About

Roth Ryan Hayes, founded in 1988 as Roth Associates, is a pioneer in the search consulting category.

The firm has forged a reputation as a trusted adviser to some of the world’s leading companies as they seek to optimize their agency resources and efficiently navigate the evolving media and marketing landscape. Today, RRH is a leader in the field of agency search, selection, and compensation, providing counsel on the intersection of digital innovation and business strategy to companies such as CVS Health, Aetna, Activision, Blizzard, Home Depot and many others.

Contributing to the firm’s impact on the industry is its development of powerful proprietary systems which it employs in its tailor-made search processes for international clients in industries ranging from textiles, to agriculture, to manufacturing, to retail. RRH offers comprehensive solutions for every aspect of effective marketing resource management: 

Our expert advisors understand the challenges and the concerns of all stakeholders: marketing, finance, procurement, and their partner communications agencies. We deliver objective and pragmatic advice backed up by proprietary data and expert analysis. Our clients benefit from reliable, quantifiable processes that continue to add value well into the future.

Management Team

Matt Ryan

CEO

Matt is the founder of Roth Ryan Hayes. Originally founded in 1988, RRH is one of the country’s leading marketing operations consulting and agency search firms with recent clients including: Activision Blizzard, Aetna, CVS, Invesco, The Home Depot, The Kraft Group, The National Football League, Nestle, New Balance, Nintendo, PNC, Puma, Safelite and Stihl. Prior to acquiring Roth Associates and re-launching as RRH, he served as Global CEO of WPP’s United Network. Matt’s shift to global work started at Arnold and Euro RSCG, units of Havas. As Co-Chairman and President of Global Brands at Havas Worldwide he profitably managed a 450-person staff of integrated communications professionals. Among the global marketers and brands he worked closely with were Jaguar, Reckitt Benckiser, Merck, Volvo, and Live Nation. His domestic brands included New York Life, Atlantic City, Dos Equis, and others. Prior to joining Havas Worldwide, Matt served as EVP of Havas’s sister agency, Arnold Worldwide. While at Arnold, he led the agency’s winning team in a global Volvo agency review, subsequently staffing and managing the Volvo business globally. Early in his career, Matt rode the first wave of the digital revolution, founding integrated agency Ryan, Drossman & Partners. A pioneer in digital technologies, the agency launched renowned digital-first brands such as MovieFone, SportsLine.com, TheStreet.com, Verio, and Cantor Fitzgerald. Matt ran the agency for a decade before selling. He then served as CEO of the publicly-traded Change Technology Partners, leading the company through 12 acquisitions. Matt is a graduate of Syracuse University, where he received a B.A. in Political Science and a B.S. in Newspaper Journalism.

Russel Wohlwerth

Sr. Consultant & Partner, RRH

For more than 20 years, Russel has been advising companies around the world on all aspects of marketing agency supplier management. He is a serial entrepreneur who was an owner of Select Resources, a founding partner of Ark Advisors, and founder of External View.

Russel started his career as a copywriter but discovered his true calling was in account management. His first job was with McCann Erickson, but he spent the majority of his advertising career at DDB where he was a Senior Vice President, Group Account Director.

Russel’s consulting approach was profoundly shaped by his experience working with marketers that were in the throes of deregulation and structural change – airlines, healthcare, telecommunications, banking, and energy. Working in uncharted territory and creating solutions for never-seen-before problems has proven to be a great foundation for helping companies cope with the volatility of modern marketing.

While best known as a “search consultant” because of the 250+ searches he has conducted, Russel sees marketing agency supplier management as a complex system involving much more than just firing and hiring agencies. Although he has conducted searches accounting for billions of dollars in billings, Russel’s greatest achievements have been revitalizing client-agency relationships, reengineering marketing departments and agency rosters, and bringing sanity to the marketing procurement discipline.

Russel’s clients include Activision Blizzard, Adobe, BMW, CFA Institute, GSK, Hallmark, HP, Intel, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Major League Soccer, Nintendo, National Football League, Oracle, Porsche, Pringles, Sanofi, SAP, Charles Schwab, Sunkist, Toyota, Visa, VW, Wells Fargo Bank, and many others. Russel has conducted more than 30 complex global consulting assignments and searches including several prominent international media reviews.

Russel is an active supporter of industry trade associations. In addition to his involvement with the 4A’s, he also works with the American Marketing Association (AMA), Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA), and the World Advertising Federation (WAF).

Jonathan Spira

Sr. Consultant, Media Financial Audits

Jonathan is an inclusive, results oriented media executive and trusted advisor to finance, procurement, internal audit and other departments that touch marketing. He has split his time between media agency and management consulting, and worked across most verticals and media strategies.

Within Accenture and PwC, he founded and led high performing media management practices.  For his clients, he focused on contract modernization and compliance, media ROI and quality improvements, benchmarking, agency search, process and controls optimization, transparency and cost savings, digital process & in-housing – all through the lens of driving value and growth. Client categories include automotive, retail, consumer products, travel, financial services, and pharmaceuticals.

He started at MediaCom, serving leading brands like P&G, GSK, and Sprint, managing +$100M budgets, big sports sponsorships, applying marketing mix models, and serving on clients’ global media councils.

Jonathan has his MBA Marketing from Fordham University and manages the lifeguards for Stillwater Lake Association in New Castle, NY.

Chris Hayes

Partner

Chris has over two decades of expertise developing digital and integrated marketing solutions, having most recently served as Global CMO of Code and Theory. While at Code and Theory, he shepherded a comprehensive repositioning of the agency’s business development approach and positioning, resulting in the acquisition of the largest account in the agency’s history, New York Life. In repositioning Code and Theory, he allowed the agency to break into new categories such as health and wellness, insurance, and tourism, adding Quest Diagnostics, The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Intel, Google, and Brand USA to the agency’s roster.

Prior to Code and Theory, he drove periods of unprecedented growth as the Global CMO of Young & Rubicam, HUGE, and Critical Mass. As HUGE’s first-ever CMO, he took the agency through a period of rapid expansion, winning fifty pitches in a single year, and orchestrating the 2014 partnership between Samsung and Usher, which produced one of the most successful viral videos of all time. As Global CMO of Young & Rubicam, he repositioned the storied Madison Avenue agency and evolved its client base for the future. Chris is a strong strategic thinker, active practitioner, and perennial entrepreneur.

Chris is frequently quoted on CNN and in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and Advertising Age.

Paul Birks-Hay

Advisor With over 20 years of experience spanning both the agency and client side, Paul has a reputation for building iconic brands that create sustained growth for the businesses they serve. After two decades as an agency leader, Paul left the agency world in 2020 to join a Silicon Valley start-up, HamsaPay, where he serves as CMO as well as the operational head of the LATAM region. Two years in, the blockchain-based fintech is thriving and Paul, having built the brand, marketing, and customer experience from scratch, has hands-on experience of the opportunities and challenges facing a CMO in 2022. Immediately prior to going client-side Paul was Partner and President of Venables Bell & Partners, a San Francisco based creative Agency. Under his leadership the agency was recognized as a Top Ten Agency in the US (Adage A-List), named Breakthrough Agency of the Year by Adweek, and nominated to Fast Company’s Most Innovative Agencies List. The agency also experienced the strongest creative run in its history winning amongst other things, the Titanium Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions Festival. Paul has a depth of international experience, having also served as Managing Partner of AMV.BBDO in London, the UK’s number one creative agency. His category experience includes Automotive (Audi, Mercedes-Benz), technology (Google, Sony PlayStation), Food and beverage (Chipotle, Diageo, Campari, Sainsbury’s), Hospitality (Marriott group) as well as wellness, finance, home improvement and more. For over ten years, Paul led the New Business & Marketing Departments of his agencies, and has a deep understanding of the pitch process, as well as of how to get the most from agencies during this stage of the relationship. Paul has also been a judge at the Effies and a regular speaker at Adweek, Cannes Lions and the 3% Conference, often speaking on the subjects of pitching and agency relations.

Uttam Jain

Advisor Mr. Jain joined Athyrium in 2018 as a Partner. Mr. Jain has more than 10 years of healthcare investment experience across a range of sub-sectors including post-acute care, pharma services, consumer-oriented healthcare, medical devices, and healthcare IT. Prior to joining Athyrium, Mr. Jain was a Director at Thomas H. Lee Partners (THL), one of the world’s oldest and most experienced private equity firms. Before THL, Mr. Jain started his investment career at Riverside Partners, a middle-market private equity firm focused on investing behind founder and family-owned healthcare and technology businesses. Previously, Mr. Jain was a consultant with The Boston Consulting Group, where he specialized in growth strategies for healthcare companies. Mr. Jain also previously served on the Boards of Directors of Party City, Curo Health Services, and Professional Physical Therapy. Mr. Jain holds an MBA, with Honors, in Healthcare Management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania; an MS in Chemical Engineering Practice from Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and a B. Tech. in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, where he was the recipient of the Institute Silver Medal.

Kay Lucas

Advisor

Kay Lucas is founder and CEO of MediaSense, a company which specializes in strategic communications and integrated marketing solutions for Fortune 1,000 companies. MediaSense develops data driven strategic marketing blueprints that focus on a key set of results.  From there we leverage insights to create customized platforms across a mix of digital, traditional, and non-traditional marketing/media, as well as online and live experiences and events. 

Kay has worked extensively in both general and multicultural markets.  She comes from an agency background with a dual emphasis in new business development and media operations. Over the course of her career, she has spearheaded media operations at Grey, UniWorld Group, Global Hue and Carol H. Williams that have helped to redefine the modern, digitally focused, multicultural marketing landscape. 

A graduate of The University of Chicago School of Economics, Kay has enjoyed a lifelong career in advertising and marketing.  Her client portfolio includes General Motors, AT&T, Colgate-Palmolive, Proctor & Gamble, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo Bank, BET, xoNecole, JP Morgan Chase Bank, Dow Jones, Warner Bros., CNBC, Ford Motor Company, Rutgers University, Microsoft, Google, Pepsi, Burger King, UNICEF and more.  

Kay is an avid reader, fantastic cook and fitness enthusiast. She also sits on the Boards of Senior Housing Services of Bergen County and is the co-chair of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center Jazz Advisory Board.  Her daughter, Lisa Lucas, was named SVP Publisher of Pantheon and Schocken Books in June of 2020. 

Christine Osekoski

Advisor Christine established and is currently leading Live Nation’s first Agency Partnerships practice to advocate and create excitement for live music and the innovative ways brands can leverage the intimacy of music at scale. Christine is building Live Nation on a career spanning agency account management, Fast Company Publisher and iHeartMedia agency and industry partnerships. Christine serves as an Advisor to the founder of BRANDthro innovating at the intersection of emotional data and consumer insights. Prior to joining iHeartMedia, Christine was the groundbreaking and award-winning Publisher at Fast Company. She was responsible for driving the Fast Company brand while leading its advertising sales, marketing and promotions. Christine’s roles at Fast Company evolved since her joining, serving progressively as National Sales Director and Publisher. She was instrumental in the title’s remarkable reinvention following the purchase by Morningstar’s Founder and CEO Joe Mansueto. During Christine’s time as Publisher, Fast Company’s revenue quadrupled and its media franchise expanded to five advertising supported content streams, and across all devices. The rapid succession of innovative steps culminated in Fast Company being named “Magazine of the Year” by ASME and named to AdWeek’s Hot list three consecutive years (2008 –- 2010) and to AdAge’s A List in 2008. Personally, Christine was named one of Media Industry News’ 21 Most Intriguing People. Before joining Fast Company, Christine was a leading sales executive at Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. (Car and Driver and Road & Track). Christine broke into media at Parade Magazine. A lifetime Girl Scout (literally), being one of the first Gold Award recipients in the State of New York she continues to be supportive of the organization. An avid environmentalist and animal activist, she was a member of the governing board of Chicago’s Anti-Cruelty Society (working with the Chicago Police Department and the Anti-Cruelty Society, responsible for the establishment Anti-Dog-Fighting crime units in all police precincts). She sits on the board of trustees for the Cheetah Conservation Fund.

About Our Founder

Dick Roth

Roth foresaw the need to help marketers identify, select and compensate advertising resources. In response, over 25 years ago, Roth established the agency search category in the United States with his founding of Roth Associates. Since then the firm has been involved in hundreds of searches, pioneering the best practices for the industry as a whole, for which the RRH consultancy has gained significant renown.