As CEO of disruptor media shop Hearts & Science, Ralph brings a wealth of experience building innovative, award-winning marketing strategy for some of the world’s most successful brands.

A future-focused leader, he has made ambidextrous expertise fundamental to the Hearts offer, fueling a capability set that delivers divergent thinking for clients. Central to his leadership style, he encourages clients and teams to look at the media strategies the same way that the tech world looks at software –  a process that must be continually updated.  A recent Adweek Media All Star, he moves seamlessly throughout his career between the worlds of big business and entrepreneurship.

Ralph was born and raised in New York City as a child of the Puerto Rican diaspora. He is passionate about creating pathways for the next generation of diverse leaders, and can often be found mentoring young minority entrepreneurs and startups in the media space.

Crunching numbers and deciphering analytics, Jeff lives and breathes where finance meets creativity. He loves perfecting his craft in an evolving environment like advertising and media and is always analyzing spreadsheets to provide additional value for clients. He wears many hats and gives equal attention to Hearts & Science, its employees and its clients.

Jeff has a firm grounding in finance, starting his career as a senior accountant at the Arthur Andersen accounting firm (now Accenture) before becoming the director of finance at Stillking Films Group. He later made his full foray into the media industry as a finance director at Ogilvy and later at OMD. 

Jeff’s diverse work background has enabled him to successfully adapt to different personalities across the agency while still providing support as a business partner. A man of many talents, he also spent six years in the Louisiana Army National Guard and earned his MBA from Columbia University.

Alex helps clients keep the emotional connection with consumers strong, even in an ever-growing transactional world. He believes there is true differentiation in how Heart & Science shows up for clients and is at the frontlines of defining strategic products to keep them there. From shaping the value proposition, to winning pitches and expanding the client portfolio, Alex is an invaluable asset on the Hearts & Science team.

With over 15 years of senior leadership experience, Alex directed projects at agencies like Initiative and We are Mobile Ltd to simplify stories, narrow focus, and translate campaigns across touchpoints. This work gave him a deep understanding of the importance of translating insights into actionable media behaviors and his contributions were instrumental to winning Adweek Agency of the Year in 2019.

If he’s not cooking up the next creative strategy for a client, he can be caught compulsively checking the latest property listings or brushing up on his semi-professional soccer skills.

People are the engine of Hearts & Science and Dana is at the center of creating the programs, protocols, and processes to keep things humming. She loves to refine processes and thrives in environments where she can coordinate any hint of chaos into new working models for better client and team efficiency.

Dana has a deep understanding of staffing across its lifecycle from her extensive experience working with both teams and clients. From her time as Client Success Director at Kenshoo for clients like AT&T and Hilton, to Executive Director of Client Operations at Hearts & Science, Dana transformed their ecosystems at the intersection of vision and output.

She has deep expertise in employee turnover and its correlation to emotional intelligence from her MBA thesis published with honors. Now she’s ready to build on that experience to enhance the Hearts narrative alongside its CEO. She is intentional about elevating every voice, and that shines even brighter on karaoke night when choosing the perfect song.

Whether it’s making a mean guacamole or streamlining digital and programmatic, Sharon always strives for excellence. She is excited to inspire teams at Hearts & Science to put data at the forefront of their investment decisions and knows that this approach will help build trust with clients. 

Sharon has been a key part of the Omnicom Media Group family for the last 25 years. From her early stage career in research and sales for A&E and BBDO to the east coast regional director at OMD, Sharon is ready to help others pivot along with an ever-changing media landscape. She was named Media Buyer of the Year by TVWeek in 2018 and has maintained a curious attitude toward continuously learning in the midst of an evolving industry. 

But it’s not just accolades and experience that Sharon has been collecting along her career—she also has a diverse set of Brady Bunch paraphernalia. Ask her about it!

Inventive at heart, Ilana is always looking to identify new ways to elevate growth at Hearts & Science. She caught the bug for new business early in her career, learning quickly that the hustle, the tension and the thrill of the win is where she wanted to make her mark. Now she is working to bring business development and marketing closer together for greater market impact.

With a breadth of almost 20 years of experience across marketing agencies, Ilana has a clear perspective of the unique advantage Hearts & Science holds in the market. She served as Head of Growth at Initiative and SVP of Integrated Media at 360i. Her work was instrumental in guiding these teams to several engagement and media plan awards with some of the most notable successes to each of those agencies, too.

Her experience as a mother has resulted in a keen perception and ability to juggle competing tasks and never lose her cool. She won “Working Mother of the Year” in 2018 and is not afraid to (out)shine in her 11-year old daughter’s TikTok videos and challenges.