Board Members
Sarah Byrne
APMC Position: Director
Company: Verve
Sarah is an Account Director in Verve with over 8 years experience in Brand Activations and Events.
Sarah has a strong focus on delivering flawless campaigns for her clients and has built long standing relationships within the industry.
She prides herself on strong project management skills, delivering activations that are true to a brand’s values, generating awareness and builds lasting connections with the target audience.
Sarah is passionate about bringing powerful experiences to life and has worked on some award winning campaigns for brands such as Coca-Cola and Schweppes.
David Gee
APMC Position: Director
Company: CMS
With over 20 years’ experience in both agency and client side roles, David is now Managing Director of CMS Marketing. Prior to joining CMS in 2017, David was a Senior Account Director with Publicis Dublin working across the permanent tsb, Bord Gáis Energy and Dalata Hotels accounts. He has also worked in both DDFH&B and Target Marketing (now Folk Wunderman). David held two client side roles, starting his career as a Marketing Executive with Warner Music Ireland and also spent 5 years with Danske Bank Ireland as Marketing Manager.
Anna McDonald
APMC Position: Director
Company: Pluto
Anna is Business Director in Pluto, with a strong agency background in experiential marketing. Anna has worked for the past 24 years in some of Irelands top agencies. Her experience spans FMCG, Tech, Telcos and Corporate clients.
Anna is passionate about delivering award winning results for client.
Developing strong relationships is the foundation of everything Anna does, both professionally and personally. In Pluto she oversees new business and works closely with new and potential clients.
A strong believer in the power of positive thinking in the workplace, Anna also heads up the internal staff development programme.
Aoife Butler
APMC Position: Director
Company: Pluto
With a degree in Marketing, Aoife specialises in experiential, promotional and shopper marketing. Starting her career with Runway Marketing, she worked with clients such as Lucozade and Bulmers. Currently Account Director at Pluto, Aoife heads up a number of blue chip brands including Danone, McVitie’s and Unilever.
Valerie Melinn
APMC Position: Director
Company: Verve the Live Agency
Valerie has over 15 years’ marketing experience having worked on both agency and client side during that time. She started her career in Public Relations working with clients such as Eircell, Warner Brothers and L’Oreal before moving into a more marketing and event management focused role with CMS Marketing. She has worked on variety of campaigns for a wide range of clients during her 9 years with CMS Marketing including Samsung, Sony PlayStation, Kelkin and Coors Light. Valerie took up her role as Client Services Director with Verve the Live Agency in 2013. Valerie took on the role of Chairperson of the Association in 2017.
Karleen Smyth
APMC Position: Director
Company: EXP
Karleen is Managing Director of EXP having previously been Senior Experiential Director with Boys + Girls, she has more than 10 years experience in the marketing and entertainment industry. Starting her career in PR, she worked on some of the most exciting projects and artists in the Irish entertainment industry, like Electric Picnic, RTE and many more.
Karleen moved into a more events focused role before co-founding boutique events agency Twigged Creative in 2014. From here, Karleen then joined Boys + Girls as Senior Experiential Director focused on bringing powerful brand experiences to life for some great brands such as Three Ireland, Samsung and Ulster Bank. EXP was founded in 2022 with Karleen at the helm.
Neil Devlin
APMC Position: Director
Company: .Mixtape
Neil has over 22 years agency experience across a range of disciplines. After starting off his career, in what was then Slattery PR, he then went to work in Corporate Image where he switched codes into the world of sales promotion. Neil joined QMP and spent 8 years there working on many award winning through the line campaigns, becoming a director in Publicis D during his time there. In 2012 Neil co-founded Mixtape, an agency focused primarily in Experiential Marketing. Mixtape has been most recently awarded for its Pandemic Pivot offering; Samplify. Neil has had two previous stints on the APMC board as its Educational Director.
