The Next Wave Award

Alex Bryant
Project Manager, GSD&M, Austin, TX

While at GSD&M, he’s emerged himself in the agency’s culture by co-leading their BLK Employee Resource Group, as well as most recently named Ad2Austin’s 32 Under 32 recipient and one of the Top 50 Black Marketers on the Rise by the African American Marketing Association.

Since 2016, Erica has grown Choctaw Casinos & Resorts’ brand affiliation with more than 25 high-profile partnerships – including the Dallas Mavericks, Texas Rangers, Dallas Stars, AT&T

Byron Nelson, the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, the Academy of Country Music Awards, Dickies Arena, and several others.

Madison McQuary
Brand Manager, Agency Habitat, Fort Worth, TX

Her notable achievements include the implementation of digital media campaigns for Pei Wei, MOOYAH Burgers, and Old Gringo, for which she has helped increase return on ad spend by 106%, resulting in $1.7 million in revenue. She has executed over 15 shoots, launched 7 social media accounts, developed over 50 SOWs, generated over 200 creative briefs, and provided over 75 performance reports. Impressively, her work for MOOYAH and Pei Wei has been recognized with three bronze Telly Awards in 2022 and 2023.

Madison also created an internship program at Habitat that reduced onboarding time by 50% and mentored 12 interns to an 80% full-time employment conversion rate post-internship.

Candace Pittman
Account Director, Gravity Global President, Pink Lemonade Labs

Early in her career, Candace spent a few years leading the advertising for Academy Sports + Outdoors, a sporting goods store with a presence in many states. Her accomplishments with her time at Academy include working with a third-party agency to execute, optimize and report performance of digital ads, driving a 20% increase in opens and 15% in click through rate and working with cross functional teams to pilot CRM based Direct mail program.

In August 2020, Candace created Pink Lemonade Labs, a full-service advertising and marketing company, and in January 2024, she joined Gravity Global as Account Director. Previously, Candace served as an Account Supervisor with The Marketing Arm (TMA) where her client is the U.S. Army National Guard, consulting with state and national client leadership to develop and implement state marketing and media plans designed to achieve the recruiting mission for the seven states in the mid-west region.