Our Philosophy

At PHG, we believe that when good people come together to work on clients and causes they’re passionate about, great things happen. So we’re committed to attracting those kinds of people and providing the guidance and resources needed to do work that makes them — and their clients — happy and successful.

We’re a group of people with loads of talent, no egos and a love for doing what we do.

Oh, we also have a bar, our own music and film festivals, our own beer, our own video game, a half-decent kickball team, and our own local charity — the CNY Diaper Bank.

So there’s that.

Our Team

Full-time Team Members

Tana Heer
HR Director

Olivia Trunfio
Social Media Strategist

Cathy VanOrder
Director of Production Services

John Rice
Assistant Media Strategist

Sam Merlin
Motion Graphics Designer

Matt Chatham
Creative Director

Miranda Hagen
Junior Art Director

Denisse Espalter
Media Strategist

Welcome Olivia
Olivia Trunfio joins PHG as a social media strategist. Prior to PHG, Olivia was a social media and engagement strategist at Alto Solutions, Inc. She also previously gained experience in marketing at BHG Financial. Trunfio has a bachelor’s degree in communication from The State University of New York at Geneseo.

Welcome Eliza
Eliza MacCaull is joins our account services team as an assistant account manager. She has a bachelor’s degree in communication from The University at Albany, State University of New York.

Welcome Emily
Emily Ferry joins us as an assistant media strategist. She is a Google Qualified Individual with certifications in Google Analytics and Google Ads Search. Emily was previously an assistant media buyer/planner at another marketing organization. Emily has a master’s degree in applied data science and a bachelor’s degree in marketing from St. John Fisher University.

Our Partners

Doug Pinckney
Doug knows what it's like to be a client because he's been one. Prior to co-founding Pinckney Hugo Group, he spent nearly two decades in senior marketing positions that took him all over the world. This has given him a unique perspective that allows him to be uncommonly effective in solving marketing challenges. Also, he's pretty good at the golf thing.

Chris Pinckney
Chris likes to create great work that works. He oversees PHG's award-winning team of creatives in making sure everything our agency does is not only amazing—but effective. Before PHG, Chris worked as a senior creative for agencies in New York and Connecticut. Before that, he carried cement.

Aaron Hugo
Aaron is our clients' secret weapon. He creates and executes strategies designed to make our clients happy and their competition miserable. With both agency and client-side marketing experience, Aaron has worked on everything from small startups to the biggest brands in the world. In short, he makes things happen.

Syracuse HQ

The Courtyard

Our private courtyard makes a great spot for a meeting, lunch, and the occasional hotdog eating contest.

Employee Lounge

The employee bar and lounge offers a place to relax and get social— offline, that is.

Conference Room

It would take 63,069,600 of our conference room tables to reach from the Earth to the Moon. (It still wouldn't be long enough to handle some of our all-staff meetings.)

Our Culture

From employee events and shared milestones to professional development and committees, here’s a look at what makes us, well, us.

20th Anniversary Celebration

We celebrated our big milestone with a party for our staff and their families. It featured plenty of food, drink and, judging by the morning-after Snapchats, way too much karaoke.

20th Anniversary

in September 2022, we reached our 20th Anniversary and looked back on two decades of growth from a small shop above a liquor store to a near 100-person agency doing global work. A lot has changed – especially our headshots.

PHG Learns

We’re big on staying on top of trends, sharing best practices and learning something new. We’re also big on lunch. Our PHG Learns professional development sessions bring it all together.

PHG Committees

Whether it’s making PHG a better place to work, finding new opportunities for learning or helping out in our communities, we have plenty of ways for the team to get involved.

Changing things for the better

In 2016, Michela Hugo discovered an unmet need in our community. So we worked with her to start the CNY Diaper Bank. We are deeply committed to this cause, and so far we’ve been able to distribute over five million diapers to local families in need. Nope, not a typo. Five million.

Mental Health Week

With Mental Heath Awareness Week at the agency, we can’t thank the team enough for creating this week of talks, activities and resources to help make mental health a priority at PHG.