Leadership

Rory Carlton is a marketing professional with 25 years experience in advertising and marketing, particularly in the B2B and technology arenas. He has worked on both the client and agency side of the business, including European marcom management for a division of Lockheed Corporation. Later, he led a management buyout of an international B2B marketing agency in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and thereafter established a sister agency in Atlanta, serving both American and European clients.

Rory has worked in various strategic and creative roles for numerous clients including BMW, IBM, Siemens, British Telecom, Experian, McGraw Hill, Philips, Kraft Foods, Tenneco, Schlumberger, and the Royal Jordan Tourism Board. His portfolio covers messaging, brand development, advertising (print/radio/outdoor), collateral communications, trade shows, direct mail, packaging, internal communications, online and interactive multimedia.

Rory is a First Class Honours graduate of the University of London and has an MBA from the European University. He has lived in London, Amsterdam and Vienna. Hij spreekt vloeiend nederlands.

Sami Jajeh provides Arketi Group’s clients with senior-level expertise and marketing advice from a technology businessperson's perspective. Sami combines both an MBA's critical thinking skills and extensive technology marketing domain knowledge to solve tough, strategic marketing questions. From comprehensive marketing plans to competitive analyses to corporate re-launches, his work positions companies to gain revenue momentum and strong growth. Sami brings more than 20 years of experience in strategic and product marketing, marketing communications and PR, and sales and business development.

Sami's career began in computer science, giving him a technology understanding to help clients "cut through the clutter" and create a compelling customer-centric value proposition. His career spans almost every aspect of creating great companies, but the greatest portion of his career has been spent in marketing, business development, and entrepreneurship - ranging from IBM to co-founding two start-ups. All four of the emerging growth companies in which Sami has been an executive successfully executed a liquidity event. Sami is very involved within the technology community. He serves as President of Technology Executives Roundtable and is currently on the board of TAG Business Launch. Sami is a graduate of the Technology Association of Georgia board and is also very active in High Tech Ministries.

Sami was awarded the 2011 Life Time Achievement Award by the Technology Association of Georgia. He has an MBA from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a BS in Computer Science from University of California, Berkeley.

Mike Neumeier, APR has nearly 20 years of proven experience in public relations, marketing and analyst relations. A specialist in counseling clients on the best means to effectively convey business messages to market and media influencers, Mike has built an enviable record of creating and delivering plans that result in building the bottom line. This record earned him a coveted spot on the PR News 2003 15-to-Watch list.

Previously Mike served as director of media and analyst relations for Interland (now Web.com), a web hosting and online services provider for small businesses. Mike has also served as a PR and marketing executive for two large independent marketing and PR agencies, as the director of news services for Mercer University, and as a writer at the University of Florida’s Health Science Center. Mike has earned the distinction Accredited in Public Relations (APR) and more than 60 industry awards, including a PRSA Bronze Anvil for architecting a demand-creation program resulting in a $13 million increase in sales. He was inducted into the National PRSSA Hall of Fame in 2010.

Mike is a past president for the GA|PRSA chapter (the second largest PRSA chapter in the nation), serves on the Technology Executives Roundtable Board of Directors, is a member of the Executive Committee of PRSA’s Counselors Academy, a board member of Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) Board of Directors, a founding member of the Atlanta PR Interfaith Prayer Breakfast, a member of the MIT Enterprise Forum of Atlanta Executive Committee, past chair of the University of Florida’s Public Relations Advisory Board, serves on the National Advisory Board for Kennesaw State University’s Department of Communication, a member of the HealthMPowers Board and has served on numerous national Public Relations Society of America committees. Mike has earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Florida in Public Relations and is currently completing his master’s in mass communications.

Micky Long draws on more than 25 years of B2B technology marketing, public relations and analyst experience. He has helped deliver revenue and market share results for companies like IBM, Tech Data, MAPICS, Siemens, Indus International, Hayes and others. Most recently, Micky was lead technology industry analyst with Aberdeen Group’s Strategic Service Management practice, where he produced major research benchmark studies, conducted nearly 100 strategic briefings with software and technology vendors and was a lead speaker at conferences and webcasts within the technology community.

From driving multi-million dollar, multi-country marketing programs for IBM Global Network, to generating more than 100,000 sales leads for a data storage company, to helping revitalize the brand of an enterprise software company, Micky understands marketing’s role in increasing market share and improving revenue growth. In fact, while he was at Hayes, he was part of the initial team that grew the company from $12 to $170 million in two years.

Micky is involved in the technology marketing community, serving on the board of TAG Marketing Society, of which he is also the former board president. He is on the board of advisors for Sales and Marketing Executives International’s (SMEI) Atlanta chapter. He is a past board member of the Southeastern Software Association. Micky has a BS in Communications from Temple University.

Jackie Parker has more than 15 years of public relations and corporate communications experience, working with myriad clients in the technology, healthcare, professional services and higher education arenas. Jackie started her career working with high tech companies including BellSouth, EMC and Hughes Network Systems – helping those companies successfully launch products and services and build their brands through executive visibility programs.

Before joining Arketi, Jackie was vice president of media relations for a national public relations firm. In that role, she provided strategic media relations counsel to account teams and clients in various industry segments, including technology and healthcare, regularly securing coverage in high-profile media outlets, including USA Today, BusinessWeek and CNBC.

In addition to her agency experience, Jackie has a strong corporate communications background working for H.J. Russell & Company and National Data Corporation. After graduating from the University of Missouri-Columbia, Jackie was a reporter for several newspapers, including The Indianapolis News.

Ann Revell-Pechar has extensive experience in high-tech leadership positioning and, over the past 25 years, has launched more than 120 innovative products. Ann co-founded and ran Revell-Pechar Inc. PR and Marketing, from 1993 - 2011. She worked closely with entrepreneurs, introducing innovations ranging from Aventail to F5, from NetNanny to Real Networks (now RealAudio) and managed the reputation of established firms from New Enterprise Associates to Ziff Davis Publishing and Alcatel-Lucent. Several clients, like VoIP company Teleo, have been acquired by major corporations, transitions whose communications were overseen by Ann.

Ann served as vice president of public relations at two advertising agencies and worked in-house at several software firms as marketing executive. She has extensive experience with Internet-centric companies, security, storage and enterprise technologies, and has worked with biotechnology, medical devices and pharmaceutical companies. Her passion is to help individuals and corporations clearly and persuasively communicate value to their audiences.

Ann taught technical and professional communications at Rochester Institute of Technology and at Villa Julie College in Maryland. She strongly values community involvement and has served as Chapter Board Chair and Executive Chair of the MIT Enterprise Forum of Atlanta, as Global Communications Chair for Digitainment Georgia, and on numerous advisory boards in Seattle, Baltimore and Atlanta. She holds a Master of Public Administration from the State University of New York where her focus was on Management Information Systems, and received a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from Seattle Pacific University.

Star VanderHaar is a senior account director with more than 16 years of business-to-business experience in strategic planning, marketing and public relations in both corporate and agency environments. Having worked with a number of clients over the years, she brings diverse industry experience to Arketi, including construction, contact center, ERP, financial, healthcare, telecommunications, and utilities expertise.

Prior to joining Arketi, Star held several senior-level positions leading public relations and marketing accounts for clients such as Lucent Technologies. One notable accomplishment is her marketing and public relations work in establishing MAPICS, Inc’s image as a “thought leader” in the manufacturing IT space. Successes included securing 300 media interviews in one year, which resulted in coverage in high-profile media outlets like CIO, eWeek, and InfoWorld.

In the corporate environment, she has managed communications efforts for Southern Company, Continental Power Exchange, Inc. (now IntercontinentalExchange), and, most recently, Interland Inc. (now Web.com). While at Interland, Star acted as a customer advocate, leading loyalty efforts. In that role, she and her team developed and executed revenue and retention strategies, which generated approximately 60 percent of the company’s overall sales from the customer base.

Active in the Atlanta community, Star serves on several Technology Association of Georgia committees, and in the past, has served on the board of the TAG Marketing Society and the Marketing Technology committee of the American Marketing Association’s Atlanta Chapter. She holds a Master’s degree in Mass Communication from the University of Georgia, a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Emory University and has earned numerous TAG Marketing and PRSA Phoenix Awards for her work.