about us

What is this Northlich I keep hearing about? First, we’ll tell you what we’re not. Northlich is not an advertising agency, public relations, media buying or interactive agency.

Northlich is a brand engagement agency.

That means we consider the entire brand experience, not just advertising, when it comes to creating communications programs for our clients. We specialize in changing perceptions and behavior. Our product is ideas. Good ones. That engage a target audience emotionally, intellectually, behaviorally and gut-ally. We excel at leading brands to a culturally relevant place where they can be personally embraced and where true behavior change can be achieved. And don’t ya just love it when that happens?

leaders

Our leaders fully embrace the values, principles and purpose of Northlich. After reading about them, feel free to connect with them thru LinkedIn, Twitter, or heck, even a phone call.

	kathy selker president and CEO
	Kathy’s leadership style is a combination of straight shooter, servant leader, savvy business strategist and mom – perfect for creating an environment that nurtures talent and creativity, is open to new ways of thinking and puts people before things in every way that matters. Ask her, and she’ll tell you that her most important job is to cultivate talented, bright, creative people and give them the room and tools they need to do their job.

	brian newberry chief brand engagement officer
	We think of Brian as our vision guy. If something needs to be rethought, reimagined or dare we say, “rehaved,” Brian is often right there in the middle of it, stirring up ideas, challenging teams to take new approaches, constantly asking what if and generally making a complete nuisance of himself. But we put up with him cheerfully, because big, bold results usually follow.

	mark willis chief conversation officer
	If you’re having a bad day, give Mark Willis a call and you will instantly feel better. He’s funny, self-effacing and has an uncanny ability to say exactly the right thing at the right time. Not a bad quality for a communications guy. In addition to leading the agency’s PR practice and Social Media efforts, Mark oversees Connection Planning — or what used to be called Media Planning and Buying. He brings 25 years of experience in integrated marketing with clients that have included Procter & Gamble, Macy’s, The Ohio State University Medical Center, American Greetings, Big Lots, AT&T, Cablevision and FedEx.

	jeffrey warman executive creative director
	Everyone expects an Executive Creative Director to be brilliant. To see things that others just don’t see. To shape and mold good work into great work. Jeff Warman does all of those expected things. What’s maybe not so expected is for an Executive Creative Director to be warm and engaging, to genuinely care about the people who work for him and to put his own creative ego aside.

	lisa fiessinger chief financial officer
	While it may take a cool head to manage finances, it also takes warmth and personal flair, when you’re Lisa Fiessinger. As the agency’s new Chief Financial Officer, Lisa will oversee Northlich’s accounting, finance, human resources and contract management departments, and provide strategic oversight to improve efficiencies across the agency as it grows its presence nationally.

	patty bloomfield VP \| engagement director, consumer village
	Forget her official title. Patty is really the “queen” of the Consumer Village. Maybe it’s her commanding presence, maybe it’s her “lineage” — she spent 21 years at Leo Burnett — but Patty presides brilliantly over our Consumer Village.

	frank moricca VP \| general manager, Columbus
	If you are looking for passion, Frank Moricca has it for this business. He’s had the unique opportunity to work or manage just about every discipline in an ad agency. He started out in the accounting department of a family-owned agency in Buffalo, NY while pursuing an accounting degree, thinking he’d be a CPA. Manually [...]

	shaun ethier VP \| engagement director, health & wellness village
	Shaun has worked in marketing/advertising for the past nine years. At Northlich, some of his clients have included stand (Ohio’s former anti-tobacco social marketing campaign), TriHealth, Procter & Gamble, White Castle, LaRosa’s, Long John Silver’s, A&W Restaurants and Escort Radar Detectors. His robust experience consists of traditional and non-traditional advertising, public relations, digital communications, influencer [...]

	angie fischer VP \| engagement director, influencer village
	Angie Fischer believes that you can’t focus on the big picture without paying attention to the thousands of tiny details necessary to create it. That’s a philosophy she first put to the test working in a pastry kitchen in San Francisco, and one she continues to refine at each stage of her marketing career. Angie brings [...]

our values

We do our best to live our values every day. It’s not always easy, but it’s always worth it.

GREATNESS
We refuse to settle for mediocrity and are rarely completely satisfied with our work. For us, greatness is not a final destination, but something we are always reaching toward.

PASSION
We have an all-consuming and contagious passion for what we do. This might be business, but for us, it’s also personal.

COURAGE
We have the courage to stand up for what is right and admit when we are wrong. We will not shy away from taking risks, stepping out of our comfort zone or fighting for big ideas if it will make the end result stronger.

SELFLESSNESS
We embrace the “we” before “me” attitude and reward those who edify others. We believe the insight and idea should guide the work, not someone’s personal agenda.

TRANSPARENCY
We appreciate honesty, accessibility, timely feedback and minds that are open to new ways of thinking and doing.

our purpose

Our purpose is to “lift” brands, consumers, clients and each other.

In aeronautical terms “lift” is the force that opposes the weight of an airplane and keeps it in the air. See that little airplane cursor you’re flying around our site? Lift is keeping that up.

We strive to be a force that:

lifts brands to a higher, more relevant place
lifts consumers through “useful” ideas
lifts our clients to success
lifts each other to be our best

our principles

Some things are extremely important to us. Things that we will always do and, conversely, things we’ll never do. These are our principles.

We are unapologetically optimistic, and we seek clients and associates who share our positive spirit.
We want to work with clients and brands that are interested in helping consumers-not just extracting money from them.
We believe that engaging consumers means creating work that goes beyond delivering a traditional product benefit. We strive to create work that delivers utility-something that makes it truly useful to the audience.
We live for the “wow” response. If we had our way, we would surprise clients and co-workers (in a good way) every day.
We put people before things when making business decisions.
We approach new client relationships in the spirit of mutuality-we believe the fit has to be right for both parties, and it can’t just be about “winning the business.” To that end, we:
- view speculative creative as a sometimes necessary evil and as the exception-not the rule-in new business;
- prefer to present one foundational behavior-changing platform idea in place of the usual spec work;
- and, we ask clients to provide us with references on them as a business partner.
We operate best as an idea collective and to that end we don’t compete internally-we save our competitive spirit for helping our clients beat their rival brands.
We believe that an idea must be nurtured and protected in order to reach its full potential, so we politely insist on presenting our own work to any and all decision makers.
We believe that execution matters, and that both client and agency have to be satisfied with the idea and the execution. In situations where we can’t reach mutual agreement, we will go for a third alternative.
We don’t shy away from “hard” conversations, and we will always share the good and the bad internally and externally.
We believe in servant leadership-we hold our leaders accountable for helping our people realize their full potential.
We aim to make our clients’ jobs more fun. In fact, we aim to make our own jobs fun.