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You wouldn’t want to put the universe in a tube.” -Tim Heidecker

My parents told me and my sister to be like a pine tree – it bends in strong winds but never breaks.”

I live my life by the idea that a ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. Experience, go out of your comfort zone, take risks. Because life is short.”

As a boy, I wanted to be a fighter pilot. And you know what? Not all your dreams come true.”

We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard defining edges.” -Gene Wolfe

It doesn’t matter what’s in the box; it only matters that there’s a box and there’s a mystery. Sometimes, mystery is more important than knowledge.” -JJ Abrams

The feel of the experience is the
important thing. Not the ability to
analyze or verbalize it.” -Stanley Kubrick

If you take care of the small things, the big things take care of themselves.” -Emily Dickinson

Perfection and power are overrated. I think you are very wise to choose happiness and love.” -Iroh from 'Avatar: The Last Airbender'

I don't go by the rule book. I lead from the heart, not the head.” -Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales

The creative adult is the child who survived.” -Ursula Le Guin

Make it work.” -Tim Gunn

There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” -Leonard Cohen

My parents always said to me actions speak louder than words. I think that's what motivates me to keep working so hard.”

Everyone has a story to tell. I've always been a storyteller. All I want to do is bring those stories to life and let the world see how interesting we all are.”

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” -Albert Einstein

A brilliant design will always benefit from the input of others.” -Zaha Hadid

What you are is what you have. What you'll be is what you do now.” -Buddhist teaching

Always stay humble and kind.” -Tim McGraw

Alex Litke

Creative Director
Video & 3D

Alex was born and raised on Long Island, New York, where he was inspired by cartoons and video games. One thing became clear: his dream was to become a movie director.

In 2009, Alex started studying Cinema & Photography at Ithaca College in upstate New York. He was inspired by a community that spoke the same language about movies and visual storytelling.

After college, he worked a variety of production jobs in New York and Los Angeles, and in 2018, Alex decided that he needed more perspective on life – so he backpacked through South East Asia and spent time in Sydney, Australia. When wildfires forced Alex back home, he became a full-time motion graphic designer. In 2023, his path crossed with Lyda Fire. He felt the agency offered him a great place to learn and grow.

Outside the office, Alex loves to watch movies – from blockbusters to The Criterion. He also enjoys visiting art museums and creating his own art as well. Alex and his partner, Charlotte, now live in Pennsylvania with their kitty, Tortellini.

Allison Hohimer

Creative Director
Visual Design

Born in the piney woods of east Texas and raised in the hill country outside of Austin, Allison is a true Texan native. She loves the heat, swimming laps at Barton Springs, yellow roses, hand-painted signs faded from age, and the violet hues that show up in the Austin sunsets, but not necessarily in that order.

Allison’s creative journey started at an early age when her folks enrolled her and her sister in art classes to boost their creativity. It worked! Allison graduated from St. Edward's University with a B.A. in Graphic Design and continues to express her artistic side working with clay, gardening, antiquing, and designing masterful presentations for Lyda Fire.

Allison loves venturing outside of Austin, spending time with her family or hiking with her husband, John, and their cats Nugget and Bean.

Amelia Tõnurist

Digital Marketing Manager

Amelia grew up in Estonia among a family of writers and artists and has always had a passion for writing and languages. This led her to study linguistics at Tartu University, which kicked off her early career in journalism. After having written articles about youth politics and interviewing Estonia's biggest celebrities, Amelia left her homeland to explore the world. She journeyed through Cyprus and Canada, recording her adventures in a travel blog she still maintains today.

Soon, Amelia found herself back in Estonia to take on a new challenge: a job opportunity in the international communications and marketing field. In this role, she advertised Tallinn University’s international programs across Europe and generated leads. In 2018, Amelia followed her dream across the Atlantic and earned a Master's Degree in Business Administration & Marketing from Mercer University in Atlanta. In 2021, Amelia joined forces with Lyda Fire to lead the agency’s digital marketing initiatives.

In her spare time, Amelia loves exploring new countries and cultures with her husband, Jonathon. If they're not adventuring, you'll find Amelia and Jonathon salsa dancing or hiking in the woods — enjoying all of life's little moments.

Corey Spicuzza

Exec. Creative Director
Video & 3D

Corey was born into a creative family with a passion for excellence. From winning coloring contests at Kroger in the '90s, to finding out that cheddar cheese tastes amazing with barbecue sauce on it, it was clear that Corey was destined to find his home in the creative cosmos.

After investing his free time and energy into learning how to play music, edit video and design, Corey decided to get a psychology degree for some reason. Really on a roll, he pursued becoming a firefighter, flight attendant and a soccer coach before realizing he didn't want to do any of those things.

As the years went on, Corey taught himself how to film & animate - becoming a regular video nerd. And in 2015, he landed himself at LF via a chance email featuring the lyrics, "Put me in, Coach." Thanks, John Fogerty. Corey likes Count Chocula, his kitty Oby and his beautiful wife, Taylor.

Drew McCaffrey

Creative Director
Written Word

Drew was born in New York and moved to Colorado at an early age, where he quickly fell in love with the landscape. Drew grew up surrounded by books, and he was 12 when he started writing his first novel. While he calls that one “terrible,” he never stopped telling stories. He went to Colorado State University, where he earned a degree in Creative Writing.

After graduating in 2012, Drew became a Marketing Coordinator for a local agency. As a book lover, he continued his creative pursuits. He provides editing work for other writers, including bestselling fantasy author Brandon Sanderson. In 2019, he started a podcast called Inking Out Loud, analyzing books from a writer’s perspective.

In October 2022, Drew was looking for the next step in his writing career and Lyda Fire fit his creative goals. As the first full-time writer in the company’s history, he enjoys the challenge and opportunity to grow the writing department from the ground floor. In Drew’s free time, he plays professional inline hockey, writes fiction and spends quality time in the mountains with his beautiful wife, Lauren.

Erastus McCart

Sr. Creative Director
Visual Design

Erastus was raised in a small town outside of Atlanta. Ras was inspired by music and art from a young age, and taught himself to play guitar. He received a copy of Photoshop at age 12, and has been fascinated with graphic design ever since.

Ras earned his B.S. in Communications from Kennesaw State University in 2016. While at KSU, he seized opportunities to collaborate with other creative people, sharpening his skills in design, video, and music.
While continuing to refine his focus, he developed a passion for building connections, problem-solving, and bringing ideas to life through modern design. In 2020, he joined Lyda Fire as a Creative Director of Design. In his role, Ras thrives on the energy that’s generated by being a part of something bigger than himself.

In his spare time, Ras enjoys biking the Beltline, cooking, video games, playing guitar, and learning Blender 3D. Most of all, Ras loves spending time with his wife Rachel and their gray tabby cats.

Holt Lyda

Founder & CEO

Raised watching Stanley Kubrick and John Wayne films in the suburbs of central Texas, Holt was a weird kid with a penchant for drawing caricatures of his classmates and teachers.

To his credit, he graduated high school in 3 years and earned his Bachelor of Communications at The University of Alabama in 3.5 years.

In 1998, Holt started his career as an Executive Recruiter and as an Art Director for Atlanta advertising agencies. In 2000, Holt dove feet first into the Silicon Valley dot-com boom at Yahoo!, where he created digital ad campaigns that resonated with the masses and earned Yahoo! boatloads of recurring revenue.

In 2003, Holt launched Lyda Fire from his San Francisco apartment. In 2004, Holt moved back to Atlanta, where the company has continued to grow steadily.

Holt loves spending time with his wife and two sons at the pool and attending little league games.

Jess Gonzalez

Sr. Project Manager

Jess was born in Schertz, Texas and moved to Plano, where she spent the rest of her childhood. Her parents, a teacher and an engineer, raised her to approach life with a good balance of emotion and logic.

As a child, she dreamt of becoming a marine biologist, but in college she shifted to communication studies — a subject broad enough to fit her diverse interests.

After graduating from the University of North Texas, Jess spent seven years working in Human Resources positions, where she thrived. Over time, connections brought her to Oregon, where she got a project coordinator position with Nike.

In the midst of the 2020 pandemic, Jess had a baby, moved to Arkansas and got married. She worked for Nike until the end of 2021, but moved on quickly and joined Lyda Fire’s Project Management team in 2022.

Outside of work, Jess enjoys time with her husband, Anthony; her adorable son, Casper; and their pup, Max. They reside in a cabin house in Sherwood, managing their twelve-acre homestead.

Kaitlin-Megan Rivera

Project Manager

Born and raised in Los Angeles, a natural fascination for performance and creativity was ingrained in Kaitlin-Megan. As a kid, she was lucky enough to get background gigs in movies and TV shows — and was hooked for life. Despite the strong influence of American culture, Kaitlin-Megan never lost connection with her Filipino roots, cherishing the values her parents instilled.

With broad interests and an open mind, Kaitlin-Megan double-majored in Communication & Sociology, earning her degree from University of California, Santa Barbara in 2018. She also studied abroad in South Korea in the Summer of 2017. After graduating, Kaitlin-Megan gathered experience from multiple industries, such as public relations and healthcare. She then caught on to project management, which quickly became one of her strengths. The one thing she missed was working in a creative environment, and Lyda Fire was the perfect fit.

Outside of keeping clients happy, Kaitlin-Megan enjoys expressing herself through sewing costumes and kpop dance. If not practicing new choreography, you can find Kaitlin-Megan at music festivals where she — you guessed it — dances the night away.

Karli Farnsworth

Director of Client Relations
& Project Strategy

Growing up on an island near Annapolis, Maryland, Karli loved spending time with family by the water. She left her small town to attend Episcopal High School, a boarding school in Virginia, seeking new experiences and connections.

After high school, she attended the University of Georgia. There, Karli seized every opportunity to grow her passion for learning. Ultimately, she turned toward helping people and businesses succeed. Karli graduated with a degree in Business Marketing from Terry College of Business, with a minor in Spanish and a certificate in Legal Studies.

Karli moved to Atlanta and started work in public relations and events, where she views challenges as opportunities for growth. Always looking for ways to give back, Karli is a member of the Junior League of Atlanta and volunteers at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and The Ronald McDonald House. When not home in Atlanta cheering on the Dawgs, working out, or spending time with friends, she loves exploring the world with her husband, Will, and her labradoodle, Gibson.

Lisa Marie Lara

Creative Director
Visual Design

Lisa was born in Chihuahua, Mexico. Her parents, native Mexicans, moved to Phoenix, Arizona to offer a better life for their children. She grew up speaking Spanish and quickly became bilingual.

As Lisa grew older, her love for the arts expanded. She learned digital arts in high school and followed her dreams by undertaking a degree in Digital Media Arts in Design at Glendale Community College.

Starting in 2014, Lisa spent eight years working for an educational company called Strong Mind, starting as a graphic designer and quickly moving into an illustrator role.

But in 2023, Lisa was ready for a change. She found a fit at Lyda Fire, where she can leverage her passions for other forms of creativity, such as video editing and motion graphics.

In her spare time, Lisa’s professional and personal passions overlap. She also loves to dance salsa, hike, camp and enjoy all the outdoors adventures Arizona offers. She works from home, accompanied by her two adorable chihuahuas Dora and Maya.

Maria Reichstadt

Creative Director
Visual Design

Growing up in the Chicagoland area, Maria found great success in cheerleading and gymnastics — until a catastrophic arm injury took her off the mat.

When Maria was just 16, she entered the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). While studying the visual arts, she mastered figure drawing and millinery — the art of making ladies’ hats.

After graduating with a BFA, Maria worked in law firms as an executive assistant and paralegal, but couldn’t resist her true calling. In 2017, Maria devised a five-year plan to change careers and returned to SAIC to study graphic design. She landed at MillerKnoll, the office furniture design legend, and in 2022, Maria graced Lyda Fire with her optimism and sophisticated graphics that stir emotion.

In her spare time, Maria writes and performs music for The Nancy Downs, her dark-wave pop band. Maria’s neighbors allege that you can hear thumping bass lines from outside her northern Illinois apartment, where she lives with two freakishly cute cats, Teddy and Sophie.

Matt Pye

Creative Director
Video & 3D

Matt grew up in a suburb of Jacksonville, Florida, where the St. Johns River was an inspiring getaway. Matt’s family also went to the cinema twice a week, where the masterful animations of Aladdin blew his mind. As he got older, he fell in love with all things art.

A few years later, music took over and after high school, Matt became a mix engineering intern in a recording studio. Matt then got into film-making and began studying animations.

In 2011, Matt won the Independent Auteur prize for his live-action short film, “In a Field of Weeds.” In 2014, Matt moved to Atlanta and started his own production company, Unicursal Pictures. In 2021, his film “concrete_savanna” was finally released. The film got international distribution, bringing him new freelancing work.

That’s how Lyda Fire and Matt connected in May 2022, where Matt strives to guide our 3D animation to new heights. He spends every free moment outside the art world with his beautiful wife, Sabra, and their son, Auden.

Namrata Harvey

Exec. Creative Director
Visual Design

Hatched from a family of artistic academics, Namrata's creative flair started before she could walk. From crayons & pastels to wire & clay, she expressed herself in any medium possible. Art classes began promptly at the age of six and continued throughout her schooling. She earned her BFA at Emory in Fine Arts & Art History and an MFA in Design & Technology at Parsons.

Through college and beyond, Namrata balanced school with work, entering into agency life in her teens. She gained a host of experience with brands like Pepsi, Sony Pictures and the American Cancer Society. Her work experience went far and wide with stints in New York and India, until she landed in Atlanta at Lyda Fire.

With 10 years of LF experience, she's helped the company resonate in the market and grow exponentially. Hats off to our head of design.

Namrata loves spending time with her wife, daughter and son and their very large extended family, including her 10 nieces and nephews.

Noah Lamport

Sr. Creative Director
Video & 3D

Nestled between the beach and the mangroves, growing up in Florida offered a wealth of personal adventure and life lessons for young Noah. Exploration and making up stories became his two first loves and he continues to practice both on a regular basis.

By age 14, Noah was creating his very own films on an analog JVC editing deck, not-so conveniently located in his high school gymnasium. By the end of his senior year, Noah had produced his first award-winning film, Theory of Mind.

At the University of Florida, Noah continued to find new ways of crafting narrative as an English major. After college, traveling was the call to action. After doing multiple internships with documentary crews and small production companies, Noah decided to head up to Atlanta, the Hollywood of the South, and pursue a career in media.

Sarah Hoy

Project Manager

Born and raised in Columbus, where she also met her husband, Sarah is a diehard Ohio patriot. While Sarah’s whole family worked in technical fields, she chose to pursue the arts. She began a degree in industrial design before changing tracks and earning a Bachelors in Interpersonal Communication from The Ohio State University.

Sarah’s love of art drove her into the design field, but she realized what she wanted to do was communicate and organize things. Over the next several years, she found herself swinging between design and project management.

Soon, though, family life took precedence. Sarah was a stay-at-home mom for a year, redefining herself, but in April 2023, Sarah felt ready to move back to the employed life. She accepted a position with Lyda Fire shortly after.

Sarah’s days are filled with joy thanks to her husband, Nathan, and their two precious children, Colton and Callie. Sarah loves to balance her work life with motherhood, meditation, and running.

Sofía Argiró

Creative Director
Visual Design

Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Sofía loves big cities and big adventures. She is a creator at heart, and began taking art and guitar lessons at the young age of 7. Since then, she has been nurturing her passion for drawing and design.

Always eager to learn more and challenge herself, Sofía worked on multiple projects while finishing her Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design at Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo. As a trilingual speaker, she freelanced on projects around the world while working for an agency in Buenos Aires.

Although Sofía loved connecting with people from around the world, she wanted a place to collaborate with a team. Most importantly, she wanted the chance to work on multiple and diverse projects with their impact on people’s lives and decisions in mind. From there, she found Lyda Fire.

In her downtime, Sofía loves to spend time with family, especially her nieces and nephews. However, the weekends are exclusively reserved for 'asados' — Argentinian social barbecues with friends.

Suhwa Hwang

Sr. Creative Director
Visual Design

Su is originally from Changwon, South Korea, a city known for its beautiful beaches, gardens and plazas. The arts have played an important role in her life. She grew up attending many after-school programs for art and piano. At 14, her passion for photography was sparked with the gift of her first Nikon camera.

In 2014, Su graduated with a BFA in Communication Design from Hongik University in Seoul. During her studies, she participated in a skills-exchange program in the Philippines. In exchange for her web design work, she was able to improve her English language skills — and sip on San Miguels in the sun.

Su has worked as an in-house designer in the beauty and tech industries, specializing in web design and branding. While Seoul and Tokyo offered experiences to last a lifetime, she moved to the US in 2019. Su joined the Lyda Fire team as a Creative Director of Design in 2021. She lives with her husband, Glenn, and their lovely dog, Bo, in Austin, Texas. Su loves crocheting, playing board games with friends and writing blog posts about her everyday life in Korean.

Tracey Schlenker

Accountant & HR Manager

As a native Coloradan, Tracey has been breathing mountain air and enjoying outdoor activities all her life. She found passion in soccer and owes her disciplined team-player mindset to sports.

She studied early childhood education at Colorado State University and taught pre-kindergarten in Denver. While she enjoyed teaching, a personal spark was missing.
In 2006, she began working at Homewatch Caregivers. Over 12 years, Tracey advanced from administrative assistant to Director of Finance, Accounting and Human Resources.

When Homewatch Caregivers was sold, Tracey started her own bookkeeping business and took a part-time accounting job. She soon felt she had too many balls in the air, and sought flexibility. Since August 2022, Tracey has been keeping Lyda Fire's books straight and bills paid.

Tracey still breathes mountain air — now in Parker, where she lives with her husband of 18 years, Steve. Their 13-year-old daughter, Elise, and 10-year-old son, Colton, also love sports. Whenever they get a chance, they love to ski and go camping – as true Coloradans do.

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PayPal Partnership

PayPal Ignite

Facebook All-Hands

Threekit Identity

Invoice2go Investors
Home Work Clients Products Team Follow Contact
Home Work Clients Products Team Follow Contact
PayPal Ignite

A sales event worth
talking about.

Creating a forum for
unity & dialogue among
the PayPal sales team.

  • Event Theme
  • Content Strategy
  • Speaker Presentations
  • Thematic Videos
  • Attendee Emails

Each year, PayPal hosts a sales kick-off event to bring synergy to their sales team. Using a compelling content narrative, we showcased PayPal's annual successes and laid the foundation for future growth. Our custom speaker presentations and dynamic videos boosted engagement, leaving attendees feeling motivated.

  • Event Theme
  • Content Strategy
  • Speaker Presentations
  • Thematic Videos
  • Attendee Emails

The thematic spark.

Fueled by PayPal's forward motion and recent success, we proposed the winning theme, ‘Ignite.’ From a single word, we built visual momentum with bright colors and gradient flares to infuse movement within every element of the event.

The total effect

15

Speakers

224

Attendees

3

Day event

Uplifting video narratives.

We collaborated with PayPal's executives to help visualize their successes and strategies, striking a balance between content and entertainment. Our video team's efforts resulted in moments of levity for the speakers to champion their teams and convey the energy of the upcoming year.

The theme Ignite focused on the idea of a global sales team banding together to be part of something bigger; the idea of a spark that ignites us to reach our maximum potential through unity. We expressed this spark in the design with gradients and a neon glow that illuminated the entire conference. ”

Erastus McCart

Sr. Creative Director
Design

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1000 Marietta Street NW
Suite 112
Atlanta, Georgia 30318

© Lyda Fire, LLC 2023