Kate Rush Sheehy Joins PMG to Lead Travel Practice as Demand for Integrated Travel Marketing Accelerates

PMG, the global independent platform company, today announced that Kate Rush Sheehy has joined the company as VP of Customer Strategy. Based in PMG's Austin office, Rush Sheehy will lead the firm's travel practice, guiding strategy across a rapidly growing roster of travel and hospitality customers.

The appointment comes as travel brands face growing pressure to keep pace with rapidly changing consumer behavior, platform dynamics, and advances in AI. As AI reshapes the economics of marketing execution, brands increasingly need partners that can move beyond fragmented, channel-by-channel planning to connect business context, decision-making, activation, and measurement. PMG has built its model around closing that gap, combining marketing expertise with forward-deployed engineers and AI operationalization services to help customers make better decisions faster, automate repeatable work, and preserve human judgment where it matters most.

Rush Sheehy brings a rare combination of agency and client-side leadership to the role. She helped shape the Vrbo brand during a period of significant transformation before serving as Chief Strategy Officer at GSD&M. Across her career, she has built a reputation for developing high-performing teams and helping brands navigate change and unlock growth through customer-centered strategy. Under Rush Sheehy's leadership, PMG will further help travel brands stay ahead of some of the industry's fastest-moving areas, including commerce, creator marketing, creative, and answer engine optimization (AEO).

“I’ve spent a lot of my career working with travel brands, and there’s a reason I keep coming back to the category. While it's an incredibly complex industry, ultimately we're talking about where people go and the experiences they remember. And right now, almost every part of how people discover and experience travel is changing,” said Kate Rush Sheehy, VP of Customer Strategy at PMG. “What drew me to PMG is the way its operating model brings strategy, technology, and creativity much closer together. It’s meaningfully different from other partners, and it gives us an incredible opportunity to help great travel brands make sense of all that change, make better decisions faster, and come out ahead.”

PMG's leadership in the category is grounded in a track record of engineering measurable results for travel brands including Tripadvisor and Best Western. PMG helped Best Western attract new customers and build brand loyalty by shifting the brand beyond promotional messaging. Informed by traveler-segment insights, historical data, media mix modeling, and competitive intelligence, the campaign used emotionally resonant storytelling as part of a full-funnel targeted media strategy across broadcast, connected TV, online video, audio, social, display, and rich media. The work helped deliver Best Western’s highest-grossing month ever for its Performance Based Marketing program, with 84% brand recall, and a 16% increase in platform revenue despite a 7% reduction in spend.

"PMG has built tremendous momentum in travel by helping brands move beyond fragmented, channel-by-channel planning toward a centralized operating model that connects business context with planning, activation, governance, and measurement," said Jon Dupuis, President of PMG. "Our customers want a partner that can help transform how their businesses operate, make decisions, and grow. Kate brings the experience, leadership, and customer-first thinking needed to help us deliver that at an even greater scale."

For more information about PMG's travel capabilities or to explore career opportunities across the team, visit pmg.com.