BLITZ - Interactive Advertising Agency

Ken Martin

CEO and Executive Creative Director

As Chief Creative Officer, Ken is recognized as a thought leader for the experience economy as he works with top brands to identify trends and opportunities, fuse insights with ideas, and redefine the audience’s experience. He works with BLITZ’s top client list to conceptualize results-driven, brand-centric, campaigns and applications that entertain while they inform. With a diehard focus on quality and visual impact, Ken’s purpose is to drive the agency’s creative mind-set and vision from original concepts through final deliveries, setting the strategies for finish-line solutions which deliver measurable results.

Ken has been involved in the conceptual development and design of interactive campaigns for clients such as Adobe, Microsoft, Google, GE, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Bros., Electronic Arts, LucasArts and many more. His talents and experience have led to great success for client projects, which have won countless awards including OneShow, KeyArt, London International Advertising Awards, SXSW, Flashforward Film Festival, FWA, ADDYs, HBO Comedy Festival.

Prior to BLITZ, Ken co-founded Silicon Valley-based, eStudio, an innovative interactive content developer. He was instrumental in raising $5M in venture capital. An avid entrepreneur even at age 15, Ken founded SignWorks and sold the business at age 18. Eleven years later, SignWorks is still going strong in the digital sign industry.

When not at the office, Ken resides in Southern California with his wife, Ruth, and their three sons, Ethan, Gavin, and Colin. Ken has also been rumored to shred at Guitar Hero.

Mark Cohn

Executive Creative Director

Mark's focus is to visualize and drive BLITZ's creative execution for all video, 3D and audio related projects, whether standalone or integrated into larger campaigns. As an accomplished musician, artist, animator and game designer/developer, Mark specializes in the creation of high end visuals and interactivity which enhance the way audiences remember a brand.

Since BLITZ's inception, Mark has led the creative team to explore every facet of the interactive experience - from sound design to intelligent game physics - to quickly engage consumers and forge connections between them and clients' brands. His work has resulted in BLITZ's reputation for exceptional quality, as well as a plethora of awards for online advertising excellence and game development.

Along with Ivan Todorov and Ken Martin, Mark previously co-founded web development and animation company eStudio in 1998. Mark also served as an instructor at the Academy of Arts in San Francisco, Calif.

Alan Arner

President and Chief Operating Officer

Mr. Arner joined BLITZ in 2006 as President and Chief Operating Officer and brings over 35 years experience in Operations, Product Development, Sales, Marketing and Customer Support to BLITZ. Prior to joining BLITZ Mr. Arner was most recently responsible for company wide operations for ea Consulting, a $17M consulting and services firm. Prior to ea Consulting Mr. Arner was responsible for operations in the Western Region for American Management Systems, a $1.7B consulting and services firm. In his capacity as BLITZ Chief Operating Officer Alan will be responsible for guiding BLITZ in its mission to better serve its chosen vertical markets. This includes all operational responsibilities with respect to delivery of solutions as well as all Marketing, Sales and Product Development activities. Alan has served the public and private sectors in the delivery of innovative solutions for the last 35 years. Alan received his B.S. degree in Mathematics from Fordham University in New York City.

Ivan Todorov

Chief Technology Officer

As CEO, Ivan guides BLITZ as one of the world’s most renowned independent digital agencies. Evangelizing the promise of a digitally-centric advertising world fueled by technology and interactive branded experiences, he is responsible for BLITZ’s positioning to maximize growth and deliver innovative solutions and value to BLITZ’s worldwide clients.

As CTO, Ivan is also responsible for BLITZ’s technology practice, service offerings, and IT operations, ensuring the company’s award-winning engineering teams continue to deliver cutting-edge solutions. Over the years Ivan has built up BLITZ’s strategic development partnerships, assets, frameworks, code libraries, documentation, training materials, and best practices knowledge base. His fascination with math motion, physics, and particle animation scripts are often reflected in BLITZ’s interactive development of fluid interfaces, games and artificial intelligence (AI) behaviors.

Prior to his CTO role, Ivan ran the Project Management and Information Technology departments for three years, during which time he built up and directed the development methodology, IT infrastructure, and implemented enterprise-level project management, version control and QA solutions. He has worked on and launched several hundred projects, ranging from interactive web experiences, applications, kiosks and games to animated series, 3D cinematics, video and post productions.

Ivan is a highly-sought technology expert, speaker and educator, frequently presenting at Flash Forward, Adobe MAX and FiTC conferences. His prowess for digital advertising is a byproduct of a multi-disciplinary background encompassing visual design, UX, 3D, motion graphics, video and programming. His ten years of passion and industry experience for interactive technologies continue to fuel BLITZ’s reputation as a leader, and have resulted in a countless number of the agency’s awards and recognitions including Key Art, Flash Forward, Adobe MAX Award, SXSW, One Show, ADDYs, Web Award, London International Advertising Awards (LIAA), Internet Advertising Competition (IAC), and over 20 FWAs. He has proven instrumental in developing relationships with long-term clients such as Adobe, MGA Entertainment, Google, Microsoft and GE, helping them to more effectively utilize technology to build their brands and develop compelling interactive experiences for their customers.

Prior to BLITZ, Ivan co-founded Silicon Valley-based interactive branding and animation company eStudio in 1998, where he helped to raise $5M in venture capital. Ivan holds a degree in Computer Video Imaging from Cogswell College.

MISTI BARNES

Director, Account Development

Misti is responsible for BLITZ’ new business development, strategic planning and integrating BLITZ’ offerings into long term business opportunities.

She has worked in development and production in film, broadcast and interactive media. Her career in entertainment began by developing national promotions and marketing campaigns for Applause Licensing. Later, Misti produced and directed Women in Film’s Crystal Awards for Lifetime Television and The Lucy Awards. For seven years, she worked as an independent producer for live events, developing shows for: Universal Studios, Sea World, eBay, TNT, Fox and The Jack Morton Company. She served in key production roles for premieres for Disney, DreamWorks, Universal and Paramount. She has also served as Director of Filmed Entertainment for visual effects company Kleiser-Walczak (Spiderman: The Ride Film, X-Men) and H Design (now Schematic).

Misti brings a unique perspective to every client – a balance of production knowledge with a commitment to strong client relations. Her addition to the BLITZ team will further solidify the company’s position as a leader in interactive and marketing communications.