MAIN – Strategic Engagement

Max Entman is a proven communications and marketing leader with a track record of launching strategic, results-driven campaigns and public awareness programs. He guides project teams as they deliver strategic and innovative solutions to Aptive’s clients. He also leads business development activities, helping Aptive expand its strategic communications and recruitment marketing footprint across the federal government.

He has over 13 years of experience in the communications and marketing field with a focus on delivering digital and creative solutions to accelerate innovation and transform target audience behavior. In addition to experience with numerous federal agencies, Max brings the perspective of leading work with large corporations and leading non-profit organizations to the development of solutions for Aptive’s public sector clients. From enterprise website transformations to targeted digital campaigns with multimillion-dollar budgets, he leads teams to drive business value for Aptive’s clients.

• M.A., Global Communication, The George Washington University
• B.A., Public Policy and International Relations, Duke University

Emily Howell is a research-driven communications strategist and business development specialist with a decade of experience leading multimillion dollar campaigns for federal clients. Emily uses her background in service delivery for agencies such as the Departments of Transportation and Veterans Affairs, National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to identify client pain points and develop high-quality, innovative solutions. She has overseen the capture, bid and execution of hundreds of millions of dollars of communications and marketing projects throughout the federal government. She excels at building relationships with partners and clients and developing teams that drive results.

• Certified Project Management Professional (PMP)
• George Washington University’s Milken Institute of Public Health 950 Award Winner
• MPH, George Washington University
• B.A., University of Michigan

Marisa Cole is a strategic powerhouse leading a team of creative thinkers and communicators in strategic engagement initiatives. She oversees project delivery, drives service offering maturation and conducts business development activities for a growing portfolio of contracts across the federal government, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Department of Defense (DOD). She is a skilled writer and facilitator with 20 years of experience mobilizing change in federal and health care environments. Marisa’s areas of expertise include managing strategic communications efforts and directing change management for large scale enterprise-wide transformation initiatives.

Throughout her career, Marisa has supported a wide variety of government clients, including DOD, VA, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), United States Postal Service (USPS) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). She is highly skilled in cultivating trusting relationships with clients and colleagues and has a passion for clear communication and transformative change. Marisa’s prior roles focused on advising and coaching executive and mid-level leaders on communications and change management skills and techniques; creating innovative approaches to reach diverse, geographically-dispersed populations; and providing trusted guidance on communication, branding and marketing of organizational initiatives, policies and services. She has spent a significant portion of her career implementing and guiding change management strategy to transform large, integrated health care systems into high reliability organizations.

• Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS), Institute for Healthcare Improvement
• Prosci Certified Change Management Practitioner (CCMP)
• M.A., Communications, The Johns Hopkins University
• B.A., International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University

Taylor Grant is a creative leader and experienced designer who applies human-centered design to produce innovative and impactful visual communication materials. Through strategic oversight, she ensures the creative team develops engaging brands and campaigns that achieve client goals while informing, inspiring and encouraging action. She creates thoughtful brand identities, paid media, social, events, out-of-home advertising, websites and outside-the-box creative executions that connect with target audiences and leave a lasting impression.

Taylor has more than 12 years of experience in visual communications and her eye for design and prior work with federal agencies provides Taylor with the ability to lead, support and serve Aptive’s creative team.

• Telly Award Winner for Art Direction in Social Impact
• M.S., Communications Design, Pratt Institute
• B.A., Psychology, Dartmouth College

Kaveh is a creative visual storyteller with extensive video production experience, both in studios and on location. His role is to direct, manage and oversee video production and visual storytelling strategy at Aptive and to help enhance and elevate visual direction for creative campaigns nationwide. Over the past 15 years, Kaveh has been a part of teams and organizations that tell effective stories, conceptualizing creative ideas while thinking outside the box to showcase the most innovative stories, brands and campaigns. At Voice of America, he co-created the ‘People in America’ series, which became one of the most popular and widely watched visual series for TV and online platforms. At USA TODAY, Kaveh helped build and create the foundation for digital video franchise storytelling. At Moko Social Media, he helped build the video department from the ground up and created visual franchise series for all of its verticals.

Kaveh’s core passion is to create a safe, collaborative space for storytellers and creatives that helps foster vision, inspiration and creativity. “As creatives, we do our best work when we come together and that’s exactly what we’re building at Aptive and what sets us apart.”

• Expertise in Adobe Creative Cloud Suite, 508 Compliance
• M.A., Film and Video, American University
• B.S., Finance, George Mason University
• Award Winner, Platinum and Gold Hermes Creative Awards
• Award Winner, Platinum and Gold MarCom Awards

Seth Niman leads Aptive’s media team, delivering marketing solutions and strategies to our federal and commercial clients. Seth and his team have extensive expertise in planning, negotiating and optimizing advertising campaigns designed to achieve their customers’ goals with specific, measurable results.

Seth applies a holistic approach to planning and buying across the media landscape, including digital programmatic, paid search, paid social, digital video/audio, connected television, out of home, print, television and radio. He utilizes a research-oriented process to develop the ideal media and advertising strategy, selecting the channels that align with the client’s overarching strategy and advancing their marketing objectives.

With more than 20 years of experience as an advertising, media and marketing professional, Seth has supported the branding, recruitment and product marketing efforts for Fannie Mae, McDonald’s, Cava, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

• B.A., English, University of Virginia

Dr. Tara Fannon is a human-centered design researcher and educator with 13 years of experience developing and leading high-impact projects in the U.S. and abroad. Her work in education, non-profit, government and corporate sectors has led to actionable changes in the areas of diversity, equity and inclusion; disability accessibility; mental health care access; workplace equity; and environmental sustainability. Throughout her career, Dr. Fannon has published widely and earned grants, fellowships and awards for her research and writing capabilities, including Excellence in Leadership as a market research team leader. Her love of teaching and learning is complemented by a love for mentorship and seeing team members flourish. At Aptive, Dr. Fannon leverages these passions along with intellectual curiosity and creativity, and an ability to build relationships to lead and support the research team and serve clients. Her skills, passions and exposure to different markets enable her to work collaboratively across diverse needs and interests to deliver teams and clients compelling data-driven insights and recommendations.

• PhD, Sociology, National University Ireland, Galway
• M.A., Sociology of Health and Medicine, University College Dublin, Ireland
• B.A. Honors, Sociology, University College Dublin, Ireland