Proof Integrated Communications

Leadership

• Chief Executive Officer

  Michael A. Bassik is CEO of Proof Integrated Communications, a full-service integrated marketing, communications and advertising agency within WPP Group. In this capacity, Michael provides strategic planning and oversight of the agency’s marketing, business development, creative, technical and digital operations.

  In addition to his role at Proof, Michael is Managing Director and U.S. Digital Practice Chair at Burson-Marsteller, a leading global public relations and communications firm. In this role, Michael develops and manages the execution of award-winning online marketing, reputation management and social media programs for some of the firm’s largest and most highly visible clients.

  Michael received his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania and his law degree from American University’s Washington College of Law. He is a member of the New York State Bar.

• Managing Director, US Client Services

  Bill joined the agency in 2008 as a Managing Director, responsible for client and staff management and driving client value. Prior to Proof, Bill was at Saatchi & Saatchi Consumer Health + Wellness, where he led the Transitions Optical global brand for more than four years and also ran a fully integrated brand for Schering Plough. He began his 20-year integrated marketing career at the Bloom Agency in New York City. He then joined Wells, Rich, Greene; followed by Bozell Worldwide to work on the Valvoline Company of brands. There he helped drive the brand to #2 in the marketplace. He got his first taste of digital on the Lycos.com brand at Bozell, where he managed all of the Lycos business from search to community to ecommerce. Bill also worked at a Voice-Over IP software start-up company called PhoneFree.com, where he was responsible for all internal and external brand communications. Bill graduated with a B.A. from the University of Delaware.

• Chief Creative Officer

  Matt writes, directs, and produces advertising and creative communications—including television, print, outdoor, radio, and interactive—for numerous organizations, corporations, nonprofits, and political candidates.

  He has had the opportunity to work on behalf of some of the largest Fortune 500 companies, universities, and NGOs. Among them have been Intel, Dominion Virginia Power, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, People For the American Way, the Ford Motor Company, Visa, the Motion Picture Association of America, Canon Cameras, the Olive Garden, and a number of Procter & Gamble brands including Pampers. Matt has won numerous awards for both creative excellence and efficacy and believes that in order for creative work to be successful, it must solve business challenges in memorable ways.

  Prior to Proof, Matt worked at Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates, D’Arcy, Masius, Benton & Bowles, Grey Advertising and The Glover Park Group. In addition to his work in advertising, Matt wrote and produced an off-Broadway play called Sailing To Byzantium and was the writer, creative director, and co-producer of the documentary film A Blinding Flash of the Obvious, which won “Best-of-Show” at the 2006 Breckenridge Film Festival.

  Matt graduated from Columbia College in New York City with a degree in English literature and creative writing.

• Creative Director

  Ladon Roeder, Creative Director for Proof’s Washington D.C. office, leads the team of creatives developing advertising campaigns and strategic communications in television, print and interactive medias.

  He provides creative and strategic expertise to a broad range of clients and brands including Intel, Microsoft, Dominion, Comcast, Qualcomm, Chase Bank, HTC and several other accounts. He enjoys working in the space where research and advertising must connect and believes that exceptional creative without strategy is incomplete and strategy without exceptional creative is invisible. He ensures, from research through concepts and to final art, that the creative process is a close collaboration with clients and his team.

  With a clear understanding of the role creative communication and the value powerful ideas play in bringing business goals to fruition, Ladon directs the work of a talented team of copywriters, art directors, designers and editors to deliver outstanding creative.

  Ladon holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has also been a regular guest lecturer on information design and marketing topics at the University of British Columbia, Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Walt Disney Company. His creative interests continue through the pursuit of photography and painting.

• Creative Director

  It was in the ‘80s, over lunch at The Four Seasons, that Jerry Della Femina (From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor) recruited Jody to lead the creative department of his $200 million agency in Pittsburgh. (Maybe she has an ashtray commemorating the occasion.) Before that, she had progressed through the ranks of copywriter and creative director at several Madison Avenue shops: Cunningham & Walsh before it was Ayer, Dancer Fitzgerald Sample before it was Saatchi, and Y&R.

  Working for Jerry, she created campaigns for Taster’s Choice, Lean Cuisine, and Stouffer’s frozen foods—her “Nothing comes closer to home” campaign ran for twelve years and rebuilt the brand. She also won an Effie and a CLIO for her work on Alcoa.

  Jody has also been Global VP of Marketing for a human resources development firm serving the Fortune 500. She joined Burson-Marsteller’s Pittsburgh office in 1995 as Managing Director. She has led creative, strategy, branding, and marketing communications initiatives for nearly every one of the firm’s clients. Her work has won SABRE Awards (Superior Achievement in Branding and Reputation), including one for her “Refreshing a thirsty planet” CSR campaign for The Coca-Cola Company.
  In the spring of 2010, Jody returned to New York City as Creative Director of Proof.

  Jody received her B.A. in Advertising Journalism from Penn State University. In 2006 she graduated with a Masters in Communications Planning and Information Design from Carnegie Mellon University, the world’s top-ranked multimedia graduate program.