Russell Zingale is a rare combination of business pragmatism and open-mindedness. As a pragmatist, he is always focused on the day-to-day blocking and tackling of media that moves his clients’ businesses — often very retail-focused clients who depend on traffic and sales to remain competitive, especially in difficult times like the ones we have just gone through. He is open-minded about new ways to achieve those goals including a willingness to test, learn and develop new strategic ways of amplifying the way media works for his clients — whether they are direct relationships with marketers, or indirectly through the independent creative agencies that are an equal, if not core part of, his service mix. It’s not surprising that Zingale keeps a foot firmly planted in those two worlds, given how his career developed, and especially the role models who mentored him: industry legends Dennis Holt and David Verklin. | 