Meet the Intead Team

Ben founded his own marketing agency in 1992, before desktop and handheld internet connections were present, much less ubiquitous. His first internet start-up venture began in 1995 and failed in 1997, before the internet bubble and ensuing tech crash even began. He considers this failure a badge of honor.

With the growth of Ben’s marketing agency (now Tessellati, LLC) as a niche firm focused on academic marketing and international student recruitment, the student mobility data was clear. In 2009, co-founding Intead was an obvious next step.

In the academic market, Ben manages strategic evaluations of recruiting initiatives by conducting market and competitive analyses. He is adept at listening to the many voices at the table and seeking effective approaches to the many challenges that organizations face when developing their brands or extending the reach of their current brand and their programs.

Using Intead’s proprietary research and by conducting custom research for specific client projects, Ben develops branding strategies that differentiate client brands, programs and services. He ensures that the resulting campaigns employ the most relevant mix of marketing tools from mobile apps and digital/interactive media to print collateral and traditional PR. He also relies on tapping a vast talent network for those key personal introductions that result in valuable marketing relationships.

Ben has traveled extensively in Europe and the Middle East and taken business trips to Canada, Mexico, Russia, Hong Kong, and China. Ben participates and presents at international education industry conferences including AIEA, EAIE, AIRC, NAFSA, NACAC, ICEF, the Enrollment Management Association, and The Forum on International Education.

Ben earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wesleyan University and a Masters in Business Administration from Northeastern University. He studied Middle Eastern Politics at Hebrew University in Jerusalem during his undergraduate years and has continued his learning with executive education courses.

After two decades as a broadcast journalist and creative and marketing leader, Britt now advises our clients in creative, integrated marketing and brand storytelling. As we become intimately familiar with our client’s story and business challenge, Britt partners with our planning and strategy team to ensure a clear value proposition, a sound strategic plan and solid creative brief. She then provides custom creative campaigns, concepts and direction that will meet that challenge with beautiful creative, flawlessly executed.

Britt’s most recent previous role was Vice President and Executive Producer at Edelman, where she spent eight years looking after the fast-growing creative and marketing teams for the Corporate & Public Affairs practice, including Edelman NY’s academic clients, with a specialty in film and video production. Britt was a founding member of the firm’s most robust creative team, now over 100 strong, and spearheaded the firm’s creative offering at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, expanding it over 7 years. She served as EP for the creative around the annual Edelman Trust Barometer, the firm’s signature IP, for six years and in 2016 served as EP for the creative within the campaign that won Grand Prix Titanium and Promo/Activation Lions at Cannes. 

Over her career, Britt has formed and steered integrated teams of specialists and creative partners to win business and deliver award winning creative including above-the-line creative and creative execution including film and video, print design, photography, experiential and digital. She particularly enjoys engaging directly with the C-Suite of companies large and small around their marketing and creative ambitions.

Before working in marketing, Britt’s years as a journalist armed her with the presentation and media training skills she has leveraged and taught throughout her career. She served as a local on-air reporter, assignment desk manager, producer, shooter and editor in New York after getting her start at the DC Bureau of the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather. 

An avid traveler, Britt has traveled to six continents, including Antarctica, and hopes to cross Australia off her list very soon. She graduated cum laude from George Washington University with a BA in History and a Minor in Journalism.

Iliana dives deep into data to ensure client marketing initiatives deliver measurable results. From initial analysis of campaign criteria through optimization, Iliana’s ability to interpret numbers enables Intead clients to make sound marketing decisions based on real results.

She’s a natural collaborator who brings extensive experience in leading cutting-edge marketing campaigns, managing media placements, and executing event marketing. Her expertise is most often tapped for the strategic implementation and reporting of clients’ marketing campaigns across all channels. Our clients value her facility with Google Analytics, Excel, and other specialized data analysis tools paired with the rare ability to translate findings into understandable insights.

As a native Spanish speaker, Iliana leans on her Hispanic background and cultural awareness throughout her work. She volunteers as a foster youth mentor and serves on the board of directors at Silver Lining Mentoring in Boston. Guiding and educating the youth is one of her passions, especially those with greater needs.

Iliana is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Boston, having earned a BS in Business Management with a focus on Marketing and a minor in Communications Studies. She continues to pursue training in the marketing analytics space to stay ahead of the industry’s evolving trends.

As a native Spanish speaker, Iliana leans on her Hispanic background and cultural awareness throughout her work. She volunteers as a foster youth mentor and serves on the board of directors at Silver Lining Mentoring in Boston. Guiding and educating the youth is one of her passions, especially those with greater needs.

Iliana is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Boston, having earned a BS in Business Management with a focus on Marketing and minor in Communications Studies. She continues to pursue training in the digital ad space to stay ahead of the industry’s evolving trends.

Justine’s training as a humor writer and prestige strategist has paved the way for a rich record of written work and creative direction across a swath of Fortune 100 companies. In all of her output, Justine infuses the triangulation of earnestness, delightfulness, and eloquence, toward the correction of the most daunting consumer retention, and attention preservation challenges, within any business arena before her.

Isabel Aucca Farfan brings five years of experience in digital analytics and brand expansion to her role as Digital Marketing Manager at Intead. Passionate about creative collaboration, Isabel is instrumental in upholding purpose-based marketing initiatives and disseminating and tracking engaging, user-focused content to enhance the digital presence of brands.

Isabel excels in managing social and data-driven marketing strategies while also building strong client relationships. Her expertise in UX and website analytics provides clients with a user-centered approach by enabling them to execute omnichannel marketing campaigns and equipping them with valuable insights to anticipate future trends and shifts in consumer behavior. Employing methodologies like design thinking, she uses consumer insights to inform and develop distinctive brands that can drive product breakthroughs and powerful marketing campaigns.

Isabel holds a bachelor of business administration degree from Universidad del Pacífico (PE), and master’s degrees in international marketing and business administration from Hult International Business School. She speaks fluent Spanish, English, and Portuguese. 

Originally from Peru, Isabel loves to travel to historical cities and experience different cultures. Having traveled to 35 countries to date, she is keeping to her goal of visiting one new country every year.

Tianyu Shen is an expert data analyst focused on providing our team and clients with top-notch data insights to optimize business processes and marketing initiatives. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Statistics degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and received a Master of Science degree from Northeastern University.

Tianyu is skilled in developing distinct methods to solve challenges. Building relationships with clients is one of his strongest attributes, acting as a trusted advisor who offers solutions to obstacles with a data-informed approach.

Originally from China, Tianyu is fluent in Mandarin, and has lived in the US for more than seven years. Tianyu is a self-proclaimed pet-lover, and enjoys spending time with his cat, Meeka. In his spare time, he makes music as a disc jockey.

Carrie brings nearly two decade’s experience in public relations and communications to the Intead team. Her career commenced in the San Francisco Bay Area during the height of dot-com mania. There she was welcomed into the fold of Ask Jeeves’ corporate communications. She was at the forefront of search analytics and the monetization of online content. It was the cusp of digital marketing, and a lot of very fast paced fun. Carrie moved on to a full-service marketing agency in Indianapolis, Miller Brooks, where she managed the firm’s largest PR client Saint-Gobain’s CertainTeed Corporation, and worked with other trade and consumer accounts including Delta Faucet Company, Chicago Metallic, ClarkDietrich and more.

Her cautiously adventurous approach to life has helped her family adjust to moves across the country and around the world. Most recently Carrie’s family returned to the U.S. from a two-year stint in Japan, which allowed for life-changing travel through the Kansai region and Tokyo, as well as Vietnam, Thailand and Guam. She now resides in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and recently joined the Intead team where her learning agility and quick engagement fit right in. Carrie attended Oklahoma State University where she earned a BA in  Journalism & Broadcasting.

Emily Marrs is a former journalist and educator with a passion for storytelling. Our clients value her deep perspective on creative and engaging content as a way of teaching a target audience.

Having received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English/Journalism from the University of New Hampshire, and a Master of Arts degree in English Education from Boston University, she has worked at several New England publications as a reporter, copy editor, and page designer. Additionally, she has taught journalism, literature, and composition classes to students at the middle- and high-school levels, as well as college composition courses as an adjunct professor. 

Creative by nature, and motivated by deadlines, Emily thrives when working on detail-oriented endeavors. She sincerely appreciates opportunities for collaboration and is a true team player when it comes to completing projects that have meaningful goals. An outdoor enthusiast, Emily loves exploring new places, practicing yoga, and enjoying a good cup of coffee.

Intead clients appreciate Maggie’s public relations experience, thoughtful content strategy approach, and clear, engaging writing skills. With a focus on client success and relationship management, her past work with a creative marketing team in social services and healthcare points to the empathy she brings to understanding audience needs. 

Maggie is skilled in crisis communications, digital marketing, and comprehensive content marketing and writing. Interested in research-driven data, She utilizes analytics to craft impactful writing and campaigns. Maggie holds a BA in Public Relations and minors in Professional and Public Writing and Political Science from Roger Williams University. She enjoys reading and hiking with her rescue dog Luna.

Dan’s background in healthcare, the service industry, and education sector collide to inform his unique approach to people-focused problem-solving. His experiences as an ESL teacher in Beijing, living and working in Hawaii, and pursuing a graduate degree in Human Resources, reflect Dan’s deep passion for people. He brings an invaluable anthropological and sociological lens to the team that helps us understand our unique contemporary challenges.

Reina Sekiguchi is a digital strategist and writer with a breadth of experience in developing engaging marketing collateral for academia, healthcare, and retail. With her diverse professional background in E-commerce financial planning and merchandising, Reina is adept at synthesizing and translating data and research insights into a clear, creative, and highly marketable digital package. She has contributed her versatile voice and keen editing eye to Intead’s Recruiting Intelligence Blog and other brand projects for more than five years.

An avid traveler, Reina has visited over 15 countries across the globe including Thailand, Pakistan, and Japan where she worked as a Classroom Specialist at The American School in Japan’s English language immersion summer camp. Her international focus informs her current work as a manager of travel experiences and merchandising strategy for the digital fundraising platform, Omaze.  

Reina graduated summa cum laude from Barnard College with a BA in Psychology and a minor in English. She is based in Los Angeles, California. 

Sally completed her Bachelor’s degree at the University of California, Irvine, majoring in Education Science. She completed her Master's degree at Boston College, studying International Higher Education. 

Ann Marie brings a diverse skill set to the Intead team allowing her to work on a variety of projects from high-end print collateral (annual reports, invitations, sell sheets) to social media ads, animations and infographics.

With over 10 years’ experience in the field, she has a background in print-production, ranging from screen printing to large format, as well as layout design, illustration and working knowledge of digital design. 

Ann Marie’s positivity and curious nature drive her passion for conceptualizing and designing unique solutions that fit client needs. Ann Marie loves being a lifelong student, always learning new tools and jumping into projects that offer an exciting challenge. Ann Marie holds a bachelor’s degree in art with a graphic design concentration and marketing minor from Salem State College.

Diego a multi-talented design professional applies the foundations UX/UI to create strategic relevance, and achieve results for Intead clients.

Diego explores audience behavior and content consumption to create a strong interpretations of data that then influences action. To do this well, he takes time to understand the underlying emotional draws that prompt people to engage.

With more than 15 years designing experiences for B2B and B2C clients internationally, Diego brings a global business perspective and strong creative and analytical skills to enrich what Intead offers to our clients. We all learn from his ability to bring brand experiences to life in multichannel marketing environments.

Diego shares his expertise regularly with others. He has led free courses in human behavior and has become a well sought out speaker in retail and visual merchandising for events and podcasts.

 Diego has a BA in Visual Programming Design and a BA in Product Design from FAAP in Brazil, and a Master’s in Digital Business from Porto Business School in Portugal. 

Linda brings to the team over 20 years of graphic design experience that translates into fresh and creative concepts for our client collateral. She has experience conceptualizing and designing diverse marketing pieces within the healthcare, education, architecture, publishing, giftware, travel, and manufacturing industries. She easily and naturally translates content into something both artistically engaging and conversion effective.

She is passionate about transforming clients’ messages into innovative visual concepts that will appeal to target audiences and add value to their brands.

Linda graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Graphic Design.

Betsy is a highly skilled editor and content-writer with a BA in Political Science from Wellesley College. She has an instinct for content that engages. Her passion for meaningful expression is clear in her writing, and she has a fondness for foreign languages that further enhances her skill set.

Betsy has always had a strong interest in education, health, and the environment and has experience with writing and editing in each of these fields. In over two decades of work and leadership volunteering with small businesses and non-profits, she has become an invaluable source of experience and editorial skill to our clients.

Director of Global Marketing, Recruitment, and Enrollment Initiatives & Adjunct Professor in the College of Professional Studies at Northeastern University, Hillary enjoys working with faculty, colleagues and partners on developing new paths to reach enrollment goals. She is inspired by re-imagining how to create larger impact and more meaningful academic experiences and is never bound by “how we’ve done it before.” She brings her wealth of academic marketing experience to Intead client engagements.

In her role at Northeastern, Hillary has worked on innovation curriculum for executive education programs at multi-national, high-tech companies in the following industries: banking, healthcare (payer and payee), higher education, public sector (all levels of government), manufacturing, and distribution.

Her educational background includes a BA in Political Science, MBA, and current Doctoral Candidate in Law and Policy. After giving up life as an expat in China and Australia, Hillary now resides in the U.S. with her much stamped passport.

Daniela is a multi-lingual coach and an international education professional with experience in management consulting, student recruitment and developing relationships with schools and universities worldwide. She helps Intead clients plan and execute marketing campaigns for global student outreach and recruitment.

Daniela proudly hails from Argentina and has studied abroad twice in the U.S.. Her global connections and specific experience in Latin America allow her to connect and develop strategic partnerships with educational associations, universities, high schools, and education corporations worldwide. She is proficient in English, Spanish, French, and has a working knowledge of Portuguese.

Work ethic is highly important to Daniela. As a result, she provides every client, and faces every problem, with focused and comprehensive solutions. She is passionate about helping others succeed and is committed to contributing to her own team’s success as well.

Edward began his career in international marketing and management after he migrated from China to Canada. He holds an MBA in International Management and was academically trained in Chinese linguistics. As a native Mandarin speaker, he also has professional Chinese language skills.

Edward has comprehensive knowledge of structuring and implementing international marketing strategies for real outcomes with a variety of stakeholders in a multi-cultural environment.He has a deep understanding of Chinese social media and the mindsets of students and parents in different segments of China’s international education market. With extensive experience and great familiarities with policies and regulations in China, he is also a valuable resource for building recruitment networks and developing international academic cooperation.