Best Manager Profiles

On Thursday, September 22 at The Radio Show in Nashville, Radio Ink magazine will be introducing the industry to radio’s most successful Sales Managers, General Managers, Digital Sellers, and Account Executives. Thanks to the Radio Advertising Bureau, we are able to recognize these industry greats every year with awards named in honor of Wayne Cornils, who worked for the RAB for many years and was one of radio’s greatest ambassadors. Keith Lawless is also a great ambassador for radio and here are the reasons why...

Donna Hall's 29-year career with Cox began as an AE for the Dayton Daily News. Today, she's the VP/Market Manager for Cox Media Group’s Atlanta cluster, which includes the award-winning radio powerhouse WSB as well as four other stations. Hall has been selected as one of Radio Ink's Best Managers of 2016. Here's our extended interview...

iHeartMedia's Dave Carwile has worked in every position in radio sales and sales management over the past 23 years. He's been an AE, Team Leader, GSM, DOS, NSM, Market Manager, Market President, Regional Market President, and now Region President over 53 radio stations in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Carwile has excelled at every level during those 20-plus years and has been promoted to senior executive level positions four times just in the past five years.

In 2014 Sonia Katz Ungerman was the Radio Ink Radio Wayne Sales Manager of the Year. This year she's a finalist again. She's that good. Her boss, Hubbard Radio Regional Manager Dan Seeman says his sales manager leads with "unbridled positive passion and enthusiasm. She is a tireless leader and has some of the strongest relationships with advertisers in the market and is a mentor to many young women in the radio business and the advertising business." Today, this 2016 Radio Wayne finalist shares her secrets to becoming the best in the business.

Alex Cadelago is the Market Manager for Cumulus Media in Houston. Last month in Orlando, Alex won Radio Ink's Radio Wayne Award for Market Manager of the Year. Cumulus VP Dan Bennett is Alex' supervisor. “What makes Alex Cadelago a great leader is first and foremost his character. He is honest and trustworthy and people want to follow people like him."

Sarah Frazier is the Market Manager for CBS Radio in Houston. She's also one of Radio Ink’s Best Managers of 2017. And that should come as no surprise, Frazier is consistently one of The Most Influential Women in Radio and on our Best Managers list. Frazier has been in radio since college, when she worked as the sales manager, traffic manager, and operations manager at KJHK at the University of Kansas.

That was one of the questions we asked Chris Kampmeier, iHeartMedia's veteran programmer who's retiring New Year's Eve. In the final installment of our interview with Chris, we asked him for his thoughts on the Portable People Meter technology, whether programming a radio station is easier today than it was decades ago when he started, and the skills the program director of 2017 will need to win. Here's what he had to say...

Eric Mastel is the Market Manager for Cumulus in Savannah. He's also one of Radio Ink's Best Managers for 2017. Mastel got his first job in radio as an AE, got handed the phone book and some cassettes called, “tiger tapes”, 33 years ago. His first managers position was GSM for WKFM in Syracuse in 1987.

As part of our series spotlighting Radio Wayne finalists, we turn to the Sales Manager category today. Michael Tedesco fell in love with radio listening to the Real Don Steele on KHJ-AM in Southern California. Today he's helping make WAWZ-FM in New Jersey a financial powerhouse as sales manager.

Kurt Luchs is the Market Manager for NRG Media in Wausau-Stevens Point, Wisconsin. He's also been chosen as one of Radio Ink's Best Managers for 2017 and will be featured in the October 9 issue of Radio Ink Magazine. Luchs is responsible for four NRG FMs in his cluster and he leads about 30 NRG employees. During the nomination process, here's what one of those employees said about him, and it's what every manager hopes for.