René Vande Zande knows the ins and outs of advertising financials. She has worked as an accountant for almost three decades, with two-thirds of that in advertising and marketing. She uses her expertise in finance to help our account and business development teams spot patterns and opportunities. René has worked with brands such as Northern Battery, State Farm Insurance, Ingersoll Rand, Northland Cranberries and Sargento. In addition to her fierce financial skills, René has a strong creative side.

Sam Przywojski is always up for a challenge, whether it’s hiking up mountains or helping businesses and organizations grow. As agency growth principal, his economics background, enthusiastic approach and personal touch helps open doors to new possibilities. 

Sam spent eight years racking up airline miles as a key accounts executive with a leading international packaging company. Inspired by our culture, he joined Vendi to extend the agency’s reach and help new partners reach their potential with a combination of focused strategy and inspired creative.

The ability to strategize, coordinate and optimize is what Molly Walleser brings to Vendi. In her position as director of digital media, she helps projects run smoothly by making sure everyone involved understands the goals and that the execution is on track. She obsesses over the details so our clients don’t have to. Her work ethic stems from growing up on a busy family dairy farm and creamery business. Along the road to becoming a great marketer, Molly picked up skills by targeting patrons of the arts for a large performing arts center.

Erik is an exceptionally imaginative art director and designer who consistently generates bold, on-target and engaging design. His work has earned national recognition for creative excellence including SIAA, Graphic Design USA and Addy awards. He serves as both design lead for brand identity and design mentor at Vendi. Erik has significant experience working with both business and consumer accounts in the educational, leisure and tourism, manufacturing and tech industries.

John Horsfall is an accomplished interpreter who bridges the worlds of design from brand to web, print ads to packaging. With fluency in art and code, John’s concepts anticipate user experience and development solutions with nothing lost in translation. Think design is just about making things pretty? John’s refined design aesthetic engages, informs and guides the user down a deliberate path of action. His portfolio includes campaign development, design and UX for clients in healthcare, higher education, financial services, telecom and food industries.

Karen applies her finely tuned aesthetic to a wide range of visual communications including print advertising, collateral, web and video art direction. Keeper of the brand flame, she interprets and articulates communication strategies with coherence. Karen has achieved critical mass in accumulated experience with health and wellness, educational, arts and financial accounts. Her work has been recognized with CASE, SIAA and HED National Education Advertising Gold awards.

A passion for empirical data and uncanny understanding of consumer behavior propelled Julie Haas from market research analyst to senior marketing management to Vendi, where clients benefit from her vast experience overseeing innovative, integrated multi-channel marketing.

With an MBA from UW–La Crosse and more than 20 years of consumer and B2B brand experience, she has an extensive client roster that includes several of the biggest brands in the country. She has also worked with media distribution, utility and telecom industries.

As co-founder of Vendi, Kathy led teams in brand, creative, positioning, promotions and web. She and her teams have won numerous national creative, marketing, digital, web, video and advertising awards. Kathy led the development of Vendi's brand strategy process and enjoys nothing more than uncovering, crafting and sharing an organization's authentic brand story. In 2014, Kathy was named the YWCA Outstanding Woman representing Business/Professions for the Coulee Region.