Our Team

EVP and queen of general problem-solving, Elizabeth Hightower has been with Stripes since the beginning. She has established frameworks for creative production and project management, and she continues to be an invaluable asset to clients and teammates alike. Pre-Stripes, she studied journalism at Texas Tech; she worked in nonprofit fundraising on accounts like Washington National Cathedral and Children’s Medical Center, and she also participated in a semester-long internship with the United States Congress. She’s a low-key superwoman.

As one of Stripes’ first clients, Brandon Cotter has been a believer in Stripes’ capabilities since the beginning. Brandon is a successful startup executive with a proven track record of building new ventures and exhibiting contagious energy for growth. Over the past 20 years, he has founded or co-founded numerous ventures including online retail, business services, visual search, SaaS applications, and digital publishing. He lends his expertise to Stripes in business development, partnerships, and coaching.

Born and raised in California, Ivan heads up Stripes’ media efforts from the L.A. office. Before his time at Stripes, Ivan honed his expertise in media at Starcom, OMD (Resolution Media), PHD, and RPA, by contributing to paid social efforts for accounts such as Mattel, Nissan/Infiniti, Hewlett-Packard, and Honda/Acura. Along with his agency experience, Ivan brings an entrepreneurial spirit, having started a longboarding-skateboarding company in his garage when he was only 18. He was a sk8er boi, so to speak.

With a background that spans advertising, fundraising, and higher education, Jason Mueller has been in the agency world for over 12 years. He’s filled client-facing roles in strategy, development, and consulting while working on such accounts as Bertolli, Texas Rangers, Dallas Mavericks, Salesforce, Columbia Business School and Texas Health Resources. He has proved instrumental in leading Stripes into new markets, and he continues to drive new business development. Jason has completed two masters programs, has a twin, and lived on a self-sustained farm as a kid. And his kindergarten teacher forced him to become right-handed. What could have been if he’d stayed a lefty? The world will never know.

Like many copywriters, Andy Benke got into the game in a bit of a roundabout way. He worked in various corners of the music industry, both performing and composing. And after his music degree segued into an MBA, he found himself employed by a startup that was to become one of the biggest independent music licensing firms in the world. Andy spent a few years in Berlin, Germany, composing music for films, launching a blog, and drinking lots of German beer. And then he returned to Dallas and began writing for Stripes. He’s done client work for a wide swath of brands and been published in Film + Music Magazine, and his music has been featured in branded visual content for Comcast, International Rescue Committee, and ENVE.

With a decade of experience spanning studies at Savannah College of Art and Design, freelance work, in-house work, and agency work, Kevin Craft is a seasoned designer, illustrator, and art director. Some key accounts from his pre-Stripes tenure include Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Bud Light, and Michelob Ultra. As a member of the Stripes family, he has contributed heavily to a complete agency rebrand, honed experience in film direction, and played a crucial role in developing a strong and unique visual identity for the organic social content of a top five Graduate Business School. He is engaged to a dapper Persian architect, is remarkably tall, and spearheads Italics – a Dallas-based meetup focused on fostering creative collaboration of all kinds.

John “Jack” Grubner is a native Bostonian, a qualified paid social planner and buyer, and one of the most congenial guys you’ll ever meet. He manages media for a top five Facebook publisher and spends much of his time innovating emerging media markets such as podcast distribution and content subscription models. Before joining Stripes, he worked as a media specialist for FYI Television, Inc. and tracked ticket sales data for the Texas Rangers. He studied history as an undergrad at the University of Dallas and is an MBA candidate from Satish & Yasmin Gupta College of Business.

Holding a bona fide university degree in advertising makes Maegan Jernigan an outlier amongst the Stripes crew, and we’re so much better for having her on the team. After graduating from Boston University, she joined Zimmerman Advertising and spent two years doing programmatic marketing on the Nissan account, while helping manage over $80 million in advertising budget. Her time at Stripes is primarily spent on lead generation and B2B accounts. She’s contributed heavily to building a strong social presence for brands that have historically had none, and she has accomplished huge things for our GSB client – managing campaigns for 40+ executive education programs.

One of our more tenured team members, Elizabeth Kerin has worn many hats since arriving on the Stripes scene three years ago. In that time, she has managed accounts and built strong client relationships, proved critical in driving Stripes’ growth in our largest and most profitable vertical, and helped increase Facebook likes for a media personality from 20K to over 4 million. She graduated from the University of Dallas with a degree in art history.

Before joining Stripes, Humza Khan studied at The University of Texas at Dallas. He managed their campus radio station and won several awards in the process. After Humza completed his degree, ACTIVE Network hired him as their social media manager; and he oversaw paid social strategy for large events, including the IRONMAN Series and Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series. When it comes to activating audiences on social, he brings serious know-how to the table – something he leverages as the primary media planner on all of our B2C accounts.

Amy Klembara is our in-house jill of all trades. She has contributed to the success of nearly every account at Stripes, playing an instrumental role in the CPG accounts. And when she’s not managing client projects, she’s moonlighting as Stripes’ party planner extraordinaire. (Seriously, did you make it to the 2018 Summer Vibes?) Amy’s past experience includes time with DFWChild Magazine, Fidelity Investments, and studying at Texas A&M University. BBC murder mysteries and interior design are her jam and, funnily enough, so is making her own preserves. Jam, as it were, is her jam.

As much as we’d like to think of ourselves as self-reliant, responsible adults here at Stripes, we’d be utterly lost without Jenny Li. As our office manager, Jenny brings to the table organization, stability, and – much to our delight – snacks. Her previous experience includes HR roles in the healthcare space, both as an account manager and compliance manager; and she is currently pursuing a graduate degree in neurogenic communication disorders with the goal of practicing speech-language pathology. She’s also fluent in Mandarin. No big deal.

Working primarily on conservative NPO accounts, Carolyn Mackenzie manages Stripes’ largest and most profitable vertical. Her clients spend over $4 million in media per year and continue to grow that budget year over year. In addition to her account management prowess, Carolyn takes pride in her vast knowledge of the wizarding world of Harry Potter. She’ll gladly school you – so watch out.

As Stripes’ resident filmmaker, Rob Martinez is an artist working in everything from film, photography, and motion graphics, to scoring and sound design. He has produced visuals for Toyota, JCPenney, and the Texas Rangers, as well as musical artists such as Missio, and Echos. And his work has been featured by MTV, Time Magazine, BuzzFeed, and CollegeHumor. In addition to his visual work, Rob’s use of “faux-fanity” is a real trademark. He’s got a “pucking” knack for being almost offensive.

A Texas native, Emma graduated from the University of Dallas with a degree in politics, and then she moved to Washington D.C. to work for the U.S. House of Representatives. During her time on the Hill, Emma primarily focused on communications and messaging for Rep. Randy Weber. Here at Stripes, she puts her background on the Hill to good use, focusing primarily on Stripes’ political clients. In her free time, Emma enjoys planning her upcoming wedding and a glass of good Cabernet Sauvignon. In a past life, Emma says she ran the steeplechase, whatever that means.

Originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Reagan San Roman began her advertising career with Henderson Media Solutions. She contributed to media planning, buying, and analytics on the Bassett Furniture and Waitr accounts – the latter of which was acquired by Landcadia Holdings, Inc. in 2018 for $308 million. ​At Stripes she’s​​ ​devoting her time exclusively to NPO paid media​. She holds a B.A. in business from the University of Dallas and is currently pursuing a master’s in business analytics from there as well.