Friday Forum

Elizabeth S. Paul

Elizabeth is the Chief Strategy Officer of The Martin Agency. She recently rejoined the creative juggernaut after four years at IPG sister agency, MullenLowe U.S. where she became one of the youngest CSOs in the industry. An AdAge “40 Under 40,” “Woman of the A-List” and Campaign’s “Strategist of the Year,” Elizabeth is best known for the way she turns strategy into the cultural engine of an agency.

Her approach to running an integrated strategy group like an R&D lab has netted a social content studio that generated tens of millions of dollars in earned media for Burger King, a data arts lab that fueled a 92% new business win rate, cultural insights that landed E*TRADE among the top Super Bowl spots in industry rankings and innovative industry releases like the Covid Tension Map and The Visibility Brief.

Helena Berhane

Helena Berhane is a Senior Strategist at the Martin agency across a variety of brands including Purina, Old Navy, and Penske. As a first-generation Ethiopian-Eritrean, born in Sweden raised by Chicago – she has a multidimensional perspective on identity. Helena graduated from Syracuse University where she studied Sociology and International Business. Her passion for brand strategy is motivated by the fact that she was brought up around so many different cultures and yet didn't see diverse communities being authentically represented in American media. She dedicates her work to representing the human experience more dynamically.

Helena is inspired by the power of culture and the positive impact that brands can have on building community. In 2019, she was recognized as an AdColor Future and currently serves on the board of the Marcus Graham Project. In her down time you can find her exploring museums, hunting down new coffee shops and doing yoga to find zen. She considers herself a citizen of the world and is driven to help brands create solutions that can empower community building.