Our Team

Michelle LeBlanc is the Founder of Blue Sky Marketing. A marketing strategist, Michelle guides her client companies through the vast array of marketing tools and choices to craft winning sales and marketing strategies that achieve their business goals.

Michelle has over 20 years of experience in marketing, both in business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketing. Her breadth of industry experience includes industrial, technology, retail, and healthcare among many others. Michelle continually looks for connectivity across industries and technologies that can be leveraged for marketing programs.

With a marketing degree from the University of New Orleans and MBA from Tulane, Michelle brings to her clients a strong focus on strategic marketing.

Michelle has served in several capacities across multiple professional organizations including the Boards of American Marketing Association, Houston Advertising Federation and Urban Land Institute Houston. Michelle is currently Immediate Past President of the American Marketing Association‘s Houston Chapter and serves on the Management Committee for Urban Land Institute Houston as Communications Chair.

Kate Nilsen is a Digital Marketing Strategist & Social Media Advertising Director at Blue Sky Marketing. On any given day, Kate is overseeing social ad campaigns, preparing lead nurturing automation campaigns, managing projects to deliver new functionality to websites, planning online and offline media buys, or otherwise supporting clients who have more to do than they can handle.

In her career, she has managed marketing efforts for various consumer and B2B products and services as well as non-profit organizations, such as Buc-ee’s, Sugar Land Wine & Food Affair, Johnson Development, Hotel Derek, PupSquad and BBVA Compass, to name a few.

Kate is a native of the New Orleans area, attended LSU in Baton Rouge, and spent two years living in Spain during college. She is a board member of the American Advertising Federation Houston chapter, co-charing the Education Team overseeing the annual Student Advertising Competition & Conference. She’s presented on social media marketing and marketing strategy at the Houston Chapter of the American Marketing Association, Fort Bend Chamber of Commerce, San Jacinto College, UH American Marketing Association, and Houston Bloggers.

As part of both the account and creative teams, Sara Barbieri is a Creative Strategist & Senior Brand Director at Blue Sky Marketing and very much a Swiss Army knife. She brings creativity, innovation, and passion to any project while she builds great relationships with clients. She is a passionate leader as well as an outstanding team player. 

In her career, she has worked with a variety of clients, from small and medium-sized businesses to multinational corporations to non-profits in a variety of industries, including tourism, IT, real estate, aviation, food and hospitality, retail and consumer goods. She has overseen projects involving marketing communications, media relations, and international events.

Sara was born and raised in Italy, in the Milan area. She received her MA in Languages and International Management from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan Campus. In true fashion for an Italian, she likes good food, wine and cooking.

Yvonne Browning is an Accounting and Marketing Support Specialist at Blue Sky Marketing. She enjoys crunching numbers, keeping budgets in tip-top shape and lending a helping hand with campaign implementation and reporting, among many other marketing efforts.

Yvonne graduated from LSU with a degree in Marketing. While interested in this field, she also became intrigued with accounting, leading her to a career at an engineering firm. At Blue Sky, she is now able to fully exercise both of her professional interests.

Born, raised and currently living in New Orleans, she loves visiting Houston to collaborate with her team members. Outside of work she enjoys spending time with her two daughters and volunteers for programs that instill confidence and leadership skills in young girls, including the Girl Scouts of Southeast Louisiana.

Danielle Hickey is a Digital Marketing Manager at Blue Sky Marketing. Danielle thrives on learning new things and overcoming challenges. Throughout her career, Danielle has worked to build and execute marketing strategies for B2B and B2C clients across the real estate, hospitality, security services, healthcare, and retail industries. She graduated from St. Edward’s University where she received her B.B.A. in Marketing and was a member of their nationally ranked soccer team. She enjoys spending time with her husband and their two little boys, staying active, and playing disc golf. 

Fun facts about Danielle: She has a twin, was a nationally ranked goalkeeper in college, and is freakishly good at killing flies.

Carrie is a Digital Marketing Manager at Blue Sky Marketing. After earning her B.A. in Communication from the University of Houston, Clear Lake, she began her career in special events planning and public relations. Throughout her career, Carrie has helped build and execute marketing strategies for a multitude of industries including, auto dealerships, educational institutions, large-scale fishing tournaments, medical, sports, real estate, and even a pickle festival!

When not nurturing professional relationships, Carrie enjoys spending time with her husband, their daughter and their two Great Danes, Simon and Duke. Motto: No matter where life takes you, always remember to be where your feet are.

Lauren is Digital Marketing Manager and Graphic Designer at Blue Sky Marketing. After earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in Graphic Design, Lauren began her career at a non-profit organization whose mission is to improve literacy rates for students across the country. Her background includes event planning, web design, email marketing and illustration.

Lauren enjoys translating an idea into a visual product and collaborating with other experts on the Blue Sky team to create meaningful designs. She is also an artist having painted over 150 family and pet portraits along with abstract work - the more color, the better! Born and raised in Metairie, Louisiana, she currently lives with her husband, two sons and two dogs, Rose and Blanche.

Mandy Brake is an SEO and Google Analytics 4/Google Tag Manager Specialist at Blue Sky Marketing. With a background in tech and extensive experience in digital marketing, she is results and data-driven. Mandy excels at helping clients establish and continually grow their digital presence.

Mandy received her B.S. from Northwestern University in Electrical Engineering and her Masters in Electrical Engineering from Rice University before working as an engineer at Texas Instruments. Later, she was responsible for the digital marketing that made her family business successful, and co-founded a worldwide educational tech startup acquiring 30,000 website users in over 200 countries. An expert in full-stack web development, Mandy has extensive experience in coding and design, as well as PPC, email marketing and SEO strategy. If it’s possible on the internet, Mandy will make it happen!

When not taking the web-world by storm, Mandy can be found playing obscure boardgames with her husband and kids. Born in Canada, raised in Taiwan, and fluent in Mandarin Chinese and English, there isn’t much Mandy can’t do, and we’re excited to have her expertise as part of our Blue Sky arsenal!

Chase Gipson is a PPC Manager with Blue Sky Marketing and has worked within digital marketing for nearly a decade. Cutting his teeth early as a web analyst, he soon moved to a marketing manager role, overseeing both PPC and SEO accounts for B2B and B2C clients. 
 A native of East Texas, Chase moved to Austin in 2004 to attend Texas State University. With stints in both Chicago and Los Angeles, he has now settled in Austin officially with his wife Elyse and daughter Nora. 

Sarah Magner is a Client & Project Manager at Blue Sky Marketing. With a background in marketing operations and digital marketing, she is an expert at creating and managing digital content to build relationships for organizations and individuals.

Sarah received her B.S. in Marketing from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Over the years, Sarah has focused on developing robust marketing strategies for various organizations including nonprofits, tech, life sciences and food & beverage. Sarah will go above and beyond to create powerful marketing that brings impactful results.

When she’s not changing the world of marketing, Sarah is an avid traveler and loves spending time in nature with her friends and family.

Vanessa Hernandez is Client Brand Lead/Graphic Designer for Blue Sky Marketing. Before her role here, she earned nearly a decade’s worth of experience in the creative field as a Senior Graphic Designer for a Custom Branding Studio and Marketing & Communications at a non-profit organization.

Vanessa earned her degree in Graphic Design from The Art Institute of Houston, where she found her passion for logo work and custom branding. It’s from this point that she realized her skill and love for connecting with clients to bring their vision to life, created from scratch. She continues to fuel her passion by challenging herself to push her limit of creativity both in her personal and professional life.

Outside of work, she enjoys adventuring around town with her partner, dog Nyah, and two cats Scooter & Benny.