By Darren Hackett

After nearly a decade of stellar service as an SD&A account executive, Joanne Scheuble has come to realize that her magic number is 10.

“Lately I’ve been joking that I’m on the ten-year plan,” she said during an informal interview on her next-to-last day with our company. “I worked at Boston Ballet for ten years, I worked for myself for ten years, I’ve worked for SD&A for almost ten years, and now it’s time for the next thing.”

Long before she joined the SD&A account services team, Joanne was one of our clients. She served as Boston Ballet’s director of marketing for just over a decade, during which time she built a solid business relationship with SD&A and a deep admiration for the work our company does on behalf of nonprofit organizations.

“I’ve met so many wonderful people at SD&A,” she said, “and the people are interested in what I’m interested in, which is raising money for arts organizations, and that’s been a really great experience for me, working with so many like-minded people.”

As for the next ten years of her career, Joanne said she plans to rekindle her independent consulting business. In between her lengthy stints at Boston Ballet and SD&A, Joanne spent a decade as the president of her own marketing, research and communications firm, which helped to facilitate campaigns for a wide variety of high profile clients, including AIDS Action Committee, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Fidelity Investments, Fleishman-Hillard Communications, Lincoln Center, and many more.

She added: “I also would really like to return to teaching English as a second language, which wasn’t easy to do with my travel schedule at SD&A, so I’m happy I’ll be able to do that again.”

Earlier in her career, Joanne spent time in the television industry, working as the director of promotions for an NBC affiliate in Northern New England.  It was a small, non-union station, which gave her a chance to branch out. Not only did she occasionally operate the camera for the 6:00 news, but she also did some on-air reporting. Then came the job opportunity that altered the entire trajectory of her career: director of marketing at the Dartmouth College Performing Arts Center.

“I had been promoting television, you know, a lot of stupid sitcoms and stuff, and then I got a chance to promote the classical concerts and plays and dance performances that were coming to Dartmouth and it just really changed my life. I thought, ‘Wow, I’d much rather be doing that than promoting re-runs of M*A*S*H or whatever we were doing.'”

While working on behalf of arts organizations will always be a part of Joanne’s life, there are certain aspects of her job at SD&A that are irreplaceable. Like… ” Mike Ruiz—he makes me laugh every day. It’s really great to work with a stand-up comic like him. And Ilonka, of course, who brightened my day every day by calling me “darling”.

Joanne said she’s also going to miss the callers. “We have a woman who comes to work every day in a different Bon Jovi t-shirt; she’s one of our best callers. And then there’s the candy-taster for Mars; that’s his part-time job. He has a very sensitive palate, screened from thousands of people. He can decide whether the candy tastes exactly like it should according to the formula. We have musicians, playwrights… There’s always a fresh story and a wide variety of creative and colorful people who work for us and I’ve enjoyed that a lot.”

As Joanne prepares for her “Next Ten” adventure, we want her to know that the dedicated service she has provided to SD&A and its clients over the “Previous Ten” will not soon be forgotten.

“Joanne is a consummate professional, always cool under fire and a critical thinker,” SD&A President Steve Koehler said. “She’s a tremendous team player who is well respected and liked by her peers. Outside of work, I will always remember our visits to Broadway Theatre where we saw Memphis and Kinky Boots, sometimes with a stop at our favorite French restaurant, Chez Napoleon. Joanne will be missed here at SD&A. We wish her well in her future endeavors and hope we run into her from time to time.”