost exclusively videos about typefaces and people cooking eggs.
Emily McCormick
Group director, media + analytics
Emily is a seasoned media professional with over 15 years of experience in the fields of government, CPG, health, beauty, and travel. As Group Director of Communications Planning at Duncan Channon, she currently oversees strategy, planning, and execution, has managed media budgets totaling over $70 million annually. She also leads the agency’s paid social practice, driving innovation and providing senior-level counsel to clients on leveraging media for impactful results. Emily has maintained and grown client relationships while leading teams to deliver integrated campaigns across digital and traditional channels. She was recognized for developing strategies that aligned with clients’ business goals, while optimizing campaign performance and uncovering new opportunities. Emily’s background includes strategic planning, cross-functional leadership, and team development. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a focus on Finance from the University of San Francisco.
Tina Montemayor
Dir of creative talent acquisition + equity
Tina’s been a copywriter, media buyer and even dabbled in PR, so she brings a wealth of knowledge and perspective to her job. She understands creative people (she is one) and she understands how to mold and shape a great creative environment for those people to thrive in. Tina led recruiting for crosstown agency Cutwater before we were lucky enough to recruit her ourselves. In addition to making sure we always have a roster of top-flight talent, Tina continues to flex her creative muscle on our events team — and if you haven’t been to one of our events, what are you waiting for? She even helped design our office for optimal awesomeness. What she looks for when hiring: creatives who haven’t made their best work yet. And when she’s not wrangling talent, you can find her wrangling daughters Harper and Liv for a DIY art project or designing her next room.
Kelleen Peckham
Director of brand strategy
Kelleen, pronounced like “Kelly” with an “n,” is a strategy director by trade and a cultural anthropologist by nature. Her passion for planning began as an adolescent growing up overseas in Switzerland. It was here at an International School that she developed her more-than-a-casual interest in analyzing people. Seriously, it’s kind of nerdy. She gets a kick out of thinking about culture and how it impacts us as consumers. While at Arnold in Boston, she wrote the strategy for the Effie-winning teen tobacco prevention ad campaign called, ‘truth.’ At DC, she runs the strategy department, uncovering consumer and cultural insights that inspire breakthrough advertising strategy.
Renée Phipps
CFO
Among this endless scroll of braggarts and blowhards, it’s refreshing to encounter the occasional blush of reserve. But in the case of our money maven, the modesty is entirely unearned. After graduating from Santa Clara University, Renee found her true calling in advertising at FCB, “applying order via numbers in a creative environment.” Not sure what this “order” thing is, but she was good enough at it that when a couple of co-workers left to start Rathje Chadwick & Co, they inveigled Renée to join them as Finance Director. Which she did for five years – before another ex-FCB’er by the name of Berkenfield inveigled her to join yet another agency startup. Now DC’s CFO, she is also progenitor of two highly creative girls, a fluent speaker of German and host of her own authentic annual Oktoberfest celebration, to which, alas, she has never invited this biographer.
Madelaine Robinson
Group director, media + analytics
With more than a decade of experience in advertising and paid media, including 6 years as the media team lead across multiple pieces of business, Maddy has a broad understanding of the digital media landscape, including data integration and analytics. Her expertise extends well beyond general market audiences to include insights and experience relevant to multicultural audiences, including Hispanic/LatinX, Black/African American, AAPI/AIAN, Rural, LGBTQIA+ and more. She has deep experience with complex public issue efforts, including public health. She has also worked in health and wellness, CPG food, fashion, alcohol, beauty, sporting goods and more. Maddy’s media expertise includes planning, negotiation, execution, reporting and insights across all channels: Broadcast, OOH, Digital, Social, and Search. She ensures that media plans are constructed with media ethics, health equity, and brand safety at their core in order to best serve and educate the public. Outside of work she is an aspiring golf and tennis player, lover of food, wine and live music, regretful political junkie, and a volunteer for CASA of Travis county.
Rosheila Robles
Director of project management
With a passion for food, Rosheila began her career as a culinary photojournalist back before everyone with an iPhone fancied themselves a food photog — and back when there were these quaint things called newspapers. Transitioning to a career in project management, Rosheila was able to capitalize on her other life’s passion: calendars. Oh, how she loves them. After stewarding award-winning national campaigns for Lexus at Team One in LA, she moved to SF and became the first official director of project management at DC. The quintessential iron fist in a velvet glove, Rosheila manages projects for DC across all platforms and clients. She’s also been instrumental in multiple new business wins for the agency which she enjoys working on — but not as much as those damn calendars. For real, don’t get her started.
Jessica Wyatt
Creative director
Lady Jessica Wyatt was named after the notorious Bene Gesserit heroine long before Timothy Chalamet and Zendaya made Dune super popular and she’s definitely not bitter about any of it. She is also a professional creative director making art for business and co-leads the Banana Stand, DC’s in-house production studio. Her path from the swamp to present day led through an undergraduate degree in graphic design and an MFA in motion graphics at SCAD, a few years at Mekanism on accounts like Jim Beam and Aquafina, and then to DC (with a brief rumspringa and boomerang return). Her conceptual and philosophical outlook (courtesy of Barbra Streisand) has left their marks on projects like SweetBEATS for SweeTARTS, Kona Big Wave, Horizon Milk and recently Facts Fight Fentanyl for the California Department of Public Health. She knows every single cultural reference ever and more quotes from The Office than you. She is not now, nor has she ever been afraid of AI. In fact, AI fears her.
Contact Us
Jobs, creative
TINA MONTEMAYOR
Dir of creative talent acquisition + equity
tmontemayor@duncanchannon.com
415 306 9282