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 | Age: 31 | | Title: Partner | | Company: Fuse | | Education: B.S., University of Vermont | | Family: Single | | Career: Joined Fuse in 1999 as intern account manager; promoted to group director and later creative director before being named partner in 2004. | | Last vacation: Maui surf trip | | Favorite book: Everything by Kurt Vonnegut | | Favorite movie: Spaceballs | | Whats on your iPod? The mixtape I did for Burton Snowboards featuring classic 90s hip-hop remixed with 80s rock anthems. Also lots of TV shows for lots of plane rides. Today I am loaded up with episodes of Californication and Flight of the Conchords. | | Pet peeve: Drivers who pay attention to their cell phone and not the road. Pull over right now if you are reading this on your phone! | | Greatest achievement: Finding a career that I love and balancing that career with friends, family and lots of fun on a snowboard/wakeboard/surfboard/mountain bike. | | Greatest disappointment: The word extreme. Can everyone please stop using it? | | Fantasy job: Lucky, the Boston Celtics mascot. I need to learn double front flip dunks off a trampoline. | | Executive you most admire: Danny Ainge (for bringing the big three to Boston) | | Business advice: One word: Over-deliver! Wait, I guess that is two words. | When Jack Link’s Beef Jerky decided to create a product designed for teen males, company marketing executive Jeff LeFever worried about the brand’s ability to appeal to young men in an authentic way. He eventually turned to Issa Sawabini and Fuse for help. “We could have figured out action sports is where to be,” LeFever said. “But where they really helped us is pulling together executional pieces to make us not look like a bunch of corporate nerds. Issa still has a really solid connection to the target demo we were going after and that helped with pulling that off.” Sawabini has excelled as a corporate consultant because of his ability to translate the value of action sports in a way that shows clients how it can help their brand. It’s a skill that has distinguished him in the action sports space and helped Fuse become one of the country’s pre-eminent action sports consultants. At a time when many agencies began to see erosion in their revenue last year, Fuse was having one of its best years. Revenue increased 40 percent in 2008 and the company added clients such as Gatorade, Converse and Jack Link’s Beef Jerky. Much of that success is driven by Sawabini’s passion for his work and the sports he works on with clients. “Issa is as much an athlete as he is a smart businessman — and that’s what makes him so good,” said Jeff Urban, senior vice president of sports marketing for Gatorade. “His individual passion for snowboarding, skiing and wakeboarding uniquely suit him to work with Gatorade as we look to do more in the world of action sports.” |
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