South & Appalachia Summit Team

Event & Production

Ayliffe Brown is the event production manager for CPC Atlanta summit. As an Atlanta native she is knowledgeable of how Atlanta’s creative scene has impacted the county and evolved over time. She is a creative technologist with a depth of skills geared towards foresting open source knowledge, impact investing and event production. In college, she studied Wearable Technology, leading her to compete on a reality TV show, America's Greatest Makers an Intel Experience. That experience drove her into working and designing business accelerators and impact investing processes for creatives. Since 2022, Ayliffe has been working to inform security standards within the metaverse, virtual reality and the future of immersive technology.

Ayliffe Brown

Event & Production Manager

Emily Gleeson is the Administrative Coordinator for Creative Placemaking Communities. She was born in Pittsburgh, PA and raised in Jacksonville, Fl. Her prior experience includes working at Downtown Vision Inc. the Jacksonville Business Improvement District as the Operations Manager. At DVI she was in charge of the day to day office management, event support and promoting #DTJAX as a great place to live, work, invest and play. Emily comes from an event planning and community engagement background. She has worked with a variety of organizations and nonprofits in the North East Florida Area including Her Future Coalition, JAX Chamber, Southern Charmed Events, Jacksonville Jaguars, Jacksonville Sharks, The City of St. Augustine and St. Augustine Sister Cities. She holds a B.A. in Political Science From Flagler College. Emily has learned the importance of community involvement which has transformed into a passion for supporting the local creative economy and volunteering in her spare time.

Emily Gleeson

Administrative Coordinator

Marketing & Communications

Eyal Schechter has years of experience working in digital marketing, public relations, and client acquisitions developing content for brand and service campaigns to build websites and branding packages. Eyal is constantly searching for opportunities that challenge his current state of thinking, build upon his innate strengths, and push to become a more altruistic collaborator. Eyal enjoys the daily growth that comes with a challenge and look forward to what's ahead.

Eyal Schechter

Social Media Coordinator, Creative Placemaking Communities

Ivan Schustak oversees the communications activities for South Arts. Prior to joining South Arts, Ivan served as Marketing and Communications Manager with the Pasadena Symphony and POPS and held the inaugural position of Guest Service Manager at Phoenix’s new Musical Instrument Museum. Ivan has also held positions with the Georgia Institute of Technology Office of the Arts, Arizona Opera, and the Del E. Webb Center for the Performing Arts. As a formerly active performer, Ivan specialized in the euphonium and trombone, holding first-chair positions in the Rutgers University Wind Ensemble and the Rutgers University Jazz Ensemble II. Ivan holds a BM in Music Education from Rutgers University, and an MA in Arts Management from Claremont Graduate University.

Ivan Schustak

Director of Communications, South Arts

Lilith Haig is a Designer and Animator based out of NYC, bringing a rich education in Studio Fine Arts and Art History to her creative endeavors. Her work blends the realms of design, animation, and mixed-media artistry, where she excels in crafting captivating web designs, impactful branding solutions, and dynamic motion graphics.

Lilith has served a diverse clientele spanning from musicians to nonprofits, Fortune 500 companies, and esteemed higher education institutions. Notable projects include spearheading the brand makeover for Creative Placemaking Communities, orchestrating webpage motion tests for Verizon's myPlan launch, and co-creating the thought-provoking exhibition, "The Weight of This," at the Mandeville Gallery in Schenectady, NY.

Driven by a passion for storytelling, a love of minutiae, and a commitment to immersing herself in the essence of the companies and brands she collaborates with, Lilith's objective is to design experiences that are uniquely tailored to each client.

Lilith envisions establishing a design firm founded on the belief that successful design thrives on empathy and an ego-free approach, with a relentless focus on crafting something truly exceptional for every client. Beyond her design pursuits, Lilith draws inspiration from mokuhanga, hiking, and the timeless verses of Blake's poetry.

Lilith Haig

Principal Designer, Creative Placemaking Communities

Executive

In February 2023, Ann assumed leadership of Creative Placemaking Communities, the leading professional development organization for the field of creative placemaking. In addition to being CEO of Creative Placemaking Communities, Ann is Principal of The Arts Hub, which provides a suite of services to small and mid-size art organizations, cities, municipal agencies, and businesses, bringing them together to harness the power of arts and culture for the betterment of the local community.

Prior to founding The Arts Hub, Ann served as a consultant to Zoo Labs, a start-up arts organization that offers entrepreneurship training to music artists.

Ann also worked for the American Cancer as the Director of Major Gifts, where she raised funds

from individuals, corporations and private foundations. Prior to joining the American Cancer Society, Ann served as the Executive Director of the Sausalito Art Festival Foundation.

She also served as the Director of Marketing and Communications at the Oakland Museum of California. She successfully raised the museum’s attendance by 144% and led the museum’s re-branding. Ann also closed sponsorship deals with national corporations such as Southwest Airlines, Wells Fargo, Clorox, Gap Foundation, Target, the MetLife Foundation and PG&E.

Ann is currently Chair of the Marin County Cultural Commission and serves on the Board of the Marin Cultural Association.

Ann Dickson

CEO, Creative Placemaking Communities

Jessyca has over twenty years of experience working in the arts and culture field. In 2010, Jessyca co-founded C4 Atlanta, a nationally recognized nonprofit arts service organization. During her tenure at C4, Jessyca built and managed programs that reached thousands of artists each year. In addition to her nonprofit work, Jessyca advocates for artists, the arts field, and community development that spurs economic resilience, nurtures healthy communities, and promotes equity.

Jessyca participated in the Bank of America Neighborhood Excellence Initiative Leadership Program, the Arts Leaders of Metro Atlanta, and was a Judith O'Conner Scholar for BoardSource. She was named Alumni of the Year by the University of West Georgia Theatre Company in 2013 and received an Achievement Award from her Alma Mater, April 2014. She has served as a speaker and panelist for Georgia Forward, The National Arts Marketing Project, Georgians for the Arts, Artists Thrive, Association of Arts Service Organizations, and many more.

Jessyca currently serves on the Leadership Council of the National Small Business Association and volunteers with Art Works ATL, an artist-centered political action committee. She teaches Ignite, a business development seminar with community partners such as Fulton County Arts and Culture and the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Jessyca Holland

Director of Organizational and Community Initiatives, South Arts

Curatorial

Davis Butner is an architectural designer, musician, educator, and writer with an interest in the intersection of architecture, preservation, and the performing arts. With interdisciplinary experience in design, curation, and artistic planning, he is passionate about the civic role of architecture and the performing arts as a means of promoting and preserving cultural heritage. A proud native of Atlanta, GA, he is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in Music and Architectural Design, likewise completing a certificate of design at the Architectural Association in London, and his masters in architecture at Yale University.

With a broad range of professional engagements, he has worked for a variety of firms and organizations including the Atlanta Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestras, Threshold Acoustics, Theatre Projects Consultants, and architects in Chicago, Boston, Shanghai, and Atlanta. Most recently, he served as a 2019 Henry Luce Fellow studying adaptive reuse design in China, a project leader at Summerour & Associates Architects, focused on the restorative masterplan of the town of Gay, GA, and a 2023 Kyle D. Taylor Memorial Fellow through the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, studying the historic architecture of synagogues across the Southeastern US. He currently practices with Studio Gang Architects in Chicago, IL.

Davis Butner

Creative Consultant

Ellie Tsuchiya (she/her) is a second generation Japanese American born and raised in Florida, nurtured by the Atlanta civic community, and currently based on Oahu. She is a Consultant with FUND Consulting working with mission-driven financial institutions to access federal funding that increases economic opportunity in historically underserved communities. Ellie is an experienced Creative Strategist, Program Manager, and Grant Writer with intersectional experience in cultural organizing and economic + community development. She has worked with a wide range of social justice organizations and campaigns in Atlanta including 9to5 Georgia’s Childcare Campaign, Respect Georgia’s Workers Alliance, Georgia Coalition for Paid Leave, ABC's of AAPI's for Asian American Advocacy Fund, National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum GA, Saira Draper for HD90, DanceATL. Ellie is interested in supporting work at the intersection of all of the things that bring her joy and inspiration: community development, public space, arts and culture, land conservation, Japanese American culture and history, and power building.

Ellie Tsuchiya

Curator

Kevin King relocated to the historic Washington Park neighborhood in 2007, where he and his family aimed to become woven into the fabric of a historically marginalized community to partner with the community in fostering its transformation. Here he founded The King's Canvas Gallery and Studio in 2018, which operates as a creative haven that caters to an art community in Montgomery that was undeserved and unseen. Through artistic expression and creative placemaking, they channel efforts towards revitalizing the neighborhood and individuals by empowering entrepreneurship and teaching financial literacy and life-skill development.

Kevin King

Curator