Lois Paul & Partners prides itself on having some of the most talented and best-trained communications professionals in the business. Our team has substantial knowledge of every high-tech sector and a broad range of segments in the life sciences market. They understand the critical issues, market dynamics, and emerging trends as well as the reporters, influencers and "gurus" who shape the direction of these industries.
LP&P’s senior executives are more than just agency professionals; they’re proven communications experts with unique expertise and diverse backgrounds to leverage for clients. Everyone on our senior management team has 15 or more years of communications experience and has been with the agency for 10 years or more leading LP&P teams and working with clients. The value of their strategic counsel, creative ideas and marketing insight is what makes LP&P stand out from other agencies and helps secure market-leading positions for clients.
Lois Paul
Founder and President
Lois co-founded Lois Paul & Partners (LP&P) in 1986, with the aim of building an agency that did high-tech public relations a different way. Coming from the computer trade press, she wanted LP&P to be a strategic, informed resource for the media, analysts and clients -- and a positive, people-oriented place to work.
As the leader of LP&P, Lois oversees all areas within the company including corporate focus and direction, client services, business development and day-to-day operations. She also frequently provides public relations counsel and executive communications training to client CEOs and senior executives.
Prior to founding LP&P, Lois was executive editor/features and a founding member of PC Week (now eWeek). During her tenure, she was responsible for more than 50 percent of the newspaper’s editorial content and specialized in reporting on the computer software industry. Prior to the launch of PC Week, Lois was senior editor/software at Computerworld, the leading computer weekly publication at the time.
Lois is an active proponent of social media and has been featured multiple times by BusinessWeek for its “CEOs who Twitter” segments. She is a regular contributor to the agency’s own Beyond The Hype and her blog postings have been featured a number of times in the Boston Globe’s “Blog Filter” column. Lois writes a regular column for O’Dwyers Public Relations News and is a frequent contributor to industry publications such as Mass High Tech, PR News and PR Week.
Lois received her Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude in journalism from Temple University and M.S. in computer information systems from Bentley College. She received the 1998 Distinguished School of Communications and Theater Alumnus Award from Temple University and has served on the board of the local alumni group.
For the past thirteen years through LP&P’s Philanthropic Committee, Lois has driven contributions to a range of non-profit organizations, including the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the American Red Cross. She also currently manages communications for St. Zepherin’s Parish in Wayland, Massachusetts.
Bill McLaughlin
Executive Vice President
Bill McLaughlin has more than 26 years of strategic technology, marketing and communications experience. Since joining the agency in 1990, he has been instrumental in building LP&P into the organization it is today, with a reputation built on delivering outstanding results for clients.
As executive vice president, Bill is responsible for overseeing client service strategies, company operations, business development and technology exploitation. He has served as a vital resource for companies such as Lotus Development Corp., Intel, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Compuware Corporation, Open Market, Unica Corporation, Manhattan Associates and Kronos. Bill has developed award-winning communications programs for companies across a myriad of markets and technologies, including the Internet/Web, e-business, collaboration, networking, wireless, telecommunications and business applications. Bill has been published in CMO Magazine, O'Dwyer's PR Report and Mass High Tech and has been a featured speaker at several conferences including the Public Relations Society of America’s International Conference, The Marketing Round Table and Mass Networks Communications Council.
Prior to joining LP&P, Bill held senior marketing and marketing communications positions at technology companies including Cullinet Software, McCormack & Dodge/Dun & Bradstreet Software and Raytheon Corporation. He earned his bachelor’s degree in political science and communications at Boston College and has completed postgraduate work in information systems management at Northeastern University.
Rick McLaughlin
Senior Vice President
Rick McLaughlin has been with LP&P since 1992 and has more than 20 years of public relations and advertising experience. As a senior vice president, Rick is responsible for overseeing all facets of public relations including: providing counsel to senior executives regarding positioning of corporate-wide strategies, designing and implementing PR programs and ensuring consistency and quality of an integrated communications program.
Since joining LP&P, Rick has developed public relations positioning and strategy for numerous leading technology providers in various technologies including in business intelligence, e-commerce, messaging and collaboration, financial and planning applications, document management, knowledge management, e-Learning, application development, Java, UNIX, productivity applications, storage, security, testing tools, embedded technologies and hosted applications. Additionally, he has spearheaded efforts in business partner and vertical industry programs targeted toward banking, insurance, retail, manufacturing, healthcare, academic, CRM, SCM and government. His clients have included ASG, Bioalma, Cognos, Centra Software, Compuware, IMLogic, Lotus Development Corp., Marcam Corporation, NetGuard, PivotLink, Powersoft Corporation, PTC, StorageTek and SQA. Rick’s work has been recognized numerous times by the Publicity Club of New England with multiple Bell Ringer Awards.
Before joining LP&P, Rick was the advertising manager for Stowe Mountain Company of Stowe, Vt., where he was responsible for developing and executing sales, hospitality and tourism marketing strategies for the year-round resort. In addition, he has held account executive positions with KK&M Advertising of Boston, Mass., where he was responsible for the advertising efforts of clients specializing in consumer retail, hospitality and broadcast media including Papa Gino's, Somerville Lumber, Eye World, Guest Quarters Suite Hotels, Franklin Sports Industries and WEEI Radio.
Before becoming an account executive at KK&M, Rick also managed the production division for the $20 million agency. Rick began his career as a production manager for William Filene's Sons, where he was responsible for the supervision of the company's print display advertising.
Rick holds a B.S. in business administration/marketing from the University of Vermont and has completed postgraduate work in computer information systems and systems analysis at Northeastern University.
Christine Simeone
Senior Vice President
Christine Simeone joined LP&P in 1994 and brings 20 years of high-technology public relations and marketing experience to her clients. As the telecommunications and security practices leader, Christine has led corporate repositioning initiatives, business press and competitive response programs, as well as company and product introductions for established and emerging companies. Christine advises on packaging information to maximize its appeal to a wide range of audiences, including general business media, industry analysts, technology trade press, bloggers and other industry influencers. Christine counsels on communications related to mergers and acquisitions, investor relations and global PR program implementation, and partners with Lois Paul to media train executive spokespeople.
Christine’s experience spans all facets of telecommunications and enterprise networking including voice, data, video and convergence, as well as content delivery, mobility and subscriber management. She leads teams for 3Com, Arbor Networks, Nokia and Tekelec, and has developed programs for companies that include Polycom, Level 3, OnFiber Communications, Sylantro and Shiva Corporation. As the LP&P lead on the agency’s work with Nortel over an eight-year engagement, Christine led teams in North America that spanned Nortel’s multiple lines of business, offering industry perspective and counsel to the technology PR, corporate communications and industry analyst relations teams.
Christine also keeps a close eye on the rapidly-changing security environment and offers experience in many areas from network and device security, to application security, identity management and security services. She leads teams for Mocana and Veracode, and has driven programs for companies that include Waveset, NetSec and Mazu Networks.
In 2004, Christine was the recipient of the John D. Graham Award for Excellence, which is awarded based on selection by her peers at LP&P and Fleishman Hillard for her personal standard of excellence.
Prior to joining LP&P, Christine was marketing communications manager at Easel Corporation, an application development tools company, with responsibility for lead generation, public relations, advertising, events and collateral. This role also encompassed a corporate rebranding and renaming effort. Christine holds a B.A. in communications and English from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and has completed postgraduate work in investor relations and public relations at Simmons College. Christine is a member of the National Investor Relations Institute.
Ted Weismann
Senior Vice President
Ted Weismann brings more than 15 years of public relations, social media and marketing experience, and has been with LP&P since 1993. For the past four years, Ted has led the evolution of LP&P and its services as a result of social media and its impact on communications and marketing. His focus is on ensuring the entire agency is equipped to execute programs that integrate social media techniques and technologies into their overall communications programs. Ted also created, manages and contributes to LP&P’s own blog, Beyond the Hype, ensuring the it is valuable and engaging for LP&P’s community of clients, prospects, media, analysts, bloggers and current and former employees.
Ted is a regular contributor to PR News on social media and has been quoted in other publications including The Firm Voice and PR Week. He also has been a featured speaker at events hosted by The Publicity Club of New England and PR News. In addition, PRSourceCode recently named Ted a Top Tech PR Pro for its 4th annual Top Tech Communicator Awards. This award is based upon a survey of more than 500 tech editors and bloggers who are asked to name their “top” individual PR professional based on responsiveness, knowledge of the industry, knowledge of the journalist’s individual preferences and more. This was the second time Ted was recognized with this individual honor.
During his time with LP&P, Ted has worked with a wide range of large and small companies in several markets, including commercial open source, enterprise software (content management, collaboration, application development, database, supply chain management, BPM, systems management), outsourcing (SaaS, globalization services, professional consulting, systems integrators) and wireless (wireless LAN networking, mobile application software, devices). Ted's clients have included several market leaders such as Lotus/IBM, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Kodak, Freescale Semiconductor, UPS, Sun Microsystems, Wells Fargo and CommVault, as well as rapidly emerging companies such as Alfresco Software, Lucid Imagination, Curl and ZoomInfo.
Ted holds a B.A. in economics from the University of New Hampshire and is a member of the Society for New Communications Research.
Carol Hanko
Senior Vice President, Austin
Carol Hanko serves as the leader of LP&P’s Austin office where she oversees client programs and new business initiatives. She specializes in strategic media relations and works closely with clients to deliver results-oriented PR programs supporting clients’ business goals. Carol joined LP&P in 2005 and has more than 14 years of experience in technology marketing and public relations. The majority of her background is in semiconductor, enterprise software and consumer/business PR initiatives.
Carol has helped grow LP&P’s presence in Austin during the past four years, helping to secure and manage a wide variety of new clients including Bomgar Corporation, First American, CleanFUEL USA, RenewData Corporation and Lumension. She co-leads LP&P’s clean energy practice and recently served as the co-chair of the Austin Clean Energy Council, where she continues to assist the organization in capturing national recognition for Austin's clean technology assets and companies.
Prior to joining LP&P, she led consumer PR efforts for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), where she managed the microprocessor company’s first lifestyle/consumer PR campaign supporting AMD64 technology. While there, she led AMD’s first consumer press tour and worked closely with national business, trade and broadcast consumer electronics media, securing more than 100 million media impressions within the first quarter of the campaign’s implementation.
Carol also spent seven years at Loomis Group, an integrated marketing agency headquartered in San Francisco. She moved to Austin in the spring of 2001 and served as director of Loomis Group’s Austin office, where she more than doubled the technology account base during the tech downturn. She provided media relations and account strategy to multiple technology accounts, including Persistence Software (acquired by Progress Software), ASML, Dow Corning Electronics, Texas.Net (acquired by Data Foundry), Praxair Electronics and the New Jersey Nanotechnology Consortium.
Carol worked as a staff reporter for community newspapers in both Portland, Ore., and Dallas, Tex., for several years prior to her technology-oriented positions. Carol holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Arizona.
David Ayer
Senior Vice President, Finance and Administration
David Ayer joined LP&P in 1995 and has more than 14 years of hands-on finance and operations experience. As the agency's senior vice president of finance and administration, David is the senior executive responsible for the agency's finance, human resources, IT and operations management functions (also known as LP&P’s agency services team).
Under his leadership, the agency services team aligns internal operations with line management to enhance productivity and client service. David is the key contact for financial planning, legal matters and contract negotiations, real estate and operations management.
David holds a bachelor's degree in finance from the University of Rhode Island and a master's degree in Accounting Information Systems from Bentley College.
Don Jennings
Vice President, Client Services
Don Jennings joined LP&P in 1997 with a background in PR, marketing and journalism. He is a primary point of contact for his clients and is responsible for driving the strategic direction and day-to-day momentum activities of their programs. This includes launches, announcements, product reviews and analyst and media relations programs. Don has experience in a variety of technology markets including business intelligence, e-business (B2B, B2C), IT and Network monitoring, Internet Telephony, MSP/ASP, RFID, SaaS, storage and VoIP.
Most recently, Don has helped several clients through award-winning and high impact product and service introductions, raising his client’s profile in national and majority media outlets. Don has been the lead on more than 50 new service and product introductions for his clients during the past five years. He was the lead on CommVault Systems’ launch of the Simpana Software Suite in 2007 and latest version in 2009; introduced more than 13 product and service introductions for StorageTek and then Sun DMG; launched SilverBack Technologies as one of the first in the emerging MSP space in 2000; and led several device and software introductions for Cognos, now an IBM Company. Don's work on the introduction of Cognos 8 BI was recognized by CEO Rob Ashe as "the most important product introduction in my 20+ year career at Cognos." The launch netted more than 60 interviews in the U.S. alone, and 200 pieces of coverage with 70,000,000 impressions across major IT, business and trade publications.
Don’s clients have included BakBone Software, Cognos, CommVault Systems, Dell Computer Corp., Double-Take Software, Emulex, FTP Software, MCK Communications, MRO Software (formerly PSDI), NetGuard, Network Engines, Omneon, OrderTrust, Pannaway Technologies, Permabit, Pillar Data Systems, ProActivity, PSW Technologies, SilverBack Technologies, SkyeTek and StorageTek (then Sun Microsystems Data Management Group).
Prior to LP&P, Don worked in marketing and PR for a management consulting company developing targeted programs and coordinating executive visibility. He also worked at National Public Radio’s Boston affiliate, WBUR, and was the assistant producer and director of station services for NPR’s “Car Talk.”
Don has worked with a number of clients on company repositioning and building company name recognition. In addition to developing and executing results-oriented PR programs, he maintains strong relationships with many key media influencers and editor and news-level contacts. It is rumored that Don has never met a storage, networking, RFID or IT monitoring technology he hasn’t liked.
Rich Wadsworth
Vice President, Business Development and Marketing
Rich Wadsworth has been with LP&P since 1997 and brings over 14 years of public relations, industry research, marketing and advertising experience to his role as Vice President of Business Development and Marketing. He is responsible for driving agency growth and assisting with the agency's overall strategic direction, marketing programs, partnerships and vendor relations.
Rich began his career at LP&P as a PR professional. He transitioned to a role in the IT organization that was responsible for designing and developing internal applications that would enable account teams to more efficiently manage and report on their client activities. This work became the foundation of LP&P's Research department which Rich officially launched in 2000.
In the last several years Rich has combined his expertise in public relations, client service, research and vendor management to drive the agency's new business and marketing efforts. His teams are dedicated to generating visibility for the agency as well as assisting prospective clients through their agency review process. Rich is also part of LP&P's new media team and manages the agency's Facebook page
Prior to joining LP&P, Rich worked in business development at EnviroHealth, a clean technology company focused on reducing commercial air pollution, and Arnold Worldwide, doing advertising for Blue Cross Blue Shield and Franklin sports. Rich holds a bachelor's degree from Babson College.
Melissa Zipin
Vice President, Life Sciences
Melissa Zipin joined LP&P in 1998 and has more than 15 years of experience in medical device, health technology and consumer tech public relations and advertising. Melissa currently serves as the lead of the agency’s life sciences practice.
Melissa has extensive experience launching medical device and health technology companies and products. She spearheaded Restore Medical’s national and regional launch of the first implantable device for treating sleep apnea, which resulted in more than 500 million impressions – with coverage in The Wall Street Journal, News Day, Reader’s Digest and Woman’s Day, as well as The Tonight Show, Good Morning America, CNN and more than 2,000 regional broadcast outlets in all 50 states. Melissa has relationships with medical producers and editors at key media outlets including The TodayShow, Good Morning America, New York Times, CNN, NBC Nightly News, Discovery Health Channel, Reader’s Digest and Reuters Health, among others.
In addition, Melissa’s experience includes working with both private and public companies, leading programs specifically designed for patient recruitment, physician and consumer awareness, issues-driven campaigns and company repositioning. Her life sciences clients have included: Empi (non-invasive devices for rehabilitation and recovery), Abiomed (cardiac assist and replacement devices), Picis (software for the OR, ED and ICU), Restore Medical (medical devices for treating sleep-disordered breathing), EnteroMedics (obesity management system), MedicalCV (minimally-invasive atrial fibrillation treatment), Hurricane Voices (breast cancer foundation), Gynecare (women’s health therapies, now part of Ethicon), InControl (implantable atrial defibrillator, acquired by Guidant), Vital-Link (emergency response systems), TargetRx (pharmaceutical marketing information), Medidata (electronic clinical data management), Clinsoft (clinical data management), Galt Associates (pharmacovigilance), Xpogen (bioinformatics) and BearingPoint (health and life sciences consulting).
Melissa received the Silver Anvil Award from the Public Relations Society of America and Bell Ringer Awards from the Publicity Club of New England for her work with Gynecare, Inc. and Restore Medical. In addition, she led programs for the repositioning, name-change and launch of Clinsoft, which positioned the company as an attractive acquisition for its nearest competitor.
Melissa holds a B.A. in fashion marketing from Simmons College in Boston.