We Are Ready
Teal Reef is a strategic creative agency built for businesses and organizations that have big ideas and need the right people to help make them happen.
We work across brand development, marketing, events, design, digital strategy, content, and operations, bringing together the right mix of talent for each project. Some clients come to us with an established brand ready for its next chapter. Others come with an idea on a napkin and need help figuring out everything that comes next.
Either way, we start by listening.
Our team combines decades of experience with a collaborative, hands-on approach. We care about smart strategy, great creative, responsible growth, and doing work that actually makes sense for the people and businesses we serve.
Meet the Team
Christy Masters, CEO
Christy is widely recognized by her clients as the essential bridge between vision and execution. With a keen ability to listen and understand, she works collaboratively to transform ideas into tangible results—helping each client achieve their unique goals. Her diverse career spans work with nonprofits, small businesses, physician offices, retail shops, large annual events, and restaurants, showcasing her adaptability and commitment to client success.
Sharing her father’s passion for sustainability, Christy is dedicated to helping clients adopt and promote eco-friendly business practices. Her approach is rooted in partnership, ensuring that every project not only meets expectations but also contributes to a healthier, more sustainable future.
Contact Christy
Email: Christy@tealreef.com
Rob McBurney, CFO, FMP
Rob brings more than 40 years of experience in operations, food service, restaurant management, retail, business startups, and large-scale facility management.
Throughout his career, he has managed multi-million-dollar food service accounts, overseen complex service operations, helped launch businesses, and directed major green building initiatives. He currently serves as a Controller overseeing operations across multiple hospitals.
Rob is particularly passionate about the places where good operations, profitability, and sustainability meet. He helps clients look for smarter systems, new revenue opportunities, local sourcing options, waste reduction, and practical ways to operate more responsibly.
He's also Christy's dad, which means Teal Reef's conversations about business, budgets, and sustainability have been going on considerably longer than the company has.
Leadership & Certifications
Board of Trustees, MCBI FoodWorks Alliance
Certified Food Management Professional (FMP)
ServSafe Certification, National Restaurant Association
Green Energy Ohio Member
Contact Rob
Email: Rob@tealreef.com
Joce Bowie, Project Coordinator
Joce is one of the people making sure all those great ideas actually get done.
As Teal Reef's Project Coordinator, she manages workflows, timelines, task organization, communication, and the many details happening behind the scenes of our client work. She keeps projects moving in Monday.com, follows up on loose ends, and helps make sure everyone knows what needs to happen next.
Organized, thoughtful, and remarkably good at keeping track of a lot of moving pieces, Joce helps make the client experience feel much easier than the work happening behind the scenes.
She's also Christy's cousin, because apparently project management runs in the family too.
Contact Joce
Email: joce@tealreef.com
Kelly Lang, New Brand Operations
Kelly helps turn new ideas into businesses that can actually function in the real world.
Working alongside Christy, Kelly focuses on the operational side of developing and launching new brands, including product development, sourcing, vendor coordination, e-commerce, inventory, fulfillment, launch planning, and the countless details between "we should do this" and "we're officially in business."
She brings an organized, practical perspective to the creative process and has a particular talent for spotting the things that need to be figured out before they become problems.
Kelly is also Christy's sister, making her part of the family business in every possible sense. Together, they combine Christy's marketing and brand strategy experience with Kelly's operational mindset to help new concepts move from idea to launch and beyond.
Nicole Dane, Creative Director
Nicole is the creative eye behind many of the brands and campaigns we build at Teal Reef.
As Creative Director, she turns strategy into visual identity through branding, graphic design, campaign creative, print materials, digital assets, and everything in between. Her work is thoughtful, distinctive, and always grounded in what the brand actually needs to communicate.
Nicole has a knack for taking a collection of ideas, references, colors, words, and "we'll know it when we see it" conversations and turning them into something that feels exactly right.
Adria Perez, Content Writer & Business Strategist
Adria helps brands figure out what they need to say and how to say it well.
A seasoned writer, editor, and strategist with a background spanning travel, culture, science, and business, she creates content that is clear, thoughtful, and genuinely worth reading.
Her work includes websites, magazines, newsletters, scripts, marketing materials, and long-form storytelling. Adria has a particular talent for taking complicated subjects and turning them into compelling, accessible narratives without losing the substance along the way.
Sydney Felton, Social Media Management
Sydney helps our clients show up online with purpose rather than simply posting for the sake of posting.
With more than a decade of social media marketing experience, she develops and executes strategies built around each client's audience, personality, and goals. Her work spans content creation, social strategy, automated posting, videography, user-generated content, and product photography.
Sydney combines a strong creative eye with an understanding of how social platforms actually work, creating content designed to look good, sound like the brand, and give people a reason to pay attention.
Darin Back, Photo Director
Darin has spent more than 20 years behind the camera capturing people, places, brands, and events as they actually feel.
His photography is immersive, authentic, and unmistakably his. Rather than simply documenting what's in front of him, Darin looks for the moments, perspectives, and details that tell a bigger story.
From major events and destination photography to brand campaigns and environmental portraits, his work gives our clients an original visual library that feels like them, not stock photography pretending to be them.
Makayla Wheeler, Director & Cinematographer
Makayla tells stories through motion, whether that means capturing a brand on land, underwater, from the air, or somewhere we probably didn't initially anticipate putting a camera.
With more than 12 years of filmmaking experience, she has collaborated with brands including Hurley, Pura Vida, Bahama Beach Club, and The Crossing for Cystic Fibrosis. Her work has taken her throughout the U.S., the Caribbean, and beyond.
Makayla is equally comfortable working independently or as part of a larger creative production team and brings both technical skill and genuine storytelling instincts to every shoot.
Her directing work includes The Springs: Jewels of Florida (2015), Wonder of the Blue (2018), and Double or Nothing(2024).
Makayla is also a certified Part 107 Drone Pilot, PADI Open Water Scuba Diver, and PFI Level 1 Freediver, giving us considerably more options when "get the shot" involves leaving dry land.