Meet The Team
We are truth-seekers teaching a new paradigm of story; focused on the essential narratives leaders need to communicate. Big bets to moonshots to transformational initiatives. It’s what we love.
Meet the Team
MICHAEL MARGOLIS
CEO and Founder
Michael is the CEO and founder of Storied, a strategic messaging firm specializing in the story of innovation and disruption. As a trusted advisor, Michael helps executives demystify the complex and deliver on the promise of transformation.
Michael operates anywhere there is a story worth telling, especially in Silicon Valley, Fortune 500s, and global change. Michael is a frequent keynote speaker at top conferences around the world. He’s trained tens of thousands on narrative intelligence and how to build storytelling as an organizational capability.
Michael partners with c-suite executives, along with heads of product, design, marketing, community, and human resources. Since 2002, he’s advised clients across 34 industries and 15 countries—including Facebook, Google, Uber, Hulu, Greenpeace, and NASA.
Michael is a two-time TEDx speaker, #1 Amazon bestselling author, and has more than 200,000 followers on Twitter. His work has been prominently featured in Fast Company, TIME, and Inc. magazines. Michael is left-handed, color blind, and eats more chocolate than the average human. Michael’s latest book, Story 10x: Turn the Impossible Into the Inevitable, is now available.
EUNJI HAN
Director of Operations
At Storied, Eunji oversees strategy, people, and business operations. She is committed to building the future of Storied and is passionate about leadership development, strategic communications, and Storied’s mission in the world.
Eunji began her career in advertising and politics and brings a unique background to Storied from leading marketing and innovation at T-Mobile to large frontline teams in both customer care and retail. She was the former Chief of Staff at SOLS, a 3D printing startup as well as the Director of Business Operations at Everyday Health both venture-backed startups in the health & wellness sector.
Eunji holds a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from NYU Stern as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and English from the University of Rochester.
An her free time, Eunji loves to travel (43 countries and counting), create recipes for her food site SohnMat, cook for loved ones, surf, yoga and hang out with her dog Stella.
DANNA KRESS
Principal, Insights + Strategy
Danna is the Principle of Insights + Strategy at Storied, specializing in “voice of the people.” She believes that in order to both tell and activate an effective story, you first have to understand your audience.
With a background in cultural and corporate anthropology, Danna has dedicated her career to understanding the intersection of human behavior, identity, and brand. Captivated by the foundational role narrative has across communities and culture, she has led strategic research initiatives across a wide range of countries and categories – including Disney, Microsoft, Google, Sony, PayPal, J&J, and Southwest Airlines.
Before joining Storied, Danna worked as VP of Qualitative Insight at Maru/Matchbox and Senior Director of Strategy at Greenberg Strategy. She holds degrees in both Cultural Anthropology and Corporate Communication & Public Affairs from Southern Methodist University.
Danna seeks out any opportunity to engage in scuba diving, culture shock, gaming, live music, or large-scale art projects. As a member of the Potawatomi Nation, her second name is Debwedi, which translates to “she who speaks the truth” – a responsibility she takes to heart.
ANGELA EKSTOWICZ
Manager, Client Services
Angela supports engagements from initial scope to discovery, to deliverables and production. She brings a passion for active listening, information synthesis, and logistics coordination. Previously, Angela held a variety of executive assistant and program management roles in the fields of insurance, healthcare, and banking.
A self-avowed casserole-making queen, she loves to tailgate for the Green Bay Packers. A midwesterner at heart, she enjoys life with her husband, three kids, a dog and two cats.
SARA LONCKA
Engagement Lead
Sara works as the Engagement Lead at Storied. With a Master’s in Education, she has spent over a decade designing and facilitating experiential learning programs on topics ranging from disaster preparedness to civic engagement to digital marketing and storytelling.
Before coming to Storied, Sara supported the launch of UC Berkeley’s Experience Lab and served as the Director of the Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs, one of the nation’s premier public affairs programs for aspiring public sector leaders.
An actor and playwright, Sara spends her free time frequenting LA’s live theatre scene, recasting TV shows in her head, and writing parts for all her friends to play.
STEPHANIE TENG
Design Lead
Stephanie Teng is the Design Lead at Storied, building design as a function and bringing strategic narratives and process deliverables to life as cultural artifacts. She manages the design stack to support our branding, marketing, and learning and development efforts.
Before joining Storied, Stephanie was a Senior Designer at Activision, providing creative solutions across the company spanning internal communications, events, marketing, brand systems, in addition to supporting franchise teams including Crash Bandicoot and Call of Duty. Prior to the entertainment industry, Stephanie spent nearly a decade in consumer insights at Kantar, serving all insight divisions with marketing campaigns, client deliverables, business pitches, and data visualizations.
Placing purpose alongside creativity, Stephanie loves forging not only aesthetic but also effective pieces to support internal and external groups. When away from the Adobe Creative Suite, she is also a certified personal trainer and group fitness instructor, hiking enthusiast, and an avid aficionado of movie trailers.
DALE THOMAS VAUGHN
Director of Strategic Communications
Dale started out in strategic communications with high profile organizations like Southwest Airlines, Ticketmaster, and the House of Commons in the UK. He’s worn many hats as a spokesman, principal leader or founder of a half dozen companies and organizations like The Good Men Project and the Better Man Conference.
Dale led the marketing and business development renaissance at AirTreks, where he grew a pipeline of B2B partners from 0 to 7 figures, upgrading processes and systems for outreach, inbound, sales and onboarding.
As a thought leader in inclusionary leadership and healthy masculinity, Dale has been featured on TEDx, BBC World, CNN, and in the award-winning documentary NEVERTHELESS.
SANDRA WELLS
Learning Design
Sandy is the founder and director of the Institute for Mindful Living. Currently, a well-kept secret in the world of coaching, she has the reputation for being “the coach’s coach.” Sandy has spent thirty years illuminating dreams, dissolving considerations and prototyping desirable futures with individuals, couples and organizations. She is a black belt listener with a passion for experiential learning design and expertise in asking a better question. Regular yoga practice is her lifestyle and her photos and poetry collection compete for GB on her hard drive. In her own words, Sandy came to Story U, “To combine all the tributaries of my story into one river that expresses who I am, how I care, who I can help and why all of the matters…”
JENNIFER ST. CLAIR
Sr. Consultant
Jennifer St. Clair has been at the epicenter of digital entertainment for nearly 20 years. She’s worked with creatives and entrepreneurs in the transformation of the industry. Her experience spans entertainment, digital media, and technology. She’s worked at entertainment studios, start-ups, PR agencies, and in-house at media and publishing companies. She has a passion for working with creatives and entrepreneurs bringing bold, ahead of their time ideas to market.
Jennifer has held senior roles at companies with a vision to transform their industry including Complex Media, Participant Media, and Redbox Instant by Verizon. She was senior vice president of Communications for Complex Media where she led the external and internal communications for the company and was the communications architect for ComplexCon, the company’s groundbreaking annual festival. She’s also held roles at Paramount Pictures and mPRm Public Relations.
CARL WILSON
Design / Business Solutions
With a background in product design and a passion for elegant, strategic solutions, Carl has made a career of helping individuals, small businesses, and nonprofits design meaningful brand experiences. Championing intentionality, message, and an audience or user-centered design approach, he believes the opportunities to design life better are all around us. When he’s not working, you’ll likely find Carl coaching high school lacrosse or off on an adventure with his wife, Stephanie.
MARINA TETERYAN
Service & Experience Design
Marina is a seasoned human-centered designer and innovation facilitator with a specialty in service design and experience design. She teaches service design, facilitates workshops internationally, and gives talks and serves on panel discussions for a variety of industries. As an advocate for design and innovation, she hosts the world’s first service design podcast called Why Service Design Thinking, which is downloaded in more than 100 countries. She gives back to the community as an executive producer of the Los Angeles edition of the Global Service Jam and a co-founder of the Los Angeles Service Design event series.
Marina holds a Master’s degree in Strategic Design Management at Parson’s School of Design (The New School) and is currently authoring a book on sustainable design strategies. She believes that the world would be a better place if everyone worked by the principles of service design, lived by the principles of jazz improvisation, and used ergonomic standing desks.
SHARNA FABIANO
Facilitator
Sharna Fabiano is an artist, educator, and certified life coach. With an MFA from UCLA and twenty years of teaching and community building experience, she brings insights from her arts background into the business world to help teams become more connected, collaborative, and creative
AMEEN HAQUE
Storytelling Trainer
Ameen Haque is the founder of Storywallahs and a story coach. He has helped business leaders, scientists, entrepreneurs and teachers tell their stories better. Starting at Ogilvy, Ameen has worked for over 20 years in Advertising, Marketing and Brand Strategy Consulting in a range of firms like McCann-Erickson, Madura Garments, Ogilvy and Futurebrands. His work in consulting, advertising and theatre has helped him understand human nature and how to influence it. Ameen loves telling stories to children and playing Table Tennis. Check out Ameen’s website for more.
ALISON NORRINGTON
Cross Platform Storytelling
Alison Norrington is a writer & producer, Founder & Chief Creative Director of storycentral, a London-based entertainment studio that incubates and develops ground-breaking IP with global partners in film, television, animation, publishing, advertising, branding, theme parks, Virtual Reality and gaming.
Alison is Conference Chair for StoryWorld Conference, Exec Producer of the Virtual Reality Thread for Children’s Media Conference, is a two-time TEDx speaker and has presented at a number of entertainment and media conferences worldwide. She is featured on the BAFTA Guru series and is a member of the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, The Writers Guild of Great Britain, Women in Film & TV and the Romantic Novelists Association.
Her mantra is ‘be relevant, be genuine, be credible’.
TANE HUNTER
Futurist & Storyteller
Tané is a cancer researcher, bio-informatician, and science communicator. He’s a co-founder of Future Crunch, as well as a data analytics startup, Lighthouse. He holds a Masters in Bio-Informatics from the University of Melbourne, and has worked for the Melbourne Royal Children’s Hospital diagnosing rare genetic diseases. He is currently completing his PhD at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, using molecular biomarkers in DNA and analysing them using artificial intelligence to improve treatments for people suffering from cancer. He’s also a former US mountain biking champion and an avid sailor.
ANGUS HERVEY
Futurist & Storyteller
Angus is a political economist and a journalist specialising in the impact of disruptive technologies on society. He was the founding community manager of Random Hacks of Kindness, a global initiative from Google, IBM, Microsoft, NASA and the World Bank to create open-source technology solutions to social challenges. He was also the first editorial manager for Global Policy, one of the world’s leading international policy journals. He holds a PhD in Government and a Masters in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics, where he was the Ralph Miliband Scholar from 2009 to 2012.
DONNA LICHAW
Story Coach & Trainer
Donna is a speaker, author, and certified professional coach. She empowers technology, product, and marketing leaders to make an impact in their organization, industry, and world at large. Whether working with innovators at startups and nonprofits, or trailblazers at companies like Apple and Google, Donna has spent her career helping people build the stories of their own success—one story at a time. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner, son, and crooked dog, Ralph.
You can connect with her on the web at donnalichaw.com, on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
PETER ECONOMY
Thought Leadership
Peter Economy is a best-selling business author, ghostwriter, developmental editor, and publishing consultant with more than 100 books to his credit (and more than 2 million copies sold). He is an expert at helping his clients translate their stories into the written word.
JESSE FINKELSTEIN
Thought Leadership
Jesse Finkelstein has spent her entire career in books. She is co-founder and principal at Page Two, a strategic firm. Prior to launching Page Two, Jesse held several management
roles at publishing houses, including that of COO of D&M Publishers and Associate Publisher at Raincoast Books. She holds a publishing degree from Simon Fraser University and is adjunct professor in publishing at the university. She serves on the board of Creative BC, an organization devoted to supporting the growth of creative industries.
PAMELA SLIM
Learning Design
Pamela Slim is a book author, community builder, consultant and former corporate director of training and development at Barclays Global Investors. She focused her first decade in business on creating and delivering training programs for large companies such as HP, Charles Schwab, 3Com, Chevron and Cisco Systems.
Since 2005, Pam has advised thousands of entrepreneurs as well as companies serving the small business market such as Infusionsoft, Progressive Insurance, Constant Contact, and Prezi. Pam partnered with author Susan Cain to build and launch The Quiet Revolution and the Quiet Leadership Institute.
Pam is best known for her first book Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur, along with her follow-up Body of Work: Finding the Thread That Ties Your Story Together (2014). Both were published under Penguin/Portfolio.
In 2016, Pam launched the Main Street Learning Lab in Mesa, Arizona, as a grassroots, community-based think tank for small business economic acceleration.
BRIAN KURTZ
Leeadership Development
Brian is passionate about harnessing design, entrepreneurship and storytelling to transform leaders, teams and organizations. He partners with executives at Fortune 100 multinationals to accelerate new ventures and drive strategic innovation.
Previously, as Chief of Staff to the Chief Technology Officer at Telstra, Australia’s largest Telco and Media company, he shaped and spearheaded strategies to advance the company’s national innovation agenda. His mandate included forming a world-class industry advisory board, producing multi-city Hackathons, and launching a groundbreaking new innovation lab in the heart of Melbourne, Australia.
He was recognized as a ‘Social Intrapreneur’ by the BMW Foundation for founding The League of Intrapreneurs Australia, a network of pioneers and innovators within leading institutions.
Prior to Telstra, Brian played a key role in the national expansion of Impact Hub Australia, the country’s foremost cross-sector coworking community comprised of entrepreneurs, tech startups, academia, corporations, NGOs and government innovators across three cities.
Brian is a global strategist with over a decade of experience in marketing, business development and leadership inside large corporations and lean startups. He has visited over 80 innovation labs on five continents and is a regularly featured speaker on Intrapreneurship and cross-sector collaboration. His favorite cities are Barcelona, Melbourne and Berlin.
MARTY KURTZ
Leadership Development
Marty accelerates high performance in senior leadership teams. As an executive coach, expert facilitator and consultant for 30 years, his work unlocks cross-functional collaboration and the potential of leaders to achieve breakthrough results.
Marty is the founder of Kurtz Consulting Group, Inc., an Organization Development and Executive Coaching firm operating in the United States and internationally. His engaging approach to Executive Coaching and Team Development enables clients around the world to leverage their workforce as a true competitive advantage.
Marty has guided major corporations through significant transformation efforts by creating a shared direction and ensuring strategic alignment through implementation. His applications of Senior Team Development are designed to cascade into the organization and solidify alignment of focus, results and culture.
Simplifying how clients work together, Marty has navigated matrix and complex organization structures for over 30 years. His work in creating productive tension across functions has supported the success of brand teams, account teams, innovation and product development on the local, regional and global levels. His industry experience spans consumer products, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, food, finance, and fashion.
As an executive coach, Marty creates a context for executives to develop a powerful identity and complementary skill sets. He gains the personal trust of clients to enable their readiness to accept and act on coaching.
Marty’s corporate experience includes the Warner-Lambert Company, where he directed Global Corporate Program Development. Before joining Warner-Lambert Co., he was the Director of Organization and Management Development for Automatic Data Processing. A sample of companies supported include Johnson & Johnson, Mars Inc., Novartis, Coach, Sara Lee, Campbell’s, L’Oreal, Chase, UBS, and Cadbury-Schweppes.
Marty gained a practical footing in organization development theory by graduating with honors from American University / National Training Laboratory’s (NTL) M.S. program in Organization Development. He has guest lectured at Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Management and FIT’s Masters of Marketing program. Marty has also instructed “Team Leadership and Development” and “Organization Culture” in the Masters of Organizational Behavior Program at Fairleigh Dickinson University. He has addressed professional conferences on a range of topics, including ‘Accelerating Team Development’, ‘Implementing Cross-functional Teams’, and ‘Conflict Management’.
Marty’s grandparents came to America as entrepreneurs and taught their family the value of hard work and dedication to a shared purpose. Today he lives in a Northern NJ lakeside community not far from NYC where he enjoys hiking, kayaking, camping and skiing. Some recent adventures have led him to the summit of Mt Whitney, shark cage diving in South Africa, and hiking the Inca Trail in Peru.
How Can we help You?
If you’ve got a big vision that needs a big story, we’d love to talk. We work with Silicon Valley icons, Fortune 500s, venture-backed startups, and social change-makers. Anyone disrupting their industry with a transformational vision.
