Carrie Riby

Caroline (Carrie) Hunt Riby as an award-winning strategic advertising professional experienced in all forms of account leadership and media planning. She has been around long enough to know the theories behind solid media planning, yet eager enough to know that curiosity is what gives her clients and students the edge in a highly evolving communications culture. She specializes in communication integration, strategic planning, media strategy, audience/market research, social media, negotiation, education and intern mentoring. 

Riby has been in the communications business for over 30 years.  In addition to working as an adjunct professor for Syracuse University for the last 16 years, she  is also the marketing director for one of the fastest growing distilleries in America, Black Button Distilling. She was integral in marketing over 400K bottles of hand sanitizer during the Covid pandemic. Previous agency experience includes strategic account director for Butler/Till Media, media director at Roberts Communications, vice president, business-to-business worldwide communication director for Saatchi and Saatchi and media planner for Mullen Advertising.

Client experience includes: State Farm, Excellus BlueCross and BlueShield (both National and New York State), Lifetime Care, Xerox, Kodak, DuPont Chemical, ITT Goulds Pumps, Bausch + Lomb, Maserati, Stride Rite shoes, Boston Whaler boats and Smartfood Popcorn, to name a few. 

Industry accolades include “Media Strategist of the Year” by Ad Age’s B@B Magazine, and speaking engagements with the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA), Public Relations Society of America (the Rochester chapter) and the Rochester Advertising Federation. She wrote one of the Business-to-Business Media Guides for the AAAA’s.

She has a bachelor’s degree in advertising communications from Simmons College and studied advertising with Syracuse University’s Newhouse London Programme. 

Her board memberships have included: AXYS, the Association for X and Y Chromosome Variations, Pegasus Early Music and American Marketing Association of Rochester. She was also the chair for BPA International and AAAA’s Business to Business Committee where she helped write the “Guide to Business-to-Business Media”.