Amazing People
Brimming with Intelligence
We’ve spent a decade refining our hiring process to build a team that will walk toward challenges, cheer on their peers, and drive change for clients and the digital marketing industry.
Pat East Founder & CEO
With 20 years of experience in online marketing, Pat’s professional background spans B2C and B2B marketing and includes the creation of PPC Hero and Hero Conf. As CEO of Hanapin Marketing, he has overseen 12 years of profitability and 11 years of double-digit revenue growth. He is an avid angel investor, advising startups with high-growth potential, and is the president of the Bloomington chapter of VisionTech Angels.
Jeff Allen President
With over 15 years of experience in digital advertising, Jeff started his career by leading the development of an email marketing platform before moving on to developing sales and marketing departments for several service-based start ups. Since coming to Hanapin, the company has grown employees and revenue by 5x. His role is to translate goals into strategies and plans, without removing the company’s ability to be flexible and make decisions for the best performance possible.
Tom Hootman VP of Revenue
With 14 years of experience in client acquisition and retention, Tom leads the Sales and Client Services teams toward growth and success by removing obstacles and developing unique solutions for a varied client set. Before Hanapin, he was named Sales Growth Champion & District Sales Manager of the year. His experience of building and scaling a Sales team from scratch pushed Hanapin to 5x growth while repeatedly landing on the Inc. 5000 list and record-breaking client retention.
Kayla Kurtz Director of Sales
Kayla has grown from Account Manager at Hanapin to her current role as Director of Sales based on a passion for connecting the agency’s solutions with prospective client needs. She’s played a part in signing many of Hanapin’s largest clients and now focuses on helping the entire Sales department achieve annual revenue goals. Kayla facilitates process development for the Sales team, alongside managing accountability, expediting completion & implementation of projects, and continuing work on expanding our Enterprise client roster. She’s also our Hero Conf emcee and one of Hanapin’s biggest brand ambassadors.
Carrie Albright Director of Services
As an ambassador for Paid Search advertising, Carrie delivers a diversity of management skills to her role of Director of Services at Hanapin. She contributes to the PPC Hero blog and regularly speaks at conferences such as State of Search, ClickZ, and Hero Conf. No stranger to numbers, Carrie achieved her Masters degree in Policy Analysis with a focus on statistics and economics. This training has allowed her to successfully lead her accounts to improved revenue, higher returns, and more strategic customer acquisition. She is responsible for shaping account strategies and ensuring client/agency goal alignment, as well as managing the work that makes goal achievement possible for some of Hanapin’s largest clients.
Jeff Baum Director of Services
Jeff leverages his thirteen year record of success scaling PPC accounts and building strong client relationships to provide his team with the tools and resources to successfully manage Hanapin’s clients. Jeff shares his industry knowledge by writing for Hanapin’s blog, PPC Hero & Search Engine Land and has spoken at industry events such as Hanapin’s Hero Conf and SMXL Milan.
Wendy Buckley Controller
Wendy has been with Hanapin for over 3 years and has been a beacon of reliability as the leader of Hanapin’s finance department. She’s has over 15 years of experience in accounting and loves spending time with her dogs.
Our People Win Together
Kristine brings a passion for exceptional customer service to her role as Associate Director of Client Services. With nearly 5 years of experience at Hanapin and 18 years of sales experience, Kristine has honed her customer service skills helping her to ensure the longevity of the agency-client relationship. By being a new client concierge as well as applying true listening skills to really hear what our clients are saying, she is able to help create the best experience possible for all of Hanapin’s clients.
With over eight years of PPC experience, Cassie is Hanapin Marketing’s Associate Director of Services, Growth and PPCHERO.com author. Throughout her PPC journey, Cassie has had the opportunity to work on some of the world’s largest Fortune 500 PPC accounts in tech, travel and eCommerce. Today she spends her time at Hanapin managing enterprise level accounts while helping manage a team of PPC experts focused on analysis and finding opportunities for our clients to expand their digital reach.
With 14 years of PPC experience under her belt, Diane has had the opportunity to watch the paid search industry grow from the ground up. Having worked in both the in-house and agency sides, Diane currently serves as Hanapin Marketing’s Associate Director of Services where she is responsible for working directly with the account management team as they manage and grow their accounts. In addition to her role as Associate Director, Diane is an active contributor to the PPC HERO blog and has spoken at Hanapin’s Hero Conf events.
As Hanapin’s Associate Art Director, Megan oversees the Hanapin, PPC Hero, and Hero Conf brands. She manages the internal optimization team and website presence for all three brands. Megan has been a leader in Hanapin’s internal marketing department for over 5 years. Her legacy of quick, high-quality work has earned her the nickname: “Megatron.”
Matt has been in the PPC industry for over a decade, working and collaborating with clients across several industries to attain better ROIs, improved lead generation, and increased brand awareness. Along with leading Hanapin’s search initiatives, Matt runs content production for the most popular PPC blog in the world, PPC Hero. He also writes monthly articles for search publications such as Search Engine Land and Marketing Land.
You may also know Matt from PPCChat (#PPCChat), a weekly Twitter chat where industry specialists across the world discuss various PPC topics. Every Tuesday at 12 PM EST, everything from the fundamentals to metrics and theory to the future of PPC is discussed.
As Hanapin’s Associate Director of HR, Molly oversees all talent management and operations efforts from initial recruitment through every team member’s tenure. During her time at Hanapin, the team has more than doubled in size, and our team’s retention has grown along with it. She is lucky to work with a fantastic Talent, Culture, Administration, and Finance (TCAF) team who is focused on supporting and delivering a great experience for every individual on our Hanapin Team.
Finding her way into digital marketing in 2003, Kelly’s career began alongside the foundation of the industry. Since then she has collaborated with clients on the agency side to provide comprehensive digital strategies. Working in uncharted territory, educating clients and peers is a passion that has developed over the years. This educational component is how she found her way to work at Hanapin Marketing. Since joining in 2016, Kelly has contributed to PPC Hero and spoken on various topics in industry webinars. In her current role as Associate Director, Kelly focuses on setting client and agency side teams up for successful partnerships.
Through his career in digital marketing, Michael has managed all types of high profile business campaigns from B2B, e-commerce, and lead generation, driving results and sustainable business growth through congruent and comprehensive digital marketing and paid advertising strategies. He has also been a voice in the PPC community through industry blogs, webinars, and speaking at Hero Conf. As an Associate Director of Services, Michael focuses on coaching and mentoring others using results-oriented processes and strategies to meet and exceed client goals.
The Hanapin Team Boasts Great Results
Our History
Hanapin was founded in 2004 by Pat East, at a time when the PPC industry was changing, developing quickly, and the effectiveness of digital as a sales and marketing channel was just being realized. The company then secured its first and current client to this day, Author Solutions. What followed soon thereafter was a company that deliberately and consistently contributes to the advertising industry through education, thought leadership, and highly revered capabilities.
Soon after Hanapin’s founding, PPC Hero was created. The popular industry blog is written by the Hanapin team and delivers expertise and thought leadership daily to the PPC industry. The blog spans a variety of topics including search, display, social, mobile, programmatic, career growth, tools and industry news. Since launching, PPC Hero has grown to have a readership in the hundreds of thousands, and receives over 2 million page views each year.
In 2012, to address an underserved need for conferences specific to pay-per-click advertising and the growing community on PPC Hero looking for an outlet to discuss PPC in person, Hero Conf was founded. Today, Hero Conf is one of the most popular marketing conferences on the market, offering both US and international events, and provides deep, actionable information on the most relevant PPC topics.
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