Creative content company Alkemy X has added Katharine Starsinic as director of client services & operations, and Jay Halbert as SVP of finance to its management team. Starsinic is tasked with increasing the company’s visibility and working with brand and advertiser clients while Halbert will lead all aspects of its financial functions.
Starsinic was most recently with Comcast, where she served as director of marketing & communications, dedicating five years to building the B2B brand and developing the marketing programs for Comcast Business. She was involved in planning and executing a full range of marketing efforts, including new product launches, sponsorships and demand generation campaigns.
Prior to Comcast, Starsinic spent 10 years as an account director at Wunderman Advertising in New York City. There, she led integrated and direct teams for the agency’s marquee clients, such as Citi, AT&T, Microsoft, HP and Pfizer.
Halbert was most recently SVP of a manufacturing company, and prior to that was president/owner of a laser rental and sales company, both based in the Philadelphia region. Before that, he spent nearly a decade as chief financial officer for a series of companies in the sports, media and entertainment business, including Comcast Spectacor, which owned the Philadelphia Flyers, the Philadelphia 76ers, the Wells Fargo Center, and six other complementary businesses.
After earning his accounting degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and his law degree from New York University School of Law, Halbert practiced in the corporate law department at the New York-based international law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell before leaving for the business world. He then went to work with PricewaterhouseCoopers Securities as an associate investment banker, before taking a position as CFO and principal of New Spring Capital, a venture capital fund based in the Mid-Atlantic Region.
Funny and Feminist Fashion Advances The Storytelling In “Palm Royale”
When Kristen Wiig steps out of a vintage Rolls-Royce in the opening scene of Season 2 of "Palm Royale," she's sporting a tall, yellow, fringed hat, gold platform sandals and sunny bell bottoms, with fabric petals that sway with every determined step. It's the first clue that the costumes on the female-driven comedy are taking center stage. The Apple TV show made a splash in its first season with the starry cast, high production values and ubiquitous grasshopper cocktail. Wiig's character, Maxine, tries to break into Palm Beach high society in 1969 and bumps heads with co-stars Carol Burnett, Allison Janney, Leslie Bibb and Laura Dern. But also playing a starring role are the vintage designer frocks that reflect each character. For Season 2, which premiered this week, Emmy-winning costume designer Alix Friedberg says she and her team coordinated "thousands" of looks that reflect the characters' jet-setting style. She says 50-60% of the brightly colored and graphic print costumes are original vintage designer pieces, sourced by shoppers and costume designers. "The looks are so iconic. Sometimes Kristen will walk in in something, and it brings tears to my eyes," Kaia Gerber — who plays Mitzi — said in a recent interview. The creative process entails more than shopping If not original vintage, Friedberg's team builds the costumes, and if a character has to wear an outfit in multiple scenes or in big dance numbers, the team may create duplicates to preserve continuity. Friedberg says she was lucky to find so many vendors with vintage designer pieces in great condition. "(Bibb's character) Dinah wears a few original Oscar de la Renta pieces that are really so perfect. Bill Blass was a big one, Oleg Cassini," Friedberg says. "There's a... Read More