Debbie Kasher

Creative Director / Copy

Debbie is the most strategically driven creative director you will ever meet. She began her career at the now defunct Levine Huntley Schmidt and Beaver where she worked on such accounts as Subaru and New York Magazine. It was at Levine that she created a highly recognized campaign for Planned Parenthood of America for which she received many awards including a One Show Gold Pencil. After 5 years, Debbie moved on to McCann Erickson as a senior copywriter on Alka Seltzer, Black and Decker, Sony and Coca Cola. From there Debbie went to the creative boutique, Scali McCabe Sloves, where she was an ACD on Nikon, Pella Windows and Perdue, to name a few, and was extremely instrumental in helping win the Mercedes Benz account. 

After 6 years at Scali, followed by a brief stint at Chiat Day, she joined Ogilvy and Mather as a creative director. At Ogilvy, Debbie worked on Dove, American Express, Kodak, Ford Motor Cars, Kimberly Clark, Kraft foods, Fage Yogurt and countless others. It was at Ogilvy that Debbie partnered with Arturo Gigante on SportsNet New York, the account that would follow them to their own agency, Spork New York. Debbie is currently co founder and creative director of Spork New York. She has two children and lives in Brooklyn.

Arturo Gigante

Creative Director / Art

After graduating from The University of Maryland at College Park with a degree in advertising, Arturo began his career at Trahan Burden and Charles in Baltimore, where he worked on such accounts as Harrah’s casinos and the Maryland lottery. He and his wife moved to New York in 1998. Arturo spent the next 12 years at Ogilvy & Mather honing his skills on iconic brands such as IBM, American Express, Kodak and Kraft’s Capri Sun,
as well as more niche brands like Fage Yogurt and SportsNet New York.
The transition to digital was seamless
for Arturo, having created successful digital experiences on many of his accounts at Ogilvy.

In 2012, Arturo and his partner Debbie were tapped to open the New York office of Real Art, a digital and design agency with offices in Ohio and Chicago and a burning desire to expand to full integration. After two years running Real Art New York, Arturo and Debbie decided to go it alone and opened Spork NY, an agency specializing in highly original creative born from solid strategic ideas. Arturo’s awards and recognitions include Cannes, One Show, CA, Effies, Addys, Luerzer’s Archive and multiple New York Emmys.

Nikhil Vaish

SENIOR STRATEGIST

Nikhil has accumulated a deep mix of strategic, digital technology, brand building and advocacy skills, from running his own consulting firm and as co-founder of the startup -CanIStream.It.

He began his career at Lintas in India, working on Unilever, Cadbury’s, Johnson & Johnson and launched Sony’s TV channel. His next move, to Ammirati Puris in London, led to his first foray into business-to-business marketing, working on PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Continuing at Ogilvy, New York, he helped create IBM’s first ever alliances campaign, and developed AT&T Wireless’s enterprise strategy. During his last two years at Ogilvy, he was entrusted with running Eastman Kodak, overseeing one of the agency's largest global P&L’s and managing a cross-discipline team of 100+ people.

Nikhil left Ogilvy in 2008 seeking more entrepreneurial pastures and co-founded Urban Pixels, a technology consulting firm. At UP, he advised early-stage startups and led a joint venture with Knowledge in the Public Interest in the higher education space, winning projects from the Gates Foundation and LaGuardia Community College.

Nikhil currently serves as a strategic advisor for agencies like Publicis, Razorfish
and SPORK. His engagements have included advising Citi’s fintech group, co-leading
a Digital Transformation pitch with Sapient Consulting, relaunching Sallie Mae’s
brand and creating a campaign to commemorate fifty years of the National Cancer Act for NIH.