Cultural Initiatives - Octet Friends

Alona Makeeva

Octet has been proud to work with a talented graphic artist Alyona Makeeva since 1997. Alyona received her fine art training in St. Petersburg, Russia and sharpened her technological and modern media skills in New York City. She worked with a wide variety of clients, carrying out projects for traditional print media as well as for the Web. During her artistic collaboration with Stagebill, she created many award-winning covers and brochures for such clients as Metropolitan Opera, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Chicago Theaters. Alyona Makeeva art directed the largest online magazine about Russian women, http://www.russianwebgirls.com.
The project received a great deal of recognition for its concepts and design from press and general public in Russia, USA, Germany, Italy, and other countries.
(For more details, please, review: http://www.russianwebgirls.com/awards)
Alyona's professional portfolio can be reviewed at http://www.avant-rus.com. Some of her posters are exhibited at http://www.artofrussia.com/alyona.html

Courtney Pulitzer

Courtney is an old friend of ours. She has been really kind to us and devoted a lot of time and space to our humble personas and our cute company in her highly popular publications / parties / sites, such as Courtney Pulitzer Creations™, The Cyber Scene™ ,
and Cocktails with Courtney™. Octet is proud to be Courtney's strategic partner and technical consultant. We enjoy working with Courtney and we suggest that in the unlikely event that you are not part of it already, you join her mailing list and visit her parties! Courtney Pulitzer is the president of, her own company that focuses on informing and bringing together the companies and people in Silicon Alley and beyond. Having worked in the Silicon Alley industry as a web site designer and producer, a writer, an interactive marketer, volunteer and event coordinator for industry events. Courtney has been an Internet connoisseur and professional since 1974, when she began developing Web sites for L'Oreal, Royal Caribbean, and Olympus America. She built on her production skills at Young & Rubicam's Brand Dialogue as senior producer and planned, designed, and produced corporate clients' websites, including Brita Water Filtration Systems, the Library of Congress's American Treasures exhibition, Whitehall Robins and the U.S. Postal Service's Global division. Courtney's strong writing, marketing and analytical skills came into play at Saatchi & Saatchi's Darwin Digital where she helped develop online strategy and planning for clients including Oil of Olay ® and Lycra ®. She also oversaw the planning and early implementation of a national junior high school Internet and Intranet educational program. Utilizing her marketing skills, she worked at PR 21 and developed interactive marketing services for clients including GeoCities, Cars.com, OnHealth.com and CNNfn.com. She has been cited and featured in various media including CNNfn's It's Only Money, The New York Times, The Industry Standard, The New York Post, Yahoo! Internet Life, Paper, Time Out New York
and Freelance New York. Courtney is also active in
her civic duties. She has planned and produced several charity events for the New York New Media Association, MOUSE, and the World Wide Web Artists Consortium, the latter of which she was a founding board member. She chaired and is a member of the New York Pops Musicians of Tomorrow committee and volunteers with the New York Junior League.

Marina Lakhman

Marina came to the US at a young age. Marina recalls that at some point she almost forgot the Russian language. But even back in high school she decided "hold on to my native language.
I began studying, and now speak it fluently." After college, Marina worked as a political reporter for The Riverdale Press, a weekly newspaper in the Bronxand for The New York Times and @NY (http://www.atnewyork.com), the New York Internet Newsletter. Marina's hopes to become a foreign correspondent in Russia soon came true and she spent about a year as a reporter in The New York Times Moscow office. Currently, Marina attends graduate school at Columbia University and regularly contributes to The New York Times, The Daily News, and to numerous Silicon Alley publications.