Where brains & brawn meet
It’s not every day the woman of your dreams walks into a coffee shop, but for the Vari production team, one day in early 2015, it happened.In early discussions about launching Vari and based on the frames wonderful balance between trendy and timeless, we knew we wanted to target the line at people who for the most part, were a study in contrast. To get the creative team to visualize who we were looking for, we did a brainstorming session on the careers and personality types of our “would be’ brand ambassadors. We volleyed back and forth “they’ll be attorneys and chefs, rock stars and ballerinas, they’ll be public and private, intellectual and physical”. Our brand ambassadors would need to be right brain and left brain in equal parts, someone that challenges the public’s “known” perception of any one type of person. In our minds, and on paper we knew what we were looking for, and then one winter morning on 26th and Broadway, she literally walked into our lives.
Eva is a branding and corporate communications genius. Revered in her industry as the best marketer and headhunter for IT talent and the only person you want to speak with when you are running interference for crisis communication. With a background in Digital Advertising before most people even knew what it was, Eva has always been a trend forecaster, ahead of her time and poised to lead change. With this experience, she successfully created and launched a firm that combines Public Relations with Advertising. Her client roster is impressive and from Texas to Boston and now in New York, she reigns supreme as an executive with a long and respected reputation for being no-nonsense, direct, blunt, intense and passionate about everything she does.
When Eva walks into a room, her energy alone would make you stop and take notice, never mind her shock of hair, tipped in fire red, deep brown eyes, porcelain skin, full lips and freckled face. She is stunning and has an unconventional beauty and a style all her own. She owns it and you know this the instant you meet her. She is reserved, soft spoken but an intense and fierce fighter with a story of courage behind her.
“Eva is a woman that will not be replicated. She works hard. She plays hard. She is non-traditional yet timeless and classic. Wearing glasses is part of her personality, always has been, always will be and now, so is Vari.”
As you can imagine, the mental pressure of working and leading board room discussions and strategies for Fortune 100 and high profile clients can be exhausting. To combat this, Eva found an outlet to exert some physical energy as a way to balance life and keep this stress in check. She could have taken up jogging or yoga, but atypical Eva had something else in mind and after being introduced to the sport in 2001, she took up full contact roller derby.
Competitive, strong and a leader, Eva is a beast in the rink. Roller Derby has a simple objective, one of the five members of the team in the rink is the Jammer and tries to field a single point with the mission to lap as many opposing skaters as they can. The remaining skaters who aren’t scoring points work both on offense and defense at the same time to block the opposing Jammer and to clear a path for their own Jammer. Well played roller derby requires agility, strength, tremendous control, peripheral vision, communication and above all else teamwork and speed.
It was this level of speed that contributed to Eva’s devastating 2008 accident where she hit a pillar outside of the rink while skating at full tilt. The impact literally split the skin on her face in two. Facial injuries can be devastating to your self-confidence. Even more so when you own and run your own business and have to live in the public eye.
Eva’s strength is incredible. Months of rehabilitation and several surgeries later, she was back in the rink. When asked why she even considered picking up roller derby again, she simply says that her two worlds in and out of the board room feed off each other and helps her maintain her equilibrium. She is, indeed, fearless.
