The Shipyard Appoints Stephani Estes as Chief Media Officer

New Hire Underscores Commitment to Engineering Brand Love and Media Excellence

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 27, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The Shipyard, the leading independent agency known for Engineering Brand Love for brands worldwide, today announced the appointment of Stephani Estes as chief media officer. 

Estes brings her unique perspective and skill in expanding brand, creative, and media connections, elevating consumer experiences, and building brands with staying power.

"Stephani is the rare executive who understands how to grow our clients' brands and build an exceptional organization to serve them. Stephani shapes teams to lead our clients today and well into the future," said Matt Bruot, President, The Shipyard. Her knowledge of modern media ecosystems will accelerate the future of performance-driven creativity at The Shipyard and will shape the industry." 

In her new role, Estes leads The Shipyard's media, data, and Ad Tech practices. She will inspire teams across The Shipyard, including Fahlgren Mortine, TURNER, and TinyWins, building exceptional end-to-end consumer experiences. Recruiting Estes reinforces The Shipyard's commitment to its robust media, data, and analytics practice that fuels creativity, enhances performance, and delivers measurable business outcomes.

Estes joins The Shipyard from Goodway Group, where she served as Chief Media and Capabilities Officer. There, she transformed and created media, audience, AI, and data products into positive results and global awards, including speaking at Cannes Lions. Before that, she led large integrated teams at Cramer-Krasselt, delivering award-winning work for brands such as T. Marzetti, Edward Jones, Cedar Fair Entertainment, and Cintas. She built its programmatic platform and helped launch a suite of proprietary data and analytics products. Throughout her career, she has partnered with brands including Hallmark, Hostess, Autodesk, and Bank of America.

"I'm thrilled to join The Shipyard at such an exciting moment," said Estes. "The Shipyard's dedication to engineering brand love with a fusion of creativity, media, data, and technology offers an incredible opportunity to redefine what modern media can achieve. Joining the team, leading the charge, and strengthening its strong foundation to drive strategic and creative decision-making is an amazing opportunity. What we do at The Shipyard creates competitive advantages for clients."

Working alongside Estes is John Mergen, who is transitioning to a new, expanded role as Managing Partner, Investments and Partnerships. Mergen will focus on investment strategies, exclusive access, and breakthrough activations that help clients stand apart in a crowded marketplace.

These two appointments underscore The Shipyard's commitment to creating a connected ecosystem where data and media function seamlessly, enhancing the product development pipeline and showcasing an approach to building brands designed to outperform. 

About The Shipyard
The Shipyard's marketing engineering model is uniquely designed and organized to Engineer Brand Love with creativity and innovation at the core. The agency's integrated brands, including Fahlgren Mortine, TURNER, and TinyWins, combine world-class capabilities in creative, media, data, communications, digital content creation, and technology & AI innovation under one vision. The Shipyard is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, with offices in Sacramento and San Diego, California; Denver, Colorado; Miami, Florida; Boise, Idaho; Chicago, Illinois; and Cleveland and Dayton, Ohio.

Media Contact:

Josh Milenthal, Marketing Director

[email protected] 

614-783-6017

SOURCE The Shipyard