the talent

Our people. They're the heart and soul and everything in between. That's why we invest in the best and brightest. If you haven't already met them in person, you should.

Until then, we've included some short bios to get you better acquainted.

Ann Lee, Founder, Account Supervisor, Creative Director

Since 1980, Ann Lee has made it her firm's priority to balance sound marketing and advertising strategy with memorable creative to produce exceptional results for her clients.

Ann has worked in virtually every industry and every medium imaginable. She currently serves as the firm's Executive Creative Director and Account Supervisor and uses a hands-on approach to work with clients to find out exactly what they need for successful marketing, advertising and branding campaigns. Clients will see a lot of Ann.

Under Ann's leadership, The Lee Group has grown from a small regional ad agency to a highly respected creative agency that has earned hundreds of creative awards and assisted nearly a thousand clients across the country.

She is the recipient of the Business and Professional Women's Club's Young Careerist award for the State of Texas and is a proud graduate of UT-Austin where she received her BA in Advertising. And, yes, she still bleeds orange.

Cher Weldon, Partner, Director of Operations, Account Manager

Cher Weldon began her advertising and marketing career with The Lee Group, honing her skills in account service and print production management.

Her brief stint as a financial analyst with the Pepsi-Cola Company gave her the opportunity to learn valuable analytic skills and to discover her true passion—advertising and marketing strategy. She then managed the production and traffic departments at MARC-USA in Dallas, and finally returned to The Lee Group as an agency partner, Account Manager and as the Houston office Operations Manager.

As a partner, Cher is vital to ensuring the satisfaction of all The Lee Group clients. Or, more accurately, she's vital to ensuring that all clients are absolutely enamored with the creative work and the results of our advertising and marketing services.

Cher holds a BS in Business Administration with a marketing specialization from the University of West Florida, Pensacola. She is also the proud recipient of a "Mouseketeer" degree from Walt Disney University.

Sheila Corley, Director of Operations and Account Manager

Sheila Corley's expertise in marketing and advertising spans almost three decades. She's handled everything from marketing management to copywriting, Broadcast Production to advertising sales, and media direction to special event marketing.

Currently, she leads the charge to develop and coordinate marketing strategy, but remains integrally involved in the firm's creative department and serves as the firm's Executive Director of broadcast production.

Prior to joining The Lee Group in 1990, she spent time as Media Director for another Texas-based agency and worked in broadcast sales, promotions and radio and TV production.

Sheila is a recipient of The Esterly Award, a research grant funded through Scripps College in California. She received her bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from Abilene Christian University, summa cum laude.

We wanted to add something personal here, but Sheila feels "there's a lot to be said for brevity."

JoAnn Lipsey, Account Manager

The shift from the cold climate of Ohio to the much more agreeable Texas coast seems to have shifted JoAnn Lipsey's passion from higher education marketing to financial marketing, which makes her a perfect fit for The Lee Group.

Since 2003, she's been helping our clients move closer toward their corporate goals through strategically planned and executed marketing, advertising and branding campaigns.

Before joining The Lee Group, JoAnn was VP of Marketing at D. Hilton Associates Inc., a Texas-based financial consulting firm, where she rebuilt and managed the marketing and advertising group. During her time there, she also conducted executive searches for financial institutions and assisted more than 200 credit unions on successful charter and field of membership changes.

JoAnn graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's in Organizational Communication and Public Relations and a master's in Higher Education Administration, both from Ohio University.

She is also fluent in Texan.

Kevin Burns, Senior Art Director

An award-winning Art Director for more than two decades, Kevin pulls inspiration from all areas of life, including pop culture, fashion and propaganda, all of which fuel his pursuit of effective design, and inspire every facet of his work. Kevin's portfolio spans a myriad of consumer and business-to-business industries, including oil and gas, real estate, technology, financial services and new media.

During the course of his career, Kevin has worked with a number of prestigious advertising agencies, including McCann-Erickson, Rives-Carlberg, Goswick Advertising and BRSG, in addition to his years in financial services advertising at D. Hilton Associates. Needless to say, he's raked in numerous regional and national awards throughout his career.

Kevin came to The Lee Group in 2005 and we still haven't seen him wear the same shirt twice.

Karen Blum, Media Director

Working for more than a decade for network affiliates of CBS, ABC and NBC, Karen is a media veteran who knows the ins and outs of the media world.

She's been The Lee Group's media director since 2007 and uses a number of media planning tools—Strata, Nielsen, Arbitron and others—to optimize our clients' budgets with just the right media mix. Her organizational skills and keen ability to negotiate ensure that our clients receive the best rates and placements within a variety of advertising media.

And with two children at Texas A&M University, Karen tends to favor maroon as her color of choice. Much to the chagrin of her boss.

Ann Harding, Production Manager

Ann Harding has worked on all sides of the production equation—as client, as provider and, ultimately, as agent. With each transition in her career, she's gained more and more insight into client needs, the intricacies of the printing process and the importance of meeting deadlines, staying within budget and ensuring top quality deliverables.

Now with The Lee Group, Ann puts her 20 years of first-hand expertise and insight to work, making sure that our clients receive not only the best quality product, but also the best value. Just as important, it's her job to make it all look easy, freeing our clients from the burdens of production worries.

However, we do worry about her penchant for naming pets after natural disasters. But Hugo, Allison, Alicia and Ike are such cute little things.