RED VELVET Names Hayden Lockaby As VP Of Strategy & Growth

RED VELVET, an award winning, full-service creative experiences, activations and events agency, has announced the promotion of Hayden Lockaby, VP, Strategy & Growth at the almost 20 year old company. Lockaby has been instrumental in helping transition RED VELVET to the agency model, shifting away from traditional destination management services (DMC) that had previously been the focus. She helped rebrand the company in 2020 and has been instrumental in preparing and shaping the team to function and excel in its new capacity. Key accounts include Silicon Labs, Nymbus, Tito's Handmade Vodka, Forrester, and Realtor.com, among others.

Lockaby's new role will include continuing to oversee business development, growth strategy, account management, marketing and RED VELVET's in-house creative team. Her immediate areas of focus are on expansion of strategic accounts, new account acquisition and development of best-in-class, business-driving work for RED VELVET's clients.

The announcement was made by Cindy Y. Lo, CEO of RED VELVET. "I am thrilled to have Hayden join our executive leadership team and help us attract new brands that value clever marketing activations and sales events that further a brand's reputation and deliver business results."

This promotion further signals an investment to the shift in relationship-building and creating award winning work RED VELVET intends to focus on moving forward. "Prior to the pandemic, this was a goal of ours to pivot away from traditional DMC work as brands craved creative activations alongside intentional event design work. Over the past decade, we've earned a reputation of solving tough event problems in the rapidly-growing city of Austin, and I wanted a leader that could help us scale beyond Austin.", Lo said.

Lockaby joined the RED VELVET team in 2019 as Senior Director of Business Development and came from T3, where she was a Client Portfolio Lead. Before that, she led Client Services teams in New York City at a number of marketing, branding and advertising agencies and has led teams on Target, Chubb Insurance, Coca-Cola, Dove, Kraft-Heinz, IHG and Procter & Gamble. It was there that she also founded a renegade underground restaurant operation with her friend called Homeslice West that ran for several years, being picked up by publications like Bon Appetit, The New York Post and Food & Wine. She says she "was always destined to be in experiential marketing and events" and is proud to be shaping RED VELVET's next chapter.

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