Suzan Brinker, Ph.D. | Co-founder & CEO
Suzan has dedicated her career to helping higher education initiatives build strong value propositions and communicating them to the right audiences. Her work spans enrollment marketing initiatives at Penn State, Northeastern, Babson, and Tufts. Having served as Director of Marketing in complex university settings, Suzan is excited to lead Viv Higher Education because it gives her the chance to build the agency partner she always wished she had.
Suzan is a collaborative leader who understands how to navigate university environments. She has worked extensively with faculty, administrators, and senior leadership teams and is proud of her track record of increasing conversions and enrollments for initiatives targeting a diverse set of audiences, including: continuing education and lifelong learning; undergraduate and graduate students; domestic and international audiences; and broader university communities and employers.
Kalman Gacs | Co-founder
Kalman is a creative leader with an eye for detail honed from rigorous training in the fine arts at Boston University. He has developed graphics for small businesses and nonprofits as well as a number of Fortune 500 companies. After transitioning to web design, Kalman’s deep curiosity about psychology and human behavior led him to cultivate an expertise in User Experience (UX) and the subtle aspects of persuasive design.
Audra DeLaney-Hall | Vice President of People Operations
Audra began her career in higher education at Bowling Green State University and later at Williams College, where she honed her marketing and operations skills on cross-functional teams dedicated to enhancing enrollment pipelines through innovative marketing strategies and collaborative community initiatives. Her hands-on experience in these roles equipped her with a deep understanding of the intersection between academic institutions and the broader community. Audra leverages her multifaceted background to drive forward strategic initiatives that empower employees, optimize internal efficiency, and actualize client goals.
Flannery Burdick | Senior Director of Content
During her decade and a half in the field of international higher education, Flannery has worked with universities, colleges, consortia, government agencies, companies, and nonprofits in 15+ countries to improve their international communications and strategies. Her background has included positions such as lead marketing and publicity writer for the global outreach office of a US university, editor at a large university press in China, and manager of content strategy and editorial services at The Brenn-White Group, a marketing firm that established international higher education as a specialized field requiring focus and dedication.
Dana Cruikshank | Vice President of Growth
Guided by a belief in the fundamental value of higher education, Dana has built his career around helping institutions find the right path to sustainable growth. His experience working with higher education leaders at the National Science Foundation and as an enrollment marketing strategist, coupled with his hands-on experience at Virginia Tech ground his approach to exploring ideas and strategies around branding, digital marketing, lead nurturing, rankings improvement, and other aspects of enrollment marketing. Despite having worked directly with over 50 institutions in his career, he discovers something new about higher education every day, and brings that sense of curiosity and possibilities to Viv’s clients.
Jessica Matsumori | Digital Marketing Manager
A strategist by nature, Jessica shapes marketing decisions around data, and content around consumer profiles. Coming from the University of North Texas, she has experience with a wide array of communications tools in the higher-ed space, including paid media, content creation, project management, organic social media, and front-end web development and design. Her fascination with languages and new technologies leads her to continuously explore new marketing solutions.
Sydney Halliwell | Paid Media Manager
Sydney is a passionate marketer with extensive experience in the higher education space. She comes to Viv from Arizona State University, where she spent over four years crafting ASU’s paid media and organic social media strategy, focusing mainly on brand development and awareness. Sydney has a B.A. in Journalism, an M.S. in Digital Audience Strategy, and skills in paid media, organic social media, content creation, strategy, and research. She’s deeply interested in how higher ed institutions can represent student stories in media to recruit a highly digital new generation of learners.
Steve Lipscomb | Web Analytics Specialist
Soon after starting at Johnson & Johnson in 1999, Steve grew interested in digital marketing and became the in-house expert on web analytics. In his 25 years there, he managed multiple large-scale Google Analytics projects, facilitating tracking mechanisms to monitor website activity and campaign performance. At Viv Higher Ed, Steve helps our clients diagnose website tracking issues to ensure proper lead attribution and conversion tracking. He also builds data dashboards to provide a holistic view of the enrollment funnel, enabling more strategic decisions about marketing spend and priorities.