Katie Schroeder Joins 42West As Executive Vice President -- Strategic Communications

NEW YORK, Jan. 29, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Longtime public relations professional Katie Schroeder is joining 42West as Executive Vice President – Strategic Communications Division, and the agency has also promoted Rachel Aberly, Scott Feinstein and Annalee Paulo to Executive Vice President and Tara Fitzpatrick Portanova and Megan Zehmer to Vice President, all in the company's Entertainment Marketing Division.

Schroeder will report to Strategic Communications Division President Susie Arons, while the others report to Entertainment Marketing Division Presidents Susan Ciccone and Tom Piechura.

"Katie is among the most well-respected public relations professionals in the industry, and it will be incredible to bring her talents and expertise to our company. Rachel, Scott and Annalee have been part of our leadership -- and a major driving force behind the ongoing success of our company -- for many years, and their promotions are richly deserved. Tara and Megan are also an integral part of our team and true future leaders of our industry – they have both been instrumental in overseeing first-rate campaigns, particularly in the TV, streaming and new media arenas," says Co CEO's Leslee Dart and Amanda Lundberg.

Schroeder, who is based in New York, joins the company from her previous position as Executive Vice President at Rubenstein. In that role, she developed public relations strategies and media opportunities for a wide array of companies, brands, and organizations – from Rolling Stone to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Her background includes corporate and crisis communications; live entertainment, concerts, and events; New York City agencies; business and brand leaders, and non-profit and charitable organizations. Her past and current clients include Netflix, Skydance, AEG, Televisa, UNCSA, Paramount Pictures, Universal Music Group, AEG, Jimmy Iovine, eOne Entertainment, Viacom, The Bowery Presents, Participant Media, Temple Street Productions, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's "Thanks and Giving" Campaign, NYC & Company (New York's travel and tourism organization), SONY/ATV, SESAC, MGM, Mandela Day, YouTube, Amazon.com, and Target.

Prior to joining Rubenstein, Schroeder was Director of Public Relations for Radio City Entertainment, where she oversaw publicity for "The Radio City Christmas Spectacular" in more than 10 cities across the country; created national publicity opportunities for the Radio City Rockettes; handled press relations for "A Christmas Carol" at the Theater at Madison Square Garden; and worked more than 350 concerts, events, and attractions at Radio City Music Hall and Madison Square Garden during her tenure. Previously, she worked for Wenner Media, Inc., where she coordinated publicity for Us Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Men's Journal.

Aberly has been with the company for almost three years. Throughout her long career, she has overseen and orchestrated a broad swath of publicity campaigns - films from production through release, streaming/television and corporate outreach. Her focus is specific to behind the camera artists - showrunners, screenwriters and directors with an emphasis on awards campaigns for the crafts. This week, craft campaigns she worked on in concert with the studios received a total of 24 Academy Award nominations. She is based in Los Angeles.

Feinstein has been with the company since just after its inception in 2005, starting as an account executive and being named Senior Vice President in 2019. He works with a number of distributors, production companies and filmmakers to create and execute their publicity and marketing strategies.

Feinstein oversees 42West's film festival operations, including the company's slate and presence at major film festivals including Sundance, Toronto, Tribeca, Cannes, New York, SXSW and Venice. His clients at 42West have included Sony Pictures Classics, A24, Focus Features, Netflix, Amazon, Paramount, IFC Films, HBO, and filmmakers Martin Scorsese, Bennett Miller, Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Sacha Gervasi, Rebecca Miller, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, Phyllis Nagy, David Chase, Jon S. Baird, Trudie Styler, Eric Eisner, Joe Lewis, Andrew Heckler, Chad Verdi, as well as actor John Magaro.

Previously, Feinstein spent over three years working at Walt Disney Pictures, where he worked on the publicity campaigns for a number of films including "Pirates of the Caribbean," "National Treasure," "Finding Nemo," and "The Incredibles." Feinstein graduated with a B.A. degree in Communications with a minor in English from the University of Maryland.

Feinstein serves of the board of Beat The Streets, a non-profit organization focused on developing the full human and athletic potential of urban youth and to strengthen the wrestling culture within New York City. He is based in New York.

Annalee Paulo joined the LA office of 42West in 2005 as a senior executive guiding clients in multiple PR disciplines. She strategizes and executes national campaigns for film, television, streaming, awards, and home entertainment with clients such as A24, Apple TV+, Blumhouse, Focus Features, Disney, GKIDS, HBO, Netflix, Lionsgate, Lionsgate Home Entertainment, MGM, Paramount, Screen Gems, and Shout! Factory. Paulo also leads project campaigns and personal PR for filmmakers such as Darren Aronofsky, Francis Ford Coppola, Scott Cooper, Destin Daniel Cretton, Roland Emmerich, Paul Greengrass, Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Rob Marshall, Phyllis Nagy, Kimberly Peirce, Charles Randolph, Martin Scorsese, Irwin Winkler, and Alice Wu, among others.

Paulo's corporate clients include 3BlackDot, Centropolis Entertainment, GKIDS, Hutch Parker Entertainment, Marc Platt Productions, Protozoa Pictures, ReelFX, the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, and ShadowMachine. She also leads films and special projects at the Sundance Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, SXSW, WonderCon, and Comic-Con.

Prior to 42West, Paulo worked for AFI Fest, United Artists, and MPRM Communications. She was a Whittier Scholar at Whittier College where she earned a B.A. studying both Business and Theater, and is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

With Fitzpatrick Portanova and Zehmer's promotions, they join Ashton Fontana, Jodie Magid Oriol, Todd Nickels and Jordan Van Brink as Vice Presidents in the company's Entertainment Marketing Division.

Fitzpatrick Portanova has worked in Entertainment PR for over a decade, specializing in traditional and digital publicity along with awards campaign strategy for television and film. Recently, she led TV publicity campaigns for Apple TV+'s newest series Servant and Little America, the Amazon Prime Video Emmy-winning series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Seasons 1& 2) as well as The Boys and Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan (Season 2). In 2019, she spearheaded the digital film publicity campaign for the much buzzed about indie film, "Booksmart" directed by Olivia Wilde for United Artists Releasing.

In addition to TV and film, Fitzpatrick Portanova has worked on a multitude of campaigns for content creators including Dan Levy / Schitt's Creek,Amy Sherman-Palladino, Dan Palladino, Conan O'Brien & Team Coco, Lauren Iungerich and more. She also serves as an in-house digital strategist for all divisions on both coasts of 42West.

Prior to joining 42West, Fitzpatrick Portanova headed up the PR department at Mammoth Advertising, where she created strategies for digital and traditional publicity campaigns and consulted for clients within the film, television and digital streaming industries including 20^th Century Fox, Annapurna Pictures, Fox Searchlight, Lionsgate, The Weinstein Company, STX Entertainment and Awesomeness TV. Before Mammoth Advertising, Tara ran the east coast publicity operations for Relativity Media and subsequently RED, the joint venture between Relativity Media and EuropaCorp working on over 30 film campaigns including "Safe Haven," "Don Jon," and "The Best of Me." Prior to her work at RED, she spent several years working for Nancy Seltzer & Associates, New Line Cinema and Terry Hines & Associates. She is based in New York.

Zehmer has been with the company for almost five years, where she represents a slate of filmmaker, showrunner and TV campaign clients. Her work representing Dan and Eugene Levy has been instrumental in the rise of Schitt's Creek over the last few years, including its four Emmy nominations. Other clients include Shawn Levy, Alma Har'el, Paul Feig, Autumn de Wilde, Kari Skogland, Elle Johnson and Lauren Iungerich. She is also currently working the campaigns for Apple TV+ series Servant and Little America. She is based in Los Angeles.

SOURCE 42West

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