Meet the HypeHouse Team
On location with CBS News Travel Editor Peter Greenberg (L) with Mark Sejvar (R).
Mark Sejvar, Co-Founder
Mark Sejvar brings more than 20 years in agency and corporate public relations experience to his role as CEO of the marketing communications firm HypeHouse. Keenly experienced in crisis communications and situation management, his proven, award winning writing and ongoing editor contacts with top trade, consumer and broadcast media worldwide, has effectively established him as a key media relations professional in the lifestyle industries, including fashion, hair and skin care, furniture, travel, health and environmental communication.
A career in communications came naturally to Sejvar, an outgoing, self-starter who ran his high school’s publications while also working for the local NBC news station. Always one to multi-task, Sejvar completed his master’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communications while launching the new Iowa Tourism Building. No small assignment, this state-run venture required Sejvar to fill the empty building with interactive information and entertainment while promoting the new facility to the media and public. The 1990 launch was a huge success and he spent the next few years with both in-house marketing departments and independent PR firms working with well-known companies such as Sunglass Hut and Target/Dayton Hudson.
In 1992 Sejvar was hired by Aveda Corporation, the world’s largest producer of pure flower and plant essence products, to establish and implement a marketing and public relations plan for their spa. He created an impressive success story by raising Aveda Spa sales 160 percent within a year. This success established Sejvar as a strategic business entrepreneur and motivated Aveda, based in Minneapolis, to expand their facilities throughout the world. During his first five years with Aveda, Sejvar was also Aveda Founder and CEO Horst Rechelbacher’s personal media relations coordinator, traveling together to major store openings and events as well as providing marketing consulting for new ventures.
Sejvar moved on within Aveda to co-found an experimental venture with Aveda Co-President Nicole Rechelbacher. Sejvar’s responsibilities included strategic business planning, marketing communications, and team management for “Anatomy”, a cutting edge concept devoted to producing environmentally and socially responsible clothing and accessories, and challenging the fashion industry with a strong educational message. This unique business lab allowed Sejvar to combine his proven marketing skills with his entrepreneurial drive, growing his expertise and knowledge in market projections, business planning, sourcing, manufacturing, distribution and people management. An idea ahead of its time, recent designer lines have benefited from the fashion forward technologies of recycled fabrics and sustainable accessories introduced by Anatomy.
In 1996 Sejvar co-founded marketing and design firm HypeHouse, Inc. where he continued to work closely with Aveda, launching their Intelligent Nutrients line of supplements and providing strategy and management of Aveda’s public relations during their 1997 acquisition by the Esteé Lauder Companies.
Sejvar re-located HypeHouse to Los Angeles in the summer of 1999, where he immediately expanded his list of clients to include technology, high-end retail boutiques and distinct individuals like author Libby Gill, LastMinuteTravel.com and The Cotton Box (founded by super-model Kelly Emberg), while continuing to service beauty industry luminaries like Vidal Sassoon and Cosmoprof, the industry’s largest global event. Sejvar’s proven methodology for creating strategic Marketing and PR plans consistently places his client’s in major consumer and BtoB media including placement on top television shows on Discovery, E! and FOX.
Further realizing his unique expertise, Sejvar co-founded HypeHouse Media, Inc. (HMI) in 2004 to create, develop and implement innovative media content strategies that connect the talent, products and trends of the beauty industry directly to consumers. HMI has already achieved a number of exciting firsts with a new ground-breaking television show called Beautyphile: the first television show to be endorsed by The PBA (The Professional Beauty Association) and the first time that television viewers meet the people, products and trends of the professional beauty industry from the perspective of the industry itself, including Vidal Sassoon, Tigi, American Crew, Paul Mitchell, BioIonic and Trevor Sorbie.
Sejvar’s extensive portfolio includes placements in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, LA Business Journal, LA Times, Business Week, Fox News, CNN Headline News, US News and World Report, Extra, People, InStyle, Architectural Digest, American Salon, Modern Salon, In Furniture, Good Day LA, USA Today, Vogue, W, Teen, Elle, WWD, Cosmopolitan and syndicated stories with Associated Press.
Anne White, Co-Founder
An international brand communications executive with more than 18 years of experience, Anne White has provided her creative and marketing expertise to clients ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies and luminaries in the entertainment industry. White’s career bridges technology, commercial, film, television and consumer projects with clients as diverse as Prince, Steven Spielberg, SC Johnson, CBS, TiVo, Medtronic, Aveda, and entertainment companies in Asia, Europe and North America. White’s exposure to these various industries, cultures and business models serves as a key to her strategic business acumen.
As Principal and Managing Director of TAG, White was a primary force in charting the 2001 launch of the creative brand solutions company as well as responsible for overseeing creative and strategic projects including corporate identity and brand development in the emerging technologies, entertainment and commercial areas of entertainment. Clients include Hallmark Channel, TBS, SOAPnet, WB, Sony Pictures Television, NDTV, Club, Celestial Pictures, Zone Vision, Astral Media, Buena Vista, DIY, E!, and MGA Entertainment.
Prior to the launch of TAG, White was an Executive Producer and Head of Business Development for 3 Ring Circus where she utilized her team-building abilities and marketing expertise to successfully diversify their services and client base. She led the company’s diversification into new areas of growth at the onset of one of the most dynamic entertainment landscapes of our times, securing and leading multiple projects simultaneously with budgets ranging from $50,000 to $4 Million for clients such as Canal+ US Technologies, DIRECTV, Target, TechTV, Netscape, CreativePlanet.com, DreamWorks Pictures, DES, Transamerica, AOL and Fox Family.
White was recruited to Los Angeles in January 1999 from HypeHouse Inc. in Minneapolis, a marketing communications and design firm she co-founded in 1996. Prior to HypeHouse, she mastered a variety of disciplines, including award-winning design, creative direction, postproduction, motion graphic effects, news promotion for NBC and ABC affiliates, as well as ad agency experience. As a creative director and producer, White has implemented concept-to-content strategies in film, video and print for companies such as Coca-Cola, US Banks, Honeywell, Pillsbury, 3M, Rollerblade, Room and Board, and Best Buy.
White has recently proven to be a discerning entrepreneur in touch with current and future trends, co-founding HypeHouse Media, Inc. (HMI) in 2004 to create, develop and implement innovative media content strategies that connect the talent, products and trends of the beauty industry directly to consumers through engaging and informative entertainment. White is the creator and executive producer of the first television show to be endorsed by the Professional Beauty Association, “Beautyphile”.
A frequent public speaker on design and key issues facing the broadcast design industry, White holds an adjunct faculty position in the Digital Media department of OTIS College of Art and Design, Los Angeles. White serves as Vice Chairperson on the Executive Board of Directors for PROMAX, as well as being immediate past Chairperson of BDA. The recipient of numerous BDA awards, White has served on their Board of Governors since 1997. PROMAX & BDA are the world’s foremost professional organizations working on behalf of those involved in promotion, marketing and design of electronic media.
Heather Thompson (L) with Japanese editorial team from Esquire and Eclat.
Heather Thompson has worked in the media industry for over 10 years, beginning her career at the award-winning advertising agency Gardner, Geary, Coll & Young. From there, she moved on to a position of Media Buyer with Outdoor Services, the largest Out-of-Home Media Management & Communications Company in North America. Realizing that you only live once and determined to pursue a career in food journalism, she left the corporate world in 2004, and in 2006 graduated Cum Laude from the California Culinary Academy’s prestigious Le Cordon Bleu Program.
Heather has worked in the editorial departments at both Wine & Spirits and 7×7 magazines, and has had multiple articles published pertaining to food, wine, travel and lifestyle. Since starting with HypeHouse in 2007, Heather has concepted, pitched and placed stories in hundreds of media outlets worldwide and has built an extensive network of top-tier contacts and journalists. She thoroughly enjoys the challenge of orchestrating successful campaigns for premier destinations and brands.
Emily Polsby
Emily Polsby, a PR and marketing veteran with expertise in Internet marketing, direct marketing, and the environmental movement, has worked with a wide variety of clients over the years, including Alibris.com, Monster.com, Ask.com, Harvard Business School Publishing, Stanford University Professional Development, and Franklin Covey, among others.
During her fifteen years as a marketer, she worked as both a list manager and later as a list broker, helping clients develop and execute all types of direct campaigns – including via e-mail and the web. Most recently before coming to work with HypeHouse, she was head of the Interactive Services Division for SpeciaLists, a direct marketing company headquartered in New Jersey. She had a variety of high tech clients there including Earthlink, Abercrombie & Fitch.com, IT World and others. She and her team assisted her clients with e-mail marketing, “Webinars,” and other aspects of their online marketing.
She started her career as a publicist at McGuire & Co. in San Francisco, working on clients that included Lever Brothers, the Global Cities Project, and Earth Day 1990. During that time she had articles published in various places, including the New York Times.
On behalf of HypeHouse clients, she has placed articles in dozens of publications around the world, including BARK magazine, Campus Circle and Beauty Store Business.
Emily is also a freelance journalist and screenwriter who has been published in the Los Angeles Times and the Fairfield and Westchester County Weeklies and read her humorous essay on National Public Radio. She has a script in development with producers in London and LA.