Instagram live replay of my interview with HRC Michigan – Annie, you’re a gem! We discussed my recent recognitions by INvolve People and Corp! Magazine, how Clark Hill creates an inclusive culture, the important work the Legal Marketing Association has done around DEI, what authenticity really means, and how important it is to simply live and let live.
Thank you, Legal News’ Brian Cox, Brad Thompson, Sheila Pursglove, for the lovely support you’ve consistently shown me in my career. Grateful for you, for your friendship, and for all you do for our profession!
Roy Sexton, director of marketing has been selected by Corp! Magazine as one of Michigan’s 2024 Most Valuable Professionals.
Sexton was among the winners of the 9th annual MVP Awards, honoring the state’s most dynamic and influential business leaders. Corp! Magazine characterized the winners as the leading voices in shaping Michigan’s business and economic direction. The MVP Awards recognize individuals who have made significant contributions to their businesses, their communities, and the state of Michigan.
Sexton leads Clark Hill’s marketing, branding and communications efforts in collaboration with the firm’s exceptional team of marketing and business development professionals. He has over 25 years of experience in marketing, communications, business development and strategic planning.
“At Clark Hill, our value proposition is simple. We offer our clients an exceptional team, dedicated to the delivery of outstanding service,” says Sexton. “We recruit and develop talented individuals and empower them to contribute to our rich diversity of legal and industry experience. “
Sexton is passionate about problem solving, facilitating business growth, crafting communications strategy and enhancing law firm culture. He works closely with the marketing team to advance the firm’s digital and social media presence and external engagement, using multi-channel distribution and data collection. This enables the team to quantify results and use those results to produce thoughtfully and strategically organized content for clients and prospects.
Sexton was named one of INvolve People’s 2023 Top 100 OUTstanding LGBTQ+ Executives internationally. He was listed in Crain’s Detroit Notable LGBTQ in Business in 2021 and Notable Leaders in Marketing in 2023, and he was a Michigan Lawyers Weekly Unsung Legal Hero in 2018.
In 2022, Clark Hill’s marketing campaign received the Best Marketing Campaign award from the Managing Partners’ Forum in London, celebrating professional services organizations. The campaign was noted for its focus on values, diversity and inclusion. The Clark Hill marketing and business development team was also awarded Best Marketing Initiative by Managing Partners’ Forum in 2020.
“I’m proud of how DEI has become so fully integrated into my professional efforts in this world. As international president of the Legal Marketing Association (LMA) in 2023 and as immediate past president this year, we have kept inclusion front and center, including me singing ‘Born This Way’ with drag queen Athena Dion in Florida last year at our annual conference,” says Sexton.
He adds, “At Clark Hill we received Mansfield Certification for our efforts in the DEI space as well as conducting firmwide allyship training, all led by our fabulous HR team, supported by the marketing team on external messaging, including a series of DEI-focused videos. Those videos have received hundreds of thousands of views which is very heartening to the team here.”
Sexton hosts the monthly Expert Webcast series “All the World’s YOUR Stage: Authentic Culture Drives Authentic Growth,” discussing the importance of inclusion, allyship, authenticity, and personal/professional branding with nationally recognized executives and thought leaders. Each episode has a monthly reach of at least 20,000 impressions.
“Always take the pause. This is advice my wonderful boss, our Clark Hill Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer Susan Ahern, has imparted on me regularly. We live in such a wired world, and, while responsiveness will always have its place, being measured and thoughtful, listening and learning first, and then collaboratively coming to solutions always wins the day. This has been transformational advice for me. Oh, and pick up the phone sometimes – nuance is too frequently lost in email and things can unfortunately escalate as a result!” Sexton comments. “Also, I carry with me the wisdom my late mother often shared: ‘Tell people what they mean to you in the moment when it will mean something to them.’ Carrying the large responsibilities of the LMA presidency, this thinking served me very well. Again, pause, acknowledge, reciprocate. It makes the world better for all.”
In 2023, Sexton was the international president of the 4,000-member Legal Marketing Association (LMA), a professional organization he’s been a member of since 2012. Throughout his tenure as LMA’s leader, Roy prioritized DEI issues, putting them front and center on all education and messaging efforts.
Sexton also serves on the board of Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, and he is a published author of two books: Reel Roy Reviews, Volumes 1 and 2. He was named Best Actor in a Musical by BroadwayWorld Detroit in 2017 for his performance as Jasper in The Mystery of Edwin Drood at Ann Arbor Civic.
“Be open and inquisitive to all adventures before you. Every task represents an opportunity to learn and nothing should be ‘beneath us.’ Obviously, know and hold your worth, but sometimes working on that presentation with a colleague is an opportunity to see how others think, to help shape narrative, and to expand your skill set,” Sexton advises.
He adds, “That was what differentiated me in the early days of my career when I was still in healthcare. I worked on bond rating presentations, board retreats, strategic visioning decks and everything in between. I’m a theatre person by training so storytelling is important to me, and I was able to enrich the work by helping my colleagues consider audience needs in their presentations. Through that I built relationships, gained trust, and was exposed to a number of operational areas that would have otherwise been unavailable to me.”
July 24, 6 pm eastern time … live on Instagram with HRC Michigan – more info here.
And thank you dear friends and colleagues Steve Fretzin and Ray Koenig for the lovely shout out here. Love you, both!
EXCERPT …
STEVE: So would we be, so we would be doing the right thing by giving a shout out to Roy Sexton, huh?
RAY: We can always give a shout out to Roy Sexton. Roy heads our marketing for entire firm and he is the king of celebrating other people.
STEVE: King of authenticity. That guy is crushing that on so many levels, but when I think about authentic, I go right to Roy, he’s amazing.
RAY: He really is and he provides a really great example for the attorneys in our firm. And then I think especially for the younger ones. And I think also for the people that in our firm, that most of us feel we don’t fit a cookie cutter mold and don’t want to, that’s Roy.
Roy is who he is and in a really good way. He’s also really smart and strategic. He does so many things well, but he’s just, he’s really good at, he’s authentic, but he’s also really good at celebrating other people, which I just, I really appreciate in that respect.
And then we also, full disclosure, we have a very good friendship. So he’s one of the first people to text me or call me when something good happens in my life. He’s just a great human being.
STEVE: Yep, yep, absolutely agreed. And he’s, I think he’s been on the show a couple of times. He’s just one of my favorite people and always so warm and inviting.
Roy Sexton, Director of Marketing at Clark Hill, has been named one of Michigan’s 2024 Most Valuable Professionals by Corp! Magazine. The recognition highlights Sexton’s significant contributions to his firm and the broader business community in Michigan.
With over 25 years of experience in marketing, communications, business development, and strategic planning, Sexton leads Clark Hill’s marketing, branding, and communications efforts. His work emphasizes collaboration with a skilled team to deliver exceptional service to clients. “We recruit and develop talented individuals and empower them to contribute to our rich diversity of legal and industry experience,” Sexton stated.
Sexton was named one of INvolve People’s 2023 Top 100 OUTstanding LGBTQ+ Executives internationally. He was listed in Crain’s Detroit Notable LGBTQ in Business in 2021 and Notable Leaders in Marketing in 2023, and he was a Michigan Lawyers Weekly Unsung Legal Hero in 2018.
Sexton’s leadership extends to his role as the 2023 International President of the Legal Marketing Association (LMA), a position he has used to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). “I’m proud of how DEI has become so fully integrated into my professional efforts in this world. As international president of the Legal Marketing Association (LMA) in 2023 and as immediate past president this year, we have kept inclusion front and center,” Sexton said. Under his guidance, the LMA has launched member resource groups and enhanced its inclusive talent pipeline.
His efforts at Clark Hill have also led to notable recognitions, including Mansfield Certification for DEI efforts and awards from the Managing Partners’ Forum for marketing campaigns focused on values, diversity, and inclusion. Sexton’s team has been instrumental in advancing the firm’s digital and social media presence, producing strategically organized content for clients and prospects.
Sexton is also active outside his professional responsibilities. He serves on the board of Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit and is a published author of two books. Additionally, he hosts the monthly Expert Webcast series “All the World’s YOUR Stage: Authentic Culture Drives Authentic Growth,” where he discusses inclusion, allyship, authenticity, and branding with nationally recognized executives.
Reflecting on his career, Sexton emphasized the importance of thoughtful communication and collaboration. “Always take the pause. This is advice my wonderful boss, our Clark Hill Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer Susan Ahern, has imparted on me regularly,” he commented. He also shared personal wisdom from his late mother: “Tell people what they mean to you in the moment when it will mean something to them.”
Thank you, delightful and talented Scott Lawrence of Headshots by Scott Lawrence, for joining Rob Kates and me today on Legal Marketing Coffee Talk. A robust and lively conversation about the power of smart, authentic portrait photography in legal marketing efforts and how to put your subjects at ease, how to introduce a contemporary and accessible feel, and how to incorporate styling for different digital audiences and individual branding needs.
Many, many shout outs (you have to watch to make sense of this list!): Gina Furia Rubel, Marcia Delgadillo, Brenda Meller, Sarah Ryan, Pentatonix, Gittings, Gittings Global, Gloria Pak, Nick Lachey, Jeff Timmons, MotorCity Casino Hotel, Laura Benanti, Susie Sexton, Don Sexton, Alan Cumming, Betty Buckley, Cyndi Lauper, Superman, Tiffany Elie, Hello Dolly, Patty Buccellato, Erin Kennedy, Meller Marketing, Zelig, show choirs, Minnie Driver, Ronald McDonald House Charities Ann Arbor, Kim Kelly, Ronald McDonald, C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, Gabby Confer, Lori Mola Compagner, Cleveland Agora, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Chris Marrone, Kathy Cook, and heaven knows who/what else!
And thank you, Scott, for my incredible gift presented at show end!
I don’t like clowns. Never have. I trace it back to being unable to escape the ubiquitous, harlequin-gaze of shock-glam rock group KISS, leering from their album covers while my parents shopped for jazz and show tunes in record stores in the 70s. Gene Simmons and Ace Frehley are to blame for my aversion to Bozo and Ronald McDonald, apparently.
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
So, by the time the first film adaptation of Stephen King’s bestselling 1986 novel It rolled around, as a 1990 ABC-TV miniseries featuring a gleefully sadistic Tim Curry in the titular role as homicidal, otherworldly “Pennywise the Dancing Clown,” this high school senior had a stockpile of around 15 years of greasepaint-smeared nightmares with which to contend. The miniseries, which also featured a Love Boat-load of d-list celebrities like Richard Thomas, Annettee O’Toole, and that Venus Fly-Trap guy from WKRP in Cincinnati, is controversial among King fans who thought it deviated too much from the source text and diluted the book’s iconic scares to adhere to the rigors of commercial TV (nearly 30! years ago).
I don’t care. It was plenty unnerving to me. I admit that the miniseries’ second half, wherein Thomas and company step to the forefront as adult versions of the bullied “Losers Club” whom Pennywise (and others) tortured as children is a drag. However, the first half is a tour de force for Curry who needs nary a pixel of CGI to let his freakiest flag fly as an unearthly creature in clown form who quite literally feeds off the terror he engenders in the small-minded small town of Derry, Maine.
I wasn’t sure I needed to ever sit through this tale again. Why do that to myself, spending another two hours watching an unhinged clown steer headlong into the coulrophobia curve that had plagued me for years. Yet, like some kind of perverse immersion therapy, I found myself in a movie theatre watching Warner Brothers’ R-rated big-screen remake.
Director Andy Muschietti brings the same gothic Brothers Grimm fractured fairy tale approach he applied to the inferior Mama, and it works here, particularly given the familiarity many viewers will already have with the material. The film plays out more like a foul-mouthed Hansel and Gretel than Nightmare on Elm Street.
There is a picaresque quality to the narrative as It traces the summer-long adventures of seven young misfits, all marginalized in different ways under the weight of living in an insular community rotting to its core. The children all are haunted by debilitating fears, made manifest through a series of bogeymen and disturbing visions, and, over time, they come to realize there is a supernatural through-line (namely Pennywise) uniting them all. Bill, the ringleader of this poignant but scrappy band has lost his little brother the year prior in an unsolved kidnapping (we viewers know that Pennywise actually dragged the poor lad down a sewer drain from the troubling but elegantly framed prologue which opens the film), and Bill’s unrelenting drive to discover the truth of his sibling’s disappearance galvanizes the group, ultimately uniting them to vanquish Pennywise (or do they?).
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
I didn’t find the film particularly frightening or disturbing, which is either a sign of me aging out of my phobias or of a film that plays more like a spiritual sequel to The Goonies than a horror-fest. There are plenty of jump scares, jarring sound effects, and other conventions of the genre, and Bill Skarsgard (son of Stellan) does a perfectly fine job rendering a souped up Pennywise for the Millennial era, as informed by the apparitions of the Harry Potter films as anything in Stephen King’s canon, but none of it gave me the heebie jeebies.
In fact, Muschietti’s film plays out like an extended love letter to everything Spielberg. The potty-mouthed kids’ hard scrabble reality is played for laughs and poignancy. The late 80s setting (updated from the book’s 1950s era) allows for a number of film and pop culture references (a la Gremlins or Poltergeist) and a generally scruffier “lost generation” quality adds a heartbreaking layer of disposability to the Losers Club.
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
The kids themselves (Jaeden Lieberher, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer) are the film’s best special effect, with a refreshing authenticity, yearning, and lack of “cute child actor” pretense. They are fighting an uphill battle against an insidious enemy – the town in which they live – and anyone who has ever suffered the relentless, bullying pressures of provincialism will find themselves projecting their experiences onto these tender souls. Although, I admit I wearied after a point of the movie’s “look how crude and rude children are and isn’t it funny to hear them say really naughty things” shtick. That annoyed me from Spielberg in his trying-too-hard moments, and it still annoys me here.
The strongest Stephen King adaptations – TheShawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Shining, Carrie, Misery, Dolores Claiborne – posit that the worst horrors are not supernatural at all but rather man’s inhumanity to man. That is also where It derives strength as a film. The adult residents of Derry all reflect the indifference and neglectfulness of a self-absorbed society that has turned on itself, an ourobouros eating its own tail. As one father hisses to his son in the film, “Ain’t nothing like a little fear to make a paper man crumble.” And clowns be damned, that is the worst horror of all.
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Yours truly with Jim and Rob before watching Stephen King’s It
Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital). In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the first book is currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language.
Legal Marketing Association – LMA International member Roy Sexton has joined Kerr Russell – a 55-attorney full-service law firm – as its first-ever marketing director. Roy is a former member of the Midwest Chapter Board of Directors and Strategies Editorial Committee, and was a panelist at the 2015 LMA Annual Conference. He returns to the world of legal marketing after a one-year hiatus in the health care industry.
Sexton has held leadership positions inmarketing, communications, and strategic planning at Trott & Trott, Saint Joseph Mercy Health System, Oakwood Healthcare System (now Beaumont Health), and Deloitte. He is a graduate of Wabash College with an MA from The Ohio State University and an MBA from The University of Michigan. He sits on the boards of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Ann Arbor and EncoreMichigan.com and recently completed his tenure on the Michigan Mortgage Lenders Association State Board of Governors as well as his service on the board of Ann Arbor’s The Penny Seats Theatre Company.
John and I did a thing today. #needanap #cerealcitytriathlon #participationtrophy
Slow and steady finishes the race … next to last. #cerealcitytriathlon #turtle
