Word Communications

Stephen Dzinanka Creative Director & Managing Partner

As a professional marketer and strategist for more than 25 years, Steve has helped a wide range of clients attain category leadership with award-winning consumer and B2B advertising. Among them national brands like KeyBank and General Electric, as well as a number of leading regional healthcare and financial services companies.

Steve began his communications career as a journalist, working as a reporter and then an editor at a middle-market daily newspaper. Lacking sleep and exposure to sunlight, he founded Unicomp, a typography and graphic arts studio, in the early 1980s. With an eye toward diversification, he later merged Unicomp with Word Management, an information management and marketing firm in Albany.

Years later, through a process of continuous evolution, Steve now heads up Word Communications—still surrounded by many of the staff who have worked together for over 15 years. As the firm’s managing partner and chief creative director, he leads the team in delivering effective integrated marketing programs for a diverse clientele.

Steve holds BA degrees in Rhetoric and Communications and Psychology from the State University of New York at Albany. He is also on the board of Albany Pro Musica and holds a private pilot’s license, which explains his lack of grounding.

Thomas R. Newkirk Direct Marketing Specialist & Partner

Tom co-founded Word with Stephen Dzinanka in August 2008, and works across the company to develop business and guide strategic direction. Since Word’s inception, he has amplified the company's direct marketing services, including customer database segmentation, customer acquisition, Internet strategies, multi-channel marketing, and lifetime value and merchandise forecasting.

Tom’s direct marketing experience is extensive. Early in his career he founded Direct Marketing Technology (“Direct Tech”), a consulting firm serving cataloguers and specialty retailers. He architected the company’s consortium catalog database of 90 million buyers, still used today by over 6,000 participants for reactivation and acquisition of customers.

In 1997 he sold Direct Tech to Experian, a leading global provider of information solutions, and became Chairman of Experian North America. In that role, he was responsible for managing the company’s $400 million Experian Marketing Solutions organization.

Tom is a graduate of the Sloan School at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and holds an MBA from Cornell University. His true “calling” emerged when he founded and became CEO of Saratoga National Golf Club.

Stephanie Brown VP/Interactive & Partner

Since its inception, Stephanie has helped Word grow and strengthen the business through online marketing–website design and development, email marketing, search engine marketing, social media marketing and web analytics.

Equal parts strategy and creative, Stephanie brings more than 20 years of online marketing experience for clients including Calvin Klein, Chase Bank, Cornell University, Kinko’s, KPMG, GlobalSpec, Visa, Wachovia, Weil-McLain and Yodle.

Before joining Word, she was Vice President and Senior Creative Director, Interactive Services, at a top 50 B2B marketing firm, where she innovated a systematic approach to improving ROI grounded in web analytics, automated marketing and ongoing optimization.

Stephanie has won numerous awards, from the AMA’s Mark of Excellence to B2B Magazine’s ACE Awards for website design. She is also currently authoring Local Online Advertising for Dummies for Wiley Publishing, which is in no way autobiographical.

Stephanie graduated cum laude from Williams College with a BA in English Literature.

Jenny McKenna Account Supervisor

Jenny joined Word in February 2009, bringing 15 years of interactive account management and production experience to the team. As account supervisor, she plays a key role in setting interactive strategy, and oversees the design, implementation and ongoing support of websites and online marketing programs.

Prior, she was an interactive account manager at a regional agency, where she guided the on-time, on-budget completion of projects such as The Cornell School of Engineering portal, the enrollment sites for MVP Health Plan, broker extranets for Jardine Lloyd Thompson, numerous email marketing programs for Visa, Chase and Capital One. She also managed usability and focus group testing across a variety of client initiatives.

A big advocate of client lunches, Jenny graduated from Valparaiso University with a BA degree in English and Art History.

Corey Breda Senior Account Executive

A proud product of New York State, Corey earned a BS in Business Administration from the State University of New York at New Paltz, and an MBA from the State University of New York at Albany. With her academic credentials and multi-tasking persona, she’s the perfect choice to provide hands-on account management.

At Word, Corey is mindful of clients’ day-to-day needs as well as the big picture. She oversees direct marketing strategies and execution, and humors the creative staff in developing schedules and managing budgets. There are days when she’d rather be reading Yankees blogs.

Before joining Word, she was an account manager at Newkirk Products, a marketing communications firm serving the financial services industry. While there she managed the coordination and production of targeted print collateral and direct mail for financial and trust institutions such as Bank of America, Wachovia and City National.

Scott Shaw Senior Art Director

Before coming to Word over a decade ago, Scott held various key creative positions at advertising agencies in and around New York City. He began his career at McCall’s magazine and Belair Associates, a firm specializing in retail fashion catalogs. So it’s no wonder that, to this day, his socks and shirts are always coordinated.

He also worked as a senior art director for several regional advertising agencies and at his own design firm, Scott Shaw Design, in Saratoga Springs.

At Word, Scott directs many of the award-winning design efforts of major clients including KeyCorp, NYSERDA, Bunheads, Philadelphia Furniture, FAM Funds and Encore Paper.

He holds a degree in Advertising Art and Design from the State University of New York at Farmingdale.

Sherry Hart Senior Production Manager

A native of Albany’s Capital Region, Sherry attended the State University of New York at Buffalo where she received her BA in Communications. Immediately after, in 1982, she went to work for Word Management Corporation, an earlier configuration of today’s Word Communications.

Over her 25 years with the company, Sherry has managed production and workflow for a long and diverse list of banking clients, ranging from TrustCo, Evergreen and KeyCorp, to Troy Savings, Lakeshore Savings and The Bank of Greene County.

A strong hands-on type, Sherry is responsible for the daily operation of Word’s fast-paced design and production area; she oversees everything and overlooks nothing. And she’s never met a graphic arts software application she didn’t like. OK, love!

Ketan Vakil Internet Marketing Strategist

Ketan Vakil is an accomplished Internet strategist and self-proclaimed student of the User Experience. As a consultant for Word, he guides implementation of a wide range of interactive programs—from landing paths and pages, to interface design, to organic and paid search, to Web analytics and integration with CRM systems.

Over the course of his young career, he has led efforts to improve the site experience for American Express, JPMorgan Chase, Wachovia, Capital One and Visa—as well as for B2B companies representing food, speech, hotel management and local search technologies.

Ketan graduated cum laude for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electronic Media and Marketing, and is completing his MBA at the Stern School at New York University.

He is a certified in Omniture SiteCatalyst usage and implementation.

Matthew J. Stellato Web Developer

Matt brings a designer’s eye to front-end development using XHTML, CSS and JavaScript. He specializes in building online programs that are user-friendly, standards-compliant and designed for maximum accessibility—so they not only look good but work well.

Before consulting at Word, Matt was an interactive designer and developer at a regional agency, where he was responsible for working collaboratively with art directors and designers to create high-impact front-ends for websites and rich Internet applications. He was also instrumental in streamlining processes for the development of multi-versioned email marketing campaigns for Visa’s member banks, including Bank of America, Chase, Capital One and others.

Matt holds a BS degree in New Media Publishing from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Despite his formidable credentials and considerable height, he never looks down at people. Which is hard on the knees.