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WE LOVE PRESENTATIONS

Our Talent

We believe talent bios are overrated. Everybody has a story to tell. Below, you can start to imagine each and every one of our stories.

Hiked 4 days to Machu Picchu in Peru

Thwarted being killed by a carjacker junior year at Temple University

Julie Fries

Creative Art Director
Finished the 2017 NYC marathon

Was an accountant in previous career

Reid Davis

Director of Storytelling
Is related to Josh Freese, the former drummer for Guns & Roses who now plays with Sting.

Acted as season-long extra in TV's Melrose Place and 90210.

Lisalynn Abercrombie

Lead Designer, Brand Strategy
Author of 3 books on global investment and interviewed finance ministers of 8 countries

Climbed Mount Toubkal, highest peak in North Africa.

Ted Kim

Strategy Architect
Spoken to the United Nations

Was a college decathlete

Jeff Spence

Capital Advisory Strategist
Rebuilt a 1974 VW Convertible Beetle before getting drivers license

Spent 8 years promoting hip hop artists

Jenni Mateo

Lead Designer, Content Strategy
Went gorilla tracking in Uganda

Did molecular biology research while living at The Smithsonian Institution in Panama

Margaret Unkefer

Senior SCIENCE/TECH STORYTELLER
Has a U.S. Utility Patent that earned royalties

Won a consolation bottle of whisky for 3rd place in regional long-drive golf contest

Jon Newsome

CHIEF STORYTELLING OFFICER
A former Expatriate and parent of twins

Can dismantle and reassemble a Glock handgun

Kathryn Westberg Ph.D

Project Manager
Is a Jujitsu instructor

Knocked on doors in the NYC financial district

Vadim Pokhlebkin

Neuroscience of Persuasion® Storyteller
Ran her one and only marathon in Dublin, Ireland

Has a black belt in karate and teaches yoga on the side

Karen Spaeder

Neuroscience of Persuasion® Storyteller
Was a member of the Canadian PGA Tour

Has three holes-in-ones in golf

Emerson Newsome

Controller
Met future husband at a murder scene. 

Learned how to replace a clutch, change engine oil, and change a tire at 15 years old

Tiffani Reynolds

Proofreader
Won a tug-of-war against an agitated monkey during a family trip to India.

Turned down a chance to perform on America's Got Talent to go on his first international tour.

Prashant Vallury

Neuroscience of Persuasion® Storyteller
Met with 5 US. Presidents including 2 White House visits

Weekly Host on SiriusXM

Kraig Kann

Storytelling Ambassador
Met with 5 US. Presidents including 2 White House visits

Weekly Host on SiriusXM

Kraig Kann

Storytelling Embassador
View our Wall of Fame
Discover what Stories look like
Evaluate our work by Industry Sector
Contact a human

Contact a human

1.888.614.5310

presentation_award
  • 2019 Marcom Platinum Award Strategic Communications, Investor Relations
  • 2017 Marcom Platinum Award Storytelling in a Presentation
  • 2016 Marcom Platinum Award for Narrative & Visuals, Live Stage Keynote
  • 2016 Marcom Platinum Hermes Creative Awards, whitepaper on storytelling
  • 2016 Gold Hermes Create Awards, too few stories, PowerPoint
  • 2015 Marcom Gold Award for strategic sales PowerPoint presentation
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© 2020 Presentation Partners
Julie Fries
Creative Art Director
Meaning comes from stories, but the mood, tone and urgency visuals effectively convey are natural partners in communication. Before Julie wowed our clients with thousands of creative slides that resonate, she experienced both sides of the table by building her craft with an agency for 10 years and then shifting to the corporate world, managing direct mail and email campaigns for AT&T, covering 150 markets. As our Creative Art Director she forms the perfect bridge between our talented designers and understanding our clients’ audience and their visual needs. Julie is often found with her hand on her chin uttering the words, “I’m not feeling the vibe of that color.”
Reid Davis
Director of Storytelling
At heart Reid is a storyteller, hunting down your story through an abundance of content to find the emotive nuggets that create some of our best communication decks. Rolling out of college as an accountant he quickly discovered his passion was elsewhere. Since then he’s worked his way up the ranks at Delta Air Lines, helping this Fortune 100 company with executive communications, and has been the managing editor of a nationally published magazine. As our director of storytelling going on his sixth year, Reid offers an uncanny knack for developing the words and phrases that routinely resonate with our client’s audiences, getting our visual team stoked with the possibilities his words create. In between training for marathons, half-marathons and shorter “sprints,” Reid is a husband and father of four girls.
Lisalynn Abercrombie
Designer, Brand Strategy
It’s not uncommon for creative types to have a strong affinity for the music and entertainment sectors, and that was LIsalynn’s background before arriving at Presentation Partners. “LL” (as we call her) has seen more than 15,000 presentation slides illuminate her monitor since joining near our 2006 beginning. That rich experience benefits you when she puts her creativity to work on your template design project as our lead designer, Brand Strategy.
Ted Kim
STRATEGY ARCHITECT
With nearly three decades of experience in capital markets, Ted has focused on financial analysis and strategy research while in advisory roles at Citigroup Private Bank, Morgan Stanley and Ernst & Young Global. An attorney by background, Ted also earned a Master of Science degree in economics from Pantheon-Sorbonne University in Paris. In his role as our investor strategy architect, Ted can use his keen eye and his Financial Risk Manager designation to help gain insights into better positioning of our client’s strategy. Ted is a Chartered Financial Analyst and also maintains the FINRA Series 65 Investment Advisor Qualification.​
Jeff Spence
Capital Advisory Strategist
As a big believer in the need for a well-told story, Jeff first came to Presentation Partners as a customer, using our pitch decks to raise hundreds of millions of dollars. Jeff has been in the business of buying, building and selling companies for more than 20 years as a business owner, CEO or strategic partner. He has run a European hedge fund and is an operating partner with venture capital firms and private equity firms. He has executed north of 45 institutional investments, and 100 total investments with half of those being international opportunities. Jeff has focused on technology companies but has valuable experience in finance, healthcare, energy, food & beverage, and medical. Jeff is a partner and serves as our capital advisory strategist.
Jenni Mateo
Lead Designer, Content Strategy
Trained by hospitality conglomerate Marriott while still a college student, Jenni was taught never to say no to a customer. This attitude persists today, making her our most enthusiastic team member. As our lead designer, Content Strategy, Jenni has an insatiable need to be on the bleeding edge of the latest tools to improve design development with our team and interaction with our clients. Since graduating from Villanova University her versatile, 19-year career has included forays into branding, guerrilla and digital marketing, as well as making use of a well-honed set of web development skills. Our resident coffee junkie, she’s the architect behind the website you’re now visiting.
Margaret Unkefer
Senior SCIENCE/TECH STORYTELLER

As a scientist, Maggie spent over a decade in molecular biology research, working in the National Institutes of Health, the Smithsonian and Washington State University, where she completed her masters in biology. While writing grants, authoring peer-reviewed articles and teaching undergraduate courses she saw the communication side of the scitech world sorely lacking in clear, compelling, persuasive arguments that would get audiences excited. So she followed her passion for storytelling away from the lab bench in order to bring clarity to science and technology communication for regular Joes.

Jon Newsome
CHIEF STORYTELLING OFFICER
Clients find Jon has managed to effectively distill a lifetime of presentation knowledge into espresso shots of wisdom. Jon’s business career has spanned engineering, business development and executive management, conducting these disciplines in nine countries. Through Dale Carnegie he’s taught hundreds of others the art of communication skills. And as the co-author of The Neuroscience of Persuasion® he’s distilled a storytelling roadmap now used by thousands of business people. As the Chief Storytelling Officer for Presentation Partners he’s used his own storytelling principles to create seven-digit sales and help others capture hundreds of millions. A former scratch golfer, he will sneak out to the course when no one is looking.
Kathryn Westberg Ph.D
PROJECT MANAGER

Armed with a Ph.D. in business psychology, Kathryn employs her insightful ability as our Project Manager to influence the psyche of team members and clients alike — all in the name of ushering your project across the finish line. With so many projects and milestones, Kathryn’s role can be like herding cats. So much so that it takes the experience of a former expatriate who is undaunted by what surrounds her. As a mother of twins she learned the art of juggling activities by deploying humor as a survival mechanism and key element of her personality. Kathryn has been herding the cats of the Presentation Partners team since 2015.

Vadim Pokhlebkin
Neuroscience of Persuasion® Storyteller
A Moscow native (that’s Russia, not Idaho), Vadim has a bachelor’s degree in business from Bryan College, where he was first introduced to the idea of free markets. But it was observing the burst of the internet and real state bubbles that showed him just how irrational investor behavior can get. As our Neuroscience of Persuasion® Storyteller, Vadim’s specialty is translating financial market psychology and complex investment concepts into insightful and easy-to-grasp ideas useful for both private and institutional investors. His articles have appeared in Bloomberg, Minyanville and other financial platforms and websites. Vadim’s best investment is time spent with his young daughters
Karen Spaeder
Neuroscience of Persuasion® Storyteller
Karen began her career at Entrepreneur magazine, where she developed a lifelong love of entrepreneurship, wordsmithing and distilling the most poignant interview points into meaningful prose. As our Neuroscience of Persuasion® Storyteller, Karen has long had a fascination with words and their ability to evoke emotion — dating back to the script she wrote for a high-school play in which she convincingly portrayed Tarzan in one brief scene. Always yearning to learn more about the startup mindset, she later joined one as director of content, where she learned the subtle art of claiming the best snacks first, playing ping-pong at work, getting to know the local barista and dressing in her Sunday best when investors visit. When Karen sets down her laptop for the day, you’ll likely find her watching reruns of Frasier with her son, walking her dog or finding new and different ways to break a sweat.
Emerson Newsome
Controller
Discussing storytelling over a round of golf? You’ll definitely want Emerson on your team. A former card-carrying member of the Canadian PGA Tour, he’ll be racking up about 45,000 miles a year to chase his PGA Tour dreams. A millennial multi-tasker, when not chasing greens he’s glued to spreadsheets, using his finance degree from the University of Cincinnati as the company’s part-time controller. A pro on multiple fronts, Emerson is also familiar with the Atlanta startup scene and what the latest batch of fintech companies have to offer.
Tiffani Reynolds
Proofreader

A public speaking coach and award-winning journalist, Tiffany has a love affair with words and how they’re presented. Without her skills as the Presentation Partners proofreader, our clients would be subject to embarrassing blunders at the most inopportune times. Serving as an anchor and reporter for Armed Forces Radio and Television Services helped groom her craft for the militaristic precision required to be a trusted proofreader. Tiffany’s award-winning career in commercial television news provided key experience and exposed her to real-world, high-stakes situations that cannot be experienced in an English classroom.

Prashant Vallury
Neuroscience of Persuasion® Storyteller
Prashant is an attorney, journalist, start-up consultant and award-winning, world-touring songwriter. In his spare time, he is a non-narrative filmmaker. As our Neuroscience of Persuasion® storyteller, his multi-disciplinary professional background imbues pieces of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Simon Sinek’s “Find Your Why” with his personal philosophy of “sophistication in restraint.” Foregoing recitation of facts, Prashant’s approach accounts for multiple perspectives, complexities, and variables to arrive at a focused, human and evocative narrative. His work has been featured or profiled in a variety of publications ranging from Billboard to the Illinois State Bar Association Journal. Married to a renowned visual artist, Prashant and his wife are constantly in search of creative sparks that they share with their young son and two dogs.
Kraig Kann
Storytelling Ambassador
For 17 years Kraig served as lead anchor and studio host for NBC Sports’ Golf Channel, then parlaying that experience into solving the identity struggles of the LPGA as their Chief Communications Officer for a five-year period. Today Kraig is a sought-after keynote speaker active in many communication ventures, including leading the charge for the merits of storytelling for enterprise clients of Presentation Partners. Kraig spearheads onsite education, breaking down the components of The Neuroscience of Persuasion® so employees can grasp the essential elements that will lead to enhanced communication through the power of storytelling.