These 16 rising stars are helping brands like Disney and Nestlé navigate major changes in marketing

Ferrigno is turning the animal-health company Zoetis' organic marketing channels into revenue drivers. She leads a team of four marketers and multiple agency partners, and is responsible for setting the vision, aligning priorities, and coaching her team and other leaders in the business on best practices.

After the company brought content marketing and SEO in-house, Ferrigno generated about 50,000 leads in a year and helped the division deliver $26 million in annual sales and $4.1 million in savings, the company said.

Ferrigno is also involved with other high-impact company initiatives.

She took on the role of content lead for Zoetis' generative-AI pilot program, advising on governance and use cases to scale content production in the highly regulated animal-health industry. Ferrigno has been involved in driving content for the company's brand campaigns, such as the launch of its Breed Explorer interactive content experience.

Her work has been recognized with multiple awards, including the New Jersey Ad Club's "Top Marketing Mavericks Under 40" and a Vetty award for the best digital education tool.

Last year, Gee took charge of the creative vision behind Edmunds' largest brand awareness campaign, "Project Triple Play."

The campaign played on the idea that the Los Angeles Dodgers super-utility player Tommy Edman's name sounds quite a lot like "Edmunds." With a media budget of less than $1 million, Gee had to get creative and developed a "go deep" campaign strategy designed to simulate a national impact in a single critical market: LA, the brand's hometown and the nation's biggest car market.

Gee's team made 30 creative assets in-house, including its hero ad, "Edman on the Street," a high-energy street interview with quick cuts and a playful tone. He also led the team's use of AI, leveraging the generative-AI tool Midjourney to quickly bring concepts to life.

Gee created a "war room" approach, aligning brand marketing, PR, product, and external agency partners so the brand could quickly respond with content as the Dodgers' season unfolded. When the Dodgers made the postseason and won the World Series, Gee extended the campaign's reach through radio spots, homepage takeovers, and other rapid-response creative. The postseason extension delivered more than 2 million YouTube views.

Brand awareness in LA grew 8.8%, while brand consideration among its core 35- to 44-year-old demographic rose 5.4%, per Edmunds. Google searches for Edmunds in LA surged 111%. The number of LA-based users who completed Edmunds' car appraisal tool without clicking from paid advertising rose 7% and the buy rate — the percentage of users selling their cars in the LA market — rose 7.4%, Edmunds said.

Godfrey joined Meta in May last year and immediately took ownership of one of the company's biggest consumer hardware launches, the AI-powered Meta Ray-Ban Display smart glasses and Meta Neural Band.

The task: position the devices as a meaningful step forward for everyday AI adoption.

Godfrey was in charge of all social media and influencer marketing for the Meta Ray-Ban Display ahead of launch. He led partnerships with the video journalist Cleo Abram and tech creators, including Unbox Therapy. Abram's review video notched up 1.2 million views within 48 hours of posting.

Godfrey was also instrumental in ensuring the marketing activity was matched with a measurement-driven approach, building dashboards that continue to be used today to monitor and evaluate social media and influencer marketing effectiveness.

In 2024, Godfrey founded The Village, a nonprofit group mentorship program that supports more than 40 mentors and 200-plus college students and graduates. The Village helps build a recruiting pipeline for brands seeking early-career marketing talent. Last year, he cocreated Creator Crossovers, an event series for The Village that connects brands and tastemakers.

Previously head of editorial and brand content for Amazon Ads, Green moved into her current role in January 2025. She leads a new communications group designed to positively shape the public perception of Amazon's role in the community. She collaborates closely with several other teams — including PR, legal, and operations — to deliver integrated storytelling.

Notably, she spearheaded a documentary series and brand campaign dubbed "Community First." It features Amazon employee stories, such as a Marine Corps drill instructor's transition to become an Amazon area manager.

Green's team coordinated a distribution approach that spanned ads on streaming TV, audio, and social media, as well as amplification from Amazon executives. The campaign's success also shifted internal dynamics, with numerous teams proactively seeking partnerships with Green's group.

Green's work earned multiple industry awards last year, including wins at the Shorty Awards, Digital Streaming and Video Content Awards, and the Native Advertising Institute Awards.

Iqtidar has helped redefine how L'Oréal engages with mature consumers. In under seven years at the company, he's been promoted five times and worked in three countries.

In his role at L'Oréal Paris Skincare, Iqtidar helped reverse years of decline in the Age Perfect franchise by leading a strategic shift toward a science-driven, empowering narrative around longevity and better aging. Moving away from traditional "antiaging" messaging, the brand embraced advocacy-led storytelling — an approach that helped make L'Oréal Paris the top beauty brand by social reach and engagement in 2025, up nine ranks year over year, according to CreatorIQ.

The marketing shift culminated in the September launch of Le Duo Sérum, the brand's first double serum. It became the top-selling serum at launch, doubling growth for the Age Perfect franchise.

He moved into his current role as global face strategy lead at NYX Professional Makeup in March of last year. Under his leadership, NYX has sought to solve consumer pain points and deliver shade and undertone inclusivity for the mass market, such as through the launch of its "Make 'Em Wonder" foundation.

NYX capped the year by being named WWD's "mass brand of the year" in November.

Jedo joined Disney+ in November to manage the growth marketing influencer program in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region. She has almost a decade of experience in talent relations, brand strategy, and influencer marketing.

Prior to joining Disney, Jedo was the global celebrity and influencer lead at Bumble. She helped the dating app secure partnerships with A-list influencers and celebrities, including "Chicken Shop Date" host Amelia Dimoldenberg and actor Barry Keoghan, to feature in multimillion-dollar brand campaigns. Her remit also included onboarding licensed psychotherapy and wellness experts, including Devi Brown and Jillian Turecki, to create editorial content for social and the app.

Jedo's impact is amplified through her TikTok account, where she shares insights and guidance on breaking into the creative and tech sectors to nearly 100,000 followers. Through this channel, she's partnered with brands including Nike, ELEMIS, Celsius, and Look Fantastic.

Jedo gives back to up-and-coming creators from underrepresented backgrounds through her mentorship roles with the Soho House x Creative Mentor Network and Ok Mentor.

Elsewhere, she serves on the advisory board for VidCon, helping to shape the programming for the annual creator convention.

McLaughlin oversees Nestlé's Stouffer's portfolio, spanning its popular lasagna and a shelf-stable mac and cheese that launched in 2024 to take on Kraft.

McLaughlin was instrumental in the launch of the Stouffer's "When the Clock Strikes Dinner" campaign, one of the brand's biggest in recent years, in partnership with the WPP agencies VML and OpenMind.

The time-precise campaign came to life at 4 p.m. each day, taking over TV, social media, and out-of-home placements to play on the idea of "dinner dread," when people start to think — and often stress — about what to cook for their evening meals.

VML said the campaign delivered 1.6 billion impressions and a positive increase in unit sales.

McLaughlin joined Nestlé as a retail sales representative in 2010 and has worked her way up through a variety of positions, spanning digital shopper marketing and new business strategy. She was promoted to her current role in 2024.

McLeod has led multiple national marketing pushes for Sprite and Fanta over the past year.

As the creative lead behind Sprite + Tea — a limited edition soda combining classic Sprite with the taste of black tea — McLeod developed the creative brief and formalized a brand, packaging, and visual identity framework. Her scope also included social content, creator partnerships, and nationwide sampling activations. The standout packaging, combined with creator-led social storytelling, helped generate more than 8 billion impressions and reached 80% of its target audience, per Coca-Cola. Importantly, it helped drive tens of millions of dollars in sales.

McLeod was instrumental in leading the 10-week Fanta Halloween campaign. The spooky push included custom cans and a partnership with Universal Pictures, incorporating the Chucky, Freddy Fazbear, M3gan, The Grabber, and Michael Myers characters. She creatively led The Haunted Factory, a 7,700-square-foot, live-action experience in New York City that got more than 1,000 visitors.

For Sprite, McLeod relaunched the brand's "Anta Claus" holiday campaign, featuring the NBA star Anthony Edwards, to promote its Winter Spiced Cranberry flavor. For this second iteration of the campaign, she expanded its reach through custom content partnerships with Playmaker, Wave Sports, and My Code.

"Natacha has significantly developed her creative point of view through her work on Sprite and Fanta. She consistently pushes the work forward with clarity, intention, and a strong understanding of both the brand and the consumer," said A.P. Chaney, head of creative for sparkling flavors at Coca-Cola's North America operating unit.

Otake builds trust with licensors and partners to create high-impact digital and IRL experiences for Crunchyroll, the anime streaming platform. These experiences reached hundreds of thousands of fans in 2025.

To build excitement ahead of the September theatrical release of "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba — Infinity Castle," Otake created an immersive experience that invited fans to step inside the movie's castle, complete with twisting corridors and a disorienting lair.

Elsewhere, Otake's team brought the "Gachiakuta" manga series to life at several major conventions last year. The Pitmaster activation was a hands-on treasure hunt inspired by the series' core theme: the trash society discards can become powerful tools in the right hands. Participants were invited to dig through a massive dumpster filled with items sourced from Goodwill and local donation centers to pull a piece of "trash," and exchange it for collectible rewards.

The experience drew more than 4,000 people per day at the Anime Expo, where Otake's team had placed a 3D billboard inviting fans to participate.

Over the past year, Parkes has quadrupled the size of AI sales platform Apollo.io's social media and community team. She built the company's influencer program from scratch, partnering with major sales-focused accounts and creators like Corporate Bro and Morgan Ingram. She helped shift the brand's tone from product-focused messaging to humorous storytelling that addresses sales pain points.

This past fall, Apollo held its first in-person user conference, ApolloNEXT. Parkes was instrumental in building awareness of the event, helping the company generate more than 4.5 million impressions across a variety of channels.

Parkes has ramped up the social visibility of Apollo's leadership team on LinkedIn, generating more than 890,000 impressions for four of the company's executives. She also launched Apollo on Reddit, growing the r/UseApolloIo subreddit to more than 1,000 members.

Parkes "combines measurable impact, modern audience strategy, and empathetic leadership — demonstrating the mindset to shape the future of B2B," said Michelle Seo, senior social media consultant at Apollo.io.

Roque is turning Tubi's social media presence into a growth engine and positioning the brand as "the people's streamer."

Tubi had fun with the long-running Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition news cycle last year. When The Onion posted that a media company bid $35 for WBD, Tubi quickly responded, saying it was "raising the bid to $36." The post took off well beyond X. Jimmy Fallon joked on late-night TV that Tubi's bid included Slim Jims, $20, and scratch-offs.

Roque also aligned teams around a shared vision for Super Bowl LIX, during which Tubi broke live-streaming viewership records. Roque developed a social media playbook centered on participatory fandom and creator collaboration, which the brand applies to tentpole cultural moments.

Last year, inspired by TikTok creator Aiyanna, who was hosting informal Tubi nights for her 4.4 million followers, Roque's team launched the Tubi Seafood Boil Movie Night event.

Roque has helped Tubi lean into online fan communities around the "Bad Girls Club" TV show. Her team created a fictional employee named "Shawn from Tubi" who saved the day by having a word with his employer and bringing the show back to the platform after it was removed from the service. Rather than controlling the narrative, Roque's team invited fans to build lore alongside the brand, leading to plenty of memes, niche inside jokes, and engagement.

Ryan has been a key contributor to Zaxbys' "Grow to Win" business transformation strategy, working to differentiate the fast-casual dining chain's brand messaging in the competitive fried chicken category.

Ryan leads a team that represents roughly a quarter of the marketing organization and has helped lead the evolution of the brand's positioning — centered on its boneless chicken offerings and 12 proprietary sauces — across TV, digital, PR, and merchandising.

In January of this year, trade publication QSR magazine named Zaxbys its "transformational brand of 2025," reflecting Ryan and her team's efforts to elevate the brand through creative storytelling.

Since Ryan stepped into her role in 2024, Zaxbys has expanded key in-house capabilities, including graphic design and social content creation. Ryan is also the client lead for Zaxbys' creative and PR agencies, guiding projects from creative development through to performance analysis.

Last year, Sharpe led a complete overhaul of Grubhub's visual identity. The work was done entirely in-house and within just a few months of Wonder's acquisition of Grubhub.

Sharpe spearheaded a vision that put food at the center of the brand's visual identity. The project aimed to differentiate Grubhub in a competitive category and introduced a sharper wordmark, a new typeface, a bolder color palette, and a motion design framework. The success of the rebrand, which launched in May, earned Sharpe a promotion to head of creative at Grubhub, 18 months after she joined the company.

"She is the ideal person to guide our creative strategy as we continue to evolve," said Grubhub's vice president of brand, Marnie Kain.

Sharpe also played a central role in developing Grubhub's first national Super Bowl ad.

Stokes has played a central role in positioning Maruchan, the popular instant noodle brand, for new Gen Z audiences while continuing to serve its loyal fan base.

She partnered with Maruchan's product innovation and sales teams to build a comprehensive brand growth blueprint, which evolved its marketing to an always-on communications approach versus the prior campaign-led strategy. As part of those efforts, she helped build an in-house social team, designed to react quickly to the trends and cultural topics of the day and partner with relevant creators.

She also launched Maruchan's TikTok Shop, helping turn social engagement into sales. For Valentine's Day this year, Maruchan launched its Saucy Noods spicy ramen product. Maruchan eschewed traditional Valentine's Day messaging and invited its Gen Z target audience on platforms like Bumble and Snap to "send noods" — boxes of Saucy Noods, to be precise — to their crushes, via TikTok Shop.

"Katelyn has a rare ability to connect consumer behavior, creativity, and commerce in a way that feels natural, brave, and human," said Margaret Johnson, chief creative officer of Goodby Silverstein & Partners, which worked with Maruchan on the Saucy Noods push. "She's not just launching products — she's shaping how modern brands should behave."

Partnerships have been a key tenet of Maruchan's marketing strategy. Last year, Stokes helped Maruchan develop a partnership with PAC-MAN, rooted in the brands' shared Japanese heritage. She also identified a fast-growing search trend for "Maruchan Loca" — where people were combining its noodles with a Flamin' Hot Cheetos topping — and struck a partnership with PepsiCo to co-create an influencer-led campaign to encourage consumers to post content using its Maruchan DIY kit.

Taljonick works to drive fan engagement for 2K, the video game publisher.

His team employed a local marketing approach for the global launch of Sid Meier's "Civilization VII" in February, honing in on regional gaming communities tailored for different international markets.

In the US, Taljonick's team formed a partnership with the Shawnee Tribe, following the Tribe's inclusion as a playable civilization in the game. 2K funded a recording studio to help support Shawnee language preservation efforts. The initiative earned 2K a Gold Clio award in the "experiential and fan engagement" category. The Clios are annual ad industry awards that recognize top creative work. Collectively, Taljonick's work for "Civilization VII" earned five trophies at the Clio awards last year.

In Europe, Taljonick's team and 2K's international marketers secured a partnership with Interrail, transforming in-game historical eras with real-world train journeys.

And in China, the team created "The Civ Wonder World Tour," a multi-party documentary that explored notable sites and cities featured in the game. The influencer-led activation got more than 7 million views.

Beyond the launch itself, Taljonick continued to drive sustained engagement with monthly communications about gameplay updates and by interacting with players across Discord and Reddit.

Vandermeer uses her background in film, theater, and improv comedy to create humorous messaging for Tennr, an automation platform for healthcare that handles tedious paperwork.

Over the past year, Vandermeer ideated, wrote, and produced the scripts for two major brand campaigns.

"F*x It" was based on the insight that primary care doctors typically send patient referrals via fax. In the spot, a healthcare provider calls a specialist to inform them that a patient referral will take a while to process. The specialist responds, "Just f*x it," with the word "fax" bleeped out as if it were a profanity. The campaign, Tennr's first-ever, helped generate a 14% increase in lead volume, the company said. It was also named MM+M's "campaign of the week" by the industry trade publication in July.

"Nobody told her we wanted to do a video. Nobody told her to write a script. We just were huddling in a room seven months ago, and the only instructions that I ever gave was, 'Let's do something big,'" Tennr CEO Trey Holterman said of Vandermeer in an interview with MM+M.

Tennr followed up "F*x It" with "The Blizzard," an irreverent take on the doom-laden January re-verification season when providers need to reconfirm patients' insurance coverage, benefits, and eligibility. Tennr said the campaign generated a 9% increase in lead generation.