Phame Influence Podcast

Tori Johnston is an experienced Chief Marketing Officer with a demonstrated history of working in the health, wellness, and fitness industry with brands like Pure Barre, SoulCycle, Xtend Barre, and AKT. 

Tori is a seasoned leader with a result-oriented, data-driven, innovative and passionate approach to marketing.  With a passion for health and fitness, Tori has brought her marketing and branding expertise to the Xponential Fitness family and is currently overseeing all brand and marketing initiatives as CMO of one of the fastest-growing boutique fitness studios in the country - AKT. 

Andy Mecs is the Vice President of Marketing & Innovation at StarKist, the number one brand of tuna in the United States. He has served in a variety of field sales, trade marketing and consumer marketing roles during his career. He is also a licensed attorney, who earned his JD/MBA from the University of Pittsburgh.

With Mecs’ leadership, StarKist has placed an emphasis on convenient, healthy food products,
leading to dozens of innovative new products and the “Tear. Eat. Go.” campaign for StarKist
Tuna, Salmon and Chicken Creations. As a result, pouch products are generating rapid growth,
and StarKist is approaching a 50.0 share in the tuna category.

Travis Kimball is a Founding Partner and the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) of Quick Quack Car Wash. Mr. Kimball has helped grow the company from a single car wash to more than 110 locations in five states. Among other things, he is primarily responsible for branding, direct marketing, advertising, promotions, customer experience, social media, community relations, and public relations. Mr. Kimball has a MBA from Brigham Young University and previous marketing experience with start-up dot.com companies as well as real estate development and retail management.

Jon Schram is an IT support expert and the founder & CEO of The Purple Guys, a tech company that has grown since 2001 to become the Midwest’s premier provider of IT support services. The Purple Guys is a fast-growing, 7-digit business that has helped hundreds of companies grow by solving their IT problems and providing them with stress-free, bullet-proof tech support. Jon and his wife, Jill, have three children and have founded two businesses together.

Bryan Sarff founded True Wealth & Company to help entrepreneurs turn business success into personal wealth through a proprietary process called True Chief of Staff™. He hosts a weekly podcast titled Let’s Make Work Optional™.  As a lifelong entrepreneur, Bryan intimately understands the delicate balancing act between a successful personal and business life. 

 Bryan serves the community as a Certified Financial Planner™ professional and as an active board member for Band of Angels. 

He is a graduate of Mizzou’s School of Business and lives in Leawood, KS, with his incredible wife, three fantastic daughters, and two adorable Westies. 

For fun Bryan enjoys smoking BBQ on his Traeger, socializing with friends over a craft beer, occasional exercise, a good book, bass fishing, and digging productive holes in his yard.

Leslie Greve was recently promoted to CMO at BGZ Brands, parent company of BodyGuardz, Lander and Moxyo brands. She joined the company in 2015, bringing with her experience in driving revenue and profitability through building partnerships, developing teams, negotiating contracts and building programs.  

Leslie now leads BGZ brands on creating a world class customer experience, using data to steer the acceleration.  She is a self-admitted "data nerd" who loves reading industry news, studying macro trends and sharing all of it to anyone who will listen.  When she isn’t at the office, she enjoys adventures with her husband, puppy and two smart, funny, feisty boys.

Richard Jones is the CMO at Cheetah Digital where he oversees a global team that is responsible for all aspects of the brand, demand generation, digital marketing, corporate communications, and sales development. With more than 20 years of marketing, sales and strategy experience, Jones was previously the CEO of Wayin, a global leader in zero-party data collection and activation. There, he helped many of the world’s leading brands such as Daily Mail Group, NHL, Bauer Media, Vodafone, Priceline.com, Reckitt Benckiser, Air New Zealand, and Manchester City FC create zero-party data strategies.

Prior to this, Jones was the Co-Founder and CEO of UK based Saas start-up EngageSciences which was merged in 2016 with Wayin - a company founded and run by Sun Microsystems legendary co-founder and CEO Scott McNealy. After the acquisition Scott became Chairman and Jones took over as CEO of the combined entity. Wayin was sold to Cheetah Digital in June 2019 to form a crucial part of the company's award winning Customer Engagement Suite.

Grant Eckert is the Chief Marketing Officer for Spring Venture Group, a holding company representing leading insurance agencies focused on the senior health market. Together, with a team of high-performing, results-driven marketers he is responsible for the company’s brand strategy, as well as developing and executing innovative marketing programs to reach and attract the addressable market. 

Since joining Spring Venture Group earlier this year, he has already led a series of groundbreaking initiatives aimed at positioning the company as a data and technology leader, while amplifying the already-strong reputation of the brands he represents. As Spring Venture Groups continues to become a Medicare solutions powerhouse, he and his team will continue to apply the latest in marketing innovation to achieve industry-leading results. Prior to joining Spring Venture Group, Grant was the Chief Marketing Officer for National Debt Relief. During his tenure, the company achieved record growth, quickly becoming a leader within the debt resolutions industry. 

Before National Debt Relief, Grant held a series of leadership roles with companies including J.G.Wentworth, Medical Guardian, Barclays, and Harte-Hanks. In addition to his corporate leadership experience, Grant has also successfully launched two separate ventures, both which he later sold.While pursuing his MBA from Lehigh University, Grant worked for the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) helping clients throughout Pennsylvania start, expand, and/or sell their business, among other things. In addition to his MBA, Grant holds a BA from The Ohio State University.

Russell Barnett is currently the Managing Director and CMO | My/Mo Mochi Ice Cream.  As a creative marketing executive with deep experience in category-creating food and beverage items. He specializes in providing vision, direction and leadership to entrepreneurial spirited brands.

After a stint in the advertising business, Barnett was asked to open the US Operation and run marketing for an unknown alcohol beverage, mike’s hard lemonade. During his tenure he took the brand from inception to +$150M in just 5 years.

Barnett then headed marketing for Gardein, where the brand grew from ~$30M to a run rate of ~$90M annually before being purchased by Pinnacle Foods PF (NYSE). Additionally, Mr. Barnett held CMO tenure at KeVita which was recently sold to PepsiCo PEP (NYSE). Other career highlights include launching the popular snack brand popchips in the US, Canada and the UK while creating the “popped chip” category.

He was also just named one of Forbes’ CMO Next 2019: 50 Game-Changing Marketing Leaders and one of Adweek’s 2019 LA Brand Stars.

Lisa Lewis is Chief Marketing Officer of PFF where she is responsible for facilitating growth, sales and a strategic marketing vision for the gita robot and all products produced by PFF.She brings with her more than 20 years of marketing experience and big plans for PFF’s first product, the gita robot.

A California girl at heart, Lisa was born in Boston, raised in California but relocated back to Boston where she earned her BA in Business Management from Curry College while working full-time at Reebok. After earning her degree, she quickly rose through the ranks at Reebok where she discovered her love for brand marketing and her knack for building global campaigns and managing VIP partnerships.

She has since led the digital marketing efforts for American Eagle Outfitters, served as Brand Manager at Converse for the Chuck Taylor brand, and served as Head of Lifestyle and Music Marketing at Puma.  Eventually, her love of technology led her to join Sonos, Inc. where she held several roles including Global Head of Product Collaborations over her nearly seven years in-house.

Most recently, she was the VP of Marketing for the 100 year old Keds brand, where she rebuilt their strategy around women empowerment and was part of an all-women leadership team, which is unprecedented in the sneaker industry. Her most important roles however, are that of mom – to a spirited 3 ½ – year-old Vander and a charming 6-month old Phoenix – and wife – to a supportive husband and fellow marketer, Jed. With a love for travel, she always has the next family getaway planned, usually including a beach, some yoga (she’s a certified yoga teacher), and a lot of music to sing and dance to.