Management
Michael Karfakis, President/CEO
From his earliest days, Mike knew he’d own his own business. The entrepreneurial streak runs in his family. Watching his father grow a business, he knew that he had inherited the family gene. Before he could go out on his own, though, Mike understood that he needed to gain experience.
He got his start with the nation’s premier credit card company, MBNA. A consistent top performer, Mike parlayed his success into an operations management position with a design and marketing firm called Impreza Design. Later acquired by one of the Baltimore region’s leading marketing / design / technology companies, G1440, Mike transitioned through as new media operations manager. There, while managing creative teams for Fortune 500 companies, he noticed again and again how his clients’ brands, often in the hands of various and not always cooperative vendors, lacked consistency across printed and digital media. Right then, he knew there was a better way. Soon after, the idea for Vitamin - the Cure for the Common Brand.® - was hatched.
“I saw a need for a company that handles both printed and interactive design cohesively and with as much respect to process as possible. More importantly, with as much respect to the client’s success.” Today, Vitamin has helped countless companies throughout an array of vertical markets. Vitamin’s ability to create cohesive brands across media has resulted in numerous success stories and noteworthy growth for its clients.
As CEO, Mike’s entrepreneurial background serves him well. With every new client, he brings a sense of ownership to the job. “We care about the client’s company as if it were our own,” he says. “That means taking the time to learn a client’s sales cycle, their revenue streams, and most importantly, their long-term goals.
“I started up Vitamin,” he says, “because I am a people person. I care deeply about my clients' success, and I want to execute work that blows them away. At the end of the day, I want everybody to succeed -- our clients, our employees, and our company.”
Amanda Karfakis, VP of Communications
Most PR professionals break into the business after college. Amanda Karfakis got her first break at age 10. Born to a family of Greek immigrants (from Sparta), Amanda grew up in the public eye. “I practically lived in my family’s diner,” she says. She ran the cash register in fifth grade. During her teens, she mastered the art of communicating with the public, from promotion to community relations to damage control. Interacting with hundreds of people daily, she found she had magnetism, a knack for making a diversity of people feel comfortable.
After graduating from Towson University with a degree in business and marketing, she landed a job with one of the country’s top 100 design firms, Gr8. Through a fluke of events, including the sudden resignation of the PR director, Amanda found herself in charge of Gr8’s corporate communications. She was called before Gr8’s CEO and told, “You’re it, kid. If you want it, you can take over this department and make it happen.”
Four months out of college, Amanda was promoted to Gr8’s director of public relations. There, she managed a PR department that weathered the company’s tremendous growth and slow collapse. While Gr8 prospered, she worked for local and national accounts. As Gr8 slowly unraveled (and jilted workers took their stories to the press), Amanda gained invaluable crisis communications experience. When Gr8 closed shop in 2001, she took her contacts and moved on to Planit, Inc. There, she launched and managed the PR department, overseeing its growth into a highly profitable enterprise within her four-year managership at the agency.
Today, Amanda has more than ten years’ experience in business and marketing. She’s worked with international, national, and regional clients such as Hewlett Packard, Six Flags, Tourism Ireland, Union Switch & Signal, the Baltimore Ravens, Cambrex Bio Science, EMG, Lee’s Ice Cream, and XLHelath (just to name a few).
As Vitamin’s vice president of communications, she delivers proven business and media savvy to the firm’s growing list of clients. “We frequently collaborate with clients on more than just marketing programs,” she says. “True strength in brand can only be achieved when all functions of a business work together...and properly. We believe in establishing and implementing the best strategies - general business, marketing, or otherwise - to help our clients achieve unparalleled success.”