Mentors: BRANDING
Summary of Qualifications Sydney Lester is a personal stylist with over eight years in the fashion industry. She is the founder of Chic Stripes, a full-service personal styling company designed to help women create sustainable and timeless wardrobes that work for them, not against them. In 2009, Sydney launched Chic Stripes, her personal style blog that focused on creating individualized style by shopping second hand first. She parlayed her blog into a successful personal styling business where she now works one-on-one with clients and focuses on giving women confidence through their wardrobes and teaching them how to create a timeless, personalized style and sustainable wardrobe that work for them, not against them. Services include: closet audit, personal shopping, and outfit creation. Sydney has been featured in the Richmond Times Dispatch, Richmond Magazine, R-Home, Richmond GRID, and Coffee with Strangers; appeared as a style expert on Virginia This Morning, ABC8 News Richmond, and NBC12 News Richmond; has worked with local brands such as VCU Massey Cancer Center, Jackson and James, and Elements Beauty Shop, national brands such as Kendra Scott and J. Crew; and has been interviewed by The Wall Street Journal and The Today Show and continues to be the area’s go-to style expert. Before her career switch to fashion, Sydney spent over ten years working in fundraising in the nonprofit field, holds dual masters degrees in Social Work and Christian Education and was part of the 2014 class of Leadership Metro Richmond. Sydney earned her fashion credentials at the Los Angeles-based School of Style, and currently lives in Richmond with her husband and their three cats. Want to...
Summary of Qualifications Adam Mead is the founder brand strategy agency yogg, its sister brand design agency for small business named KARV, as well as Land of Adam, a commercial photography and fine-art studio. In 2007 Adam Mead started yogg from the corner of his bedroom with no insurance, two weeks of money in the bank and a third child on the way. #ignoranceisbliss But over time he grew yogg to become a leading branding agency with international reach, experiencing year-over-year growth as high as 90% and being recognized on the RVA25 list for high growth companies in Richmond. After seven years Adam launched his photography studio Land of Adam and has done commercial photo shoots all over the country and had his work published internationally. He also as created a fine art photography arm which gives a significant amount of revenue back to the community through print sales. His pieces have been carried by national retailers and will be featured in a major film. At the beginning of 2016 Adam launched KARV, a branding agency designed for small business which has experienced very healthy growth even in its infancy. Adam and his wife have 8 children and spend their time running from activity to activity while still finding time to volunteer weekly with their church. Want to meet with this mentor? Talk with your Lead...
Summary of Qualifications Sarah summarizes what she does best into three action-packed verbs: MOVE, DO and CONNECT. She specializes in marketing strategies focusing on social media and believes relationship building is at the core of any small business success. Sarah loves telling the right stories to engage core audience to solidify brand identity. She most recently spearheaded turning Shoryuken Ramen pop-up into a successful brick and mortar restaurant in support of Chef Will Richardson. Sarah dives into operational side of each business she helps to gain good understanding of its unique challenges to help develop effective solutions. A classic Type A extrovert, Sarah loves networking and find joy in connecting people and ideas. Want to meet with this mentor? Schedule an...
Summary of Qualifications Anne-Stuart is a marketing account manager for a local agency. She has worked in various fields, in both large and small businesses, which gives her a unique perspective. Her love of the Richmond community is what drives her to help local business grow. Anne-Stuart works for Addison Clark. Her job includes running multiple social media accounts, brand management, website development and fulfilling a myriad of other client needs. She is responsible for dozens of clients and has a knack for organization and managing priorities and expectations. For the social media accounts she runs, she generates original content, creates Facebook advertising campaigns and manages audience interactions. Another job responsibilities she has is maintaining websites, which includes creating content, website organization/set-up and other general maintenance. She also consults on branding for her clients. Other tasks she has enjoyed doing for her clients are: creating concepts for newspaper ad campaigns, newsletter generation and concepts/development for print materials, including brochures, rack cards and various other material like pens, notepads, etc. Before coming to Addison Clark, Anne-Stuart worked as an intern at the Retail Merchants Association. That experience introduced her to hundreds of local businesses and fueled her passion for local RVA businesses. Previous to that, she worked for Nordstrom as a department manager. Throughout her three-year management career with Nordstrom, Anne-Stuart gained valuable knowledge on team relationships, management styles and how to run a business, as running your own department is similar to running a small business. Anne-Stuart’s passions include, meeting interesting people, supporting local events, stores and other businesses, the world of social media, running and developing websites and...
Summary of Qualifications Christina consults on social media, public relations, content strategy, marketing, blogger/influencer outreach, media buying, customer/user experience, advertising, content creation/copywriting and branding (brand voice, community management, customer relations). Christina has worked with large, national brands through The Martin Agency and Capital One, and has a passion for bringing those big ideas to small businesses. She also works as a recruiter, and can consult about hiring, recruiting, talent management, workplace culture – basically, connecting entrepreneurs to the right types of people. Christina is a social recruiter for AQUENT and a creative communications consultant for agencies and small business. She began her career at The Martin Agency, buying media and then developing social strategies and building communities for Kraft’s Cool Whip and Stove Top, Walmart, GEICO and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Christina has also worked on Capital One’s social media team and built a social media and content strategy offering at Big River Advertising. She is an adjunct professor Virginia Commonwealth University, where she earned a bachelors in Mass Communications with a concentration in Strategic Advertising and a Minor in Marketing. Christina is also active in the Richmond Ad Club, serving as the current president while working to grow the club’s mentor and speaker series programs. In a partnership formed through her personal blog, Tiramisu For Breakfast, she launched and manage the Elements Beauty Bloggers program for ElementsBeautyshop.com. She loves the local arts community and chairs the Richmond CenterStage Associates Board. Ready to meet with this Lead Mentor? Schedule an initial...
