Board of Directors

Patrick Cook, Principal of Cook & Sow Communication, has more than 25 years of experience in leading and delivering communication, social marketing and training and technical assistance solutions. He has led large capacity-building and social marketing projects for US and Canadian government and for-profit corporations as well as delivered focused solutions for community-based organizations and local agencies. Over the years, Patrick has designed, developed, and delivered dozens of training workshops, courses, and materials that help adults working at the community level be more effective communicators and social marketers. Drawing on his academic studies in rhetoric and composition, his experience working as a social marketer and trainer, and his passion for social justice, Patrick’s work focuses on helping good people do good things better by improving communication, developing capacity, and enabling change. Prior to his current role, Patrick was Senior Vice President, Social Marketing and Communication, at IQ Solutions, Director of Training & Technical Assistance for the Social Marketing and Communication group at FHI 360, and Principal with the Strategic Communications and Marketing division at ICF International. He has previously worked as a journalist, copywriter, technical writer, and lecturer.

Diogo earned his Doctorate in Biodiversity Management from the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom. His latest work in press is, ”Does It Work for Biodiversity, Experiences and Challenges in the Evaluation of Social Marketing Campaigns.” He is also currently Guest Editor at the Social Marketing Quarterly for a Special Issue on Biodiversity Conservation and Social Marketing. Diogo has devoted his career to the conservation of biodiversity using social marketing approaches, from research to evaluation, to make a positive impact in these areas, including the use of conservation marketing as a tool to promote human-wildlife coexistence.” Diogo is currently an Oxford Martin Fellow at the University of Oxford, UK, where he focuses on the design and evaluation of behaviour change interventions to reduce demand for wildlife products, a key part of mitigating the threat of the illegal wildlife trade on wildlife populations. As Diogo looks forward to his work with the iSMA Board, he is keen to explore ways to foster the growth of the community of social marketers working on biodiversity-related issues, and to promote information exchange between academics and practitioners working in social marketing, both through the literature and other non-formal channels.

A sought-after expert in social marketing, Jennifer has built a career out of making positive change in the world. She currently leads Hager Sharp, an award-winning U.S. agency that specializes in marketing social change. She has extensive and proven experience leading initiatives that result in pervasive social change. Throughout her career, her commitment to using communications and marketing to make a positive difference in the world has been applied to numerous “big, messy” issues, such as heart disease, cancer and violence. Jennifer is a respected thought leader in her field, serving on the editorial board of Social Marketing Quarterly and as a founding and current board member of the International Social Marketing Association. Prior to joining Hager Sharp, she spent 24 years at Ogilvy Public Relations where she was instrumental in establishing and leading the agency’s U.S. Social Change Practice. Jennifer holds an MHS in Behavioral Science and Health Education from The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a BS in Business and Economics from Lehigh University.

Karis has worked in Women’s Health and Maternal Child Health throughout a career that spans 30-years, including work at Planned Parenthood of Louisiana and with the Louisiana Department of Health in their Maternal and Child Health Program. She is currently working as the Director of the Communication, Innovation, and Action Team at the Louisiana Department of Health’s Bureau of Family Health. Karis is also a faculty member at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, where she teaches Introduction to Social Marketing, Health Communication: Theory and Practice, and Social and Behavioral Aspects of Global Health courses. Two ongoing Bureau of Family Health initiatives in which Karis has played a key role and uses social marketing behavior change frameworks, are the Partners for Healthy Babies and the Give Your Baby Space campaigns. Both campaigns, designed to reduce Louisiana’s infant mortality, are targeted to parents and families. Other current work with which Karis is involved includes using social marketing frameworks in a more upstream approach to impact providers to effectively address the social determinants of health involving women’s wellness. Karis takes her role in guiding and inspiring the next generation’s global public health workforce seriously. In fact, her desire to join the iSMA board was inspired by this motivation.

Lucais currently working with the Ambi Group as a Marketing Brand Consultant in Lugano, Switzerland. Over his 30-year career in marketing and branding, Luca has worked on projects with UBS bank, Bank Julius Baer, Nespresso, Unicredit, Bolton, Vorwerk, and top global sporting events like the Winter and Summer Olympic Games, America’s Cup Sailing, World Championships and World Cups. He cites his time living in Valencia, Spain while working with the America’s Cup International Sailing Competition, as significant. “I was able to witness how the city transformed when America’s Cup was held there. It was the perfect example of a ‘smart city concept’ in action. My passion is to improve urban well-being and to create and implement sustainable and inclusive opportunities for all.” Luca guides clients’ marketing operations to include sustainability initiatives, and encourages them to realize the ecological and social responsibilities they have to their stakeholders and the community. Through his new commitment to iSMA, Luca sees unique opportunities to create shared value with other organisations through strategic partnerships. The work of iSMA provides concrete possibilities to develop projects that combine social & sustainable principles. This collaboration will aim to embrace the creation of well-crafted ideas where the outcome is measured against defined objectives.

Julie Hentz serves as the Communication Chair of iSMA, working with the Communication Team of writers and social media gurus who are committed to the improvement of public health internationally. Ms. Hentz is Director of Social Issue Marketing at IQ Solutions where she has worked across programs through partnership outreach, qualitative research, and marketing… the promotional “P”. Her 30-year background in public health marketing and communications includes work with JWalter Thompson on Ford and Orkin accounts. She owned AdGraphx Advertising for over 10 years, serving a variety of clients from Mayo Clinic to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), from Universal Studios to Texaco Oil Company. Ms. Hentz worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD) as a Health Marketer for 11 years on projects with Surgeon General Carmona’s Office on “The People’s Piece on Disabilities, Call to Action. She contributed to the creation of an external partnership between CDC and Medscape to shape the CDC Expert Commentary Series, and she coordinated a social media delivery framework on the Maternal Desk of the H1N1 Emergency. She garnered Hermes Awards for her direction and design of the NCBDDD Annual Reports. Ms. Hentz also served as a Center consultant to Hollywood, Health, and Society pre-screening on condition-specific portrayals and was a judge annually for the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Meeting Poster Sessions. Ms. Hentz’s Social Marketing work has involved qualitative data gathering on the benefits and barriers to the establishment of Community Gardens. She has worked with the New Mexico Department of Health to develop a social marketing framework to address behaviors contributing to mortality rates of greater than twice the national average within the Navajo, over 65 population from flu and pneumonia in San Juan and McKinkley Counties. Ms. Hentz earned a Masters of Public Health with a concentration in Social Marketing and Maternal Child Health from the University of South Florida (USF) as well as a Graduate Certificate in Social Marketing from USF. She also holds an Associates in Communication and a BA in English Literature and Creative Writing, and a BFA in Fine Art from Indiana University.

Christene has used her drive for collaboration and efficient processes to help grow U.S.-based Marketing for Change from a small startup to a full-service behavior change marketing firm. As Chief Operating Officer, she is laser-focused on driving measurable social change for clients that do good for the world. Previously, as Marketing for Change’s director of behavior change marketing, Christene designed environmental, safety, public health and end of life campaigns for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Safe Kids Worldwide, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Known for cultivating effective partnerships, Christene has been tapped to lead two national Blue Ribbon Panels, which brought together disparate groups to bring attention to and develop solutions for emerging traffic safety challenges. Prior to joining Marketing for Change, Christene spent nearly a decade in traffic safety, developing social marketing-based solutions that moved away from the crowded risk-messaging market and focused instead on reinforcing positive norms. In her role on the iSMA Board, Christene applies her passion for mentorship to help iSMA develop more robust professional development and educational exchange offerings for social marketers around the world.

Carlos is a pioneer of social marketing in Portugal. In 1992, he introduced a social marketing class in a graduated course and, in 2002, he co-directed the first post-graduation in this field. He is the editor of the Marketing Social Portugal website (www.marketingsocialportugal.net), and the editor of the book Improving Life: A Guide to Social Marketing (Melhorar a Vida: Um Guia de Marketing Social, 2004, 2nd edition, 2012), the first social marketing textbook in Portuguese. In 2019, he published with Professor José Afonso Mazzon (USP, Brazil) the Index of Portuguese Language and Portuguese Speaking Authors Focused on Social Marketing (osf.io/vehqd?view_only=true).
Carlos earned his Doctorate in Public Policy from the NOVA University of Lisbon in Portugal, and he is recently invited professor at the Institute for Public and Social Policy, Lisbon. In 2018, he was one of the 40 leading social marketing experts contributors to the Compilation of Social Marketing Evidence of Effectiveness Key References, coordinated by Jeff French and Doug Evans for the International Social Marketing Association (ISMA) and its affiliates. His book Social Marketing in a Country: The British Experience (2016) was included in this compilation. In 2019, he received the Outstanding Achievement Award, conferred by the European Social Marketing Association, during the World Social Marketing Conference in Edinburgh. Now his main purpose is to preserve freedom and democracy as social marketing’s roots, facing threats to human freedom that abusively condition people’s behaviours (Social Marketing Political Manifesto, 2019, osf.io/e45tz?show=view&view_only=true).