Leadership
Yvonne Tocquigny
CEO
Yvonne began her advertising career as a passionately creative art director.
After a brief stint working in a big-agency environment in Houston, Yvonne
moved to Austin, where she founded Tocquigny in 1980. As the leader of a
creatively focused organization, she produced work that won awards from
the New York Art Directors Club, AIGA, Print, and HOW, in addition to winning
numerous National ADDY and Telly Awards.
Always striving to find new ways to make her clients successful, Yvonne
transformed the creative shop into a full-service agency in 1991. The agency
then began offering interactive marketing services in 1999 and two years
later added database analytics and research capabilities. To this day,
Tocquigny is constantly evolving to offer clients a strategic advantage and
provide employees with a challenging, learning organization.
Currently, Yvonne manages the agency in a hands-on, open-door fashion.
While she remains passionate about the agency’s creative products, she
actively explores new avenues for that creativity — including strategy and
cutting-edge media applications.
Sheila Ferguson
Partner
Sheila provides leadership and direction to the entire agency, ensuring the
integration and progression of each department. During the course of her career,
she held executive leadership positions at technology companies, launched
five new enterprise software solutions, enhanced the competitiveness of several
underperforming products, and transitioned two consultancies into license-based
software solutions providers. She also helped companies maximize ROI through
sophisticated modeling and mathematical algorithms, assess the impact of
organizational behavior on company performance, and use historic profitability
information in decision-making.
John Susskind
Senior Account Director
While working at the nation’s leading advertising and marketing firms, including
Grey Advertising, Ogilvy & Mather, TBWA\Chiat\Day, and Kirshenbaum Bond +
Partners, John built solid relationships with a host of premier clients, such as
Citibank, American Express, Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, Sony, Netscape,
Fujifilm, Pillsbury, General Foods, Bausch & Lomb, Dow Jones & Company,
Sunoco, and Humana.
John has dedicated the majority of his 20-year career to account planning and is
an experienced strategist with a specialty in technology and product development,
helping launch a range of brands and goods from breakfast cereals and films
to credit cards and branded desktop applications. He is also an expert in direct
marketing and has more than 100 million direct mail packages to his credit.
Ryan Bearden
Senior Director, Client Services
With more than 12 years of marketing strategy, brand management, and
direct-marketing experience, Ryan partners with clients to develop and
execute results-focused marketing programs that focus on developing leads
and building brands.
Prior to joining Tocquigny, Ryan was a Senior Manager with Sun Microsystems,
successfully leading a diverse group of departments, including Creative Services,
Customer Marketing, Events Management, and Web Programs, across Sun’s
Software Marketing organization. In senior-level positions in Account Planning
and Client Services at top agencies, he has worked with such global clients as
Citrix, 3M, AMD, Dell, BMC Software, and Caterpillar.
Ryan holds a degree in Sociology from The University of Texas at Austin.
Cesar Perez
Interactive Director
As Interactive Director at Tocquigny, Cesar leads a team of interactive developers in developing and implementing web applications via an array of technologies, including Microsoft .NET, PHP, and Ruby on Rails.
Cesar specializes in application development, ASP.NET technologies, project management, database design, imaging applications, web applications, and system programming. Prior to joining Tocquigny, Cesar was the Lead Software Developer at National Financial Partners, where he led, developed, and maintained intranet .NET web applications, collaborated with business leaders to define project requirements, and aided in design and application development. He has performed programming analysis for such clients as the Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, Pitney Bowes Management Services, ExxonMobil, Shell, Halliburton, and Information Development, Inc.
Cesar holds a Computer Science degree from the Instituto Tecnologico de Ciudad Victoria and a Master’s in Management Information Systems from the Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas in Mexico.
Rick Loconto
Senior Director of Interactive
With a select team of interactive developers, Rick implements interactive
projects across several development platforms, including proprietary
(.NET) and open-source applications, to bring client websites, landing
pages, and other interactive tools to life.
Prior to joining Tocquigny, Rick was the technology lead for Locopwr,
an Austin-based company that provided design, programming, and
hosting for e-commerce sites, corporate sites, intranets, and extranets.
Previously, Rick was VP of Technology for DrKoop.com, where he
managed a 50-person team in areas such as corporate operations,
internet operations, development, quality assurance, traffic reporting,
and customer support.
Rick holds a degree in Economics from The University of Texas at Austin.
Jeff Neely
Director of Creative Strategy
As head of the creative department, Jeff leads a team of talented writers and
art directors in ideation and execution across all media.
Prior to joining Tocquigny, Jeff worked on Dell’s global digital marketing account
at Schematic and was a creative director at integrated marketing firm nFusion.
Throughout his career, Jeff has generated ideas — and results — for Toshiba, NEC,
Nortel, Brinker, FedEx, Logitech, Honeywell, Iomega, Samsung, Heely’s, Schwinn,
and The Texas Department of Health.
His work has been recognized in AdAge’s Creativity, AdWeek, HOW, and PRINT,
and he’s won dozens of awards from the American Advertising Federation, Webby
awards, and ACE awards.
Jeff holds a Master of Arts in Advertising from The University of Texas at Austin.
Tanya Freach
Creative Director
Using 20 years of experience to lead the agency’s creative department,
Tanya guides the development of all written and visual materials to interpret
and represent clients’ brands and products. Her work has been published
in design publications, including Print, Communication Arts, and Graphis,
and has been recognized by Dallas Topps, the Dallas Society of Visual
Communications, and the American Advertising Federation.
Tanya has created award-winning design and communication solutions for
clients in a broad range of industries and has made lasting contributions in
the areas of brand identity, packaging, promotional marketing, environmental
design, and web development for clients such as JCPenney, Stubb’s Bar-B-Q,
Victorinox/Swiss Army, and Sprint.
Tanya holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Advertising Art from The University
of North Texas.
Luke Bone
Director of Interactive Media Group
As head of the interactive media department, Luke manages all aspects of media strategy, planning, execution, and analysis for all data-driven marketing programs.
He approaches client objectives with a database marketing philosophy, while
leveraging metrics, data, and technology to measure performance and provide
insight into audience behavior. In addition to traditional interactive channels
in display advertising, email marketing, and search engine marketing, Luke
also manages mobile marketing — including development of branded apps,
mobile-ready websites, SMS marketing, and mobile advertising — and other
leading-edge media vehicles for all clients. His more than 15 years of experience
in technology and marketing has allowed him to gain an extensive understanding
of direct response media, lead generation, marketing metrics, and analytics.
Luke holds a degree in Marketing from The University of Texas at Austin.
Sherry Holdridge
Director of Interactive Media Group
Sherry founded Tocquigny’s Interactive Media Group to provide clients with a
holistic approach for developing and measuring social media marketing, search
engine optimization, paid search, and branded entertainment campaigns. With
15 years of experience in interactive marketing, she directs a professional team
of passionate futurists in emerging technology to strategically attain business
goals for clients.
Prior to joining Tocquigny, she held the Interactive Marketing Manager position
at the Austin-American Statesman, where she initiated reader-generated content,
developed real-time interactive games, and led traditional and online branding
campaigns. Previously, she led emerging media programs for Dr. George Kozmetsky
at the IC2 Institute, an innovation incubator at The University of Texas at Austin,
where she worked on marketing online learning programs, Artificial Intelligence
games, and the Wireless Future track at South by Southwest Interactive 2004.
Sherry holds a Bachelor of Science in Communications from The University of
Texas at Austin.
Frank Burns
Director of Strategy, Communications
Frank leads Tocquigny’s strategy group, designing and analyzing custom projects
for clients and overseeing the account planning process. Frank’s passion for brands
and communication, as well as understanding client challenges, has led him to the
areas of message development, copy testing, brand equity, audience segmentation,
brand tracking, sponsorship measurement, and concept testing.
Prior to joining Tocquigny, Frank spent eight years with Millward Brown Group,
moving from web advertising measurement in its infancy, to managing the WPP
group’s global brand equity study in the U.K., to advising portfolio-level brand
management in Texas. Throughout his career, Frank has provided B2C and B2B
insight for Danone, Qwest, Hewlett-Packard, Reckitt Benckiser, Kraft, Wal-Mart,
Zales, Dr Pepper, and Pfizer among others.
Frank holds degrees in English and Advertising from Penn State University.
Sam Marshall
Director of Finance
Before joining Tocquigny, Sam was the Director of Finance for Burnt Orange
Productions, which financed and produced such films as The Quiet and
Elvis & Anabelle, and Director of Business Development at RKO Pictures
in Los Angeles, where he worked on Shade. Prior to that, Sam worked in
investment banking at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette in New York City and
Prudential Securities in Houston, where Sam also began his financial
career with Arthur Andersen.
Sam holds a Master of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Arts in
Economics, both from The University of Texas at Austin.
Peter Moossy
Director of Business Development
As Director of Business Development, Peter is the first point of contact for new clients as they begin discussions with Tocquigny. He works to align client goals with Tocquigny’s collective expertise and form mutually beneficial, long-term relationships.
Peter is an expert in marketing and new business relationships. Throughout his 16-year career, he has held account executive positions and senior sales and marketing positions at companies such as Varsity Media Group, The Olson Group, and The Dozier Company, and he has worked with a wide range of prestigious clients, including L’Oréal, Coca-Cola, Palm, Sprint, and Comcast.
Peter holds degrees in Management and Marketing from St. Edward’s University.
