Paul Schiavone

CEO & Creative Director

Paul Schiavone is Founder, CEO, and Creative Director of Tasty Creative.  In that role he’s steward of the company’s vision, “making connections and telling stories that cultivate people’s passion for food and drink.”

Cultivating people’s passion for food is nothing new for Paul who, for the past fifteen years, has been leading Boston Chefs, Inc., which serves New England with a family of food-focused digital publications that include BostonChefs.com, BostonRestaurantWeek.com,  CapeCodRestaurantWeek.com, and the twice weekly e-newsletter e-licious. Now, with Tasty Creative, Paul takes the vision nationwide, providing food-focused content marketing, live events, and brand activations in cities as diverse as Seattle, San Francisco,  Austin, Washington DC, and more to follow!

But food isn’t just a job for Paul, it’s a passion.  Although he is a food adventurer (his current obsessions is Turkish cuisine, inspired by a trip to Istanbul), he reports “the one cuisine love I always come back to is Italian …the memories made around my grandma Gussie’s table are unforgettable and fantastic…and they all involve rigatoni.”

Paul’s academic credentials are in Philosophy, which he studied at Boston College, where he earned an MA. “Every day I find myself drawing on the analytical and problem solving skills, not to mention the powers of persuasion, I acquired through my studies .” Philosophy also appears to have been a perfect preparation for Paul’s avocation as a home brewer. “Brewing good beer involves as much art as it does science which is perfect for someone with both creative and analytical tendencies.”

Leading a new business is not for the faint of heart, but the challenge excites Paul: “I love the unique vantage point I get on the work that we do and the responsibility I have for ensuring that we deliver value to all our stakeholders and creating solutions that deliver value to each of these groups simultaneously: food lovers, culinary professionals, and the brands that are trying to reach them. Maintaining a holistic understanding of what we do and how we do it, and helping all my team members excel within their areas of focus is what excites me most about my role at Tasty Creative.”

Erin McIver

Event Director

Erin McIver is Event Director at Tasty Creative, a job which draws on her excitement about food, her enthusiasm for bringing people together, and her  formidable logistical talents. Speaking of the prospect of five major food events across the country this coming year, Erin sums up the vision of Tasty: “We’re bringing brands and people together to fulfill one of the things we all have in common—hunger. We’re hungry for good food, strong connections, and great content, and that’s what Tasty is all about.

Her preparation for the Event Director role began in a way when she was in college and learned that getting people’s attention sometime requires a little risk-taking. “I dressed up like a pea pod to get people pumped up for my first big event series called Food Justice Week,” she recalls. “It’s still one of by proudest accomplishments with programming the included free cultural lunches, documentary screenings and volunteer opportunities all focused around the intersectionality of food and culture.” At Northeastern University, she also benefitted from their signature co-op program that transported her from theory to practice in a hurry…which might help to explain why she’s so terrific at making a big event go off without a hitch.

For the past several years, Erin’s been leading integrated marketing efforts at BostonChefs.com, part of the Tasty Creative family. This job has not only involved bringing the American Lamb Tour to Boston; it has also entailed her creating and executing memorable activations involving a wide range of artisanal food brands all across New England. And in here “spare time,” she’s been leading social media strategy and producing seasonal promotions like Cape Cod Restaurant Week.

Her personal food interests? Mexican food, and not just tacos, but low and slow braised meats, fresh ceviche, palomas too. Cheese, which she knows something about having once been a cheesemonger at a specialty shop in Boston’s Southie neighborhood. And BK’s chicken fries—her guilty pleasure.

Chris Culnane

Sponsorship & Brand Activations

Chris Culnane leads Sponsorship and Brand Activations for Tasty Creative. He's the one whose job is figuring out how to connect great brands with their target audiences by delivering creative, energetic, and meaningful messaging.

Chris brings a long history of forging mutually beneficial partnerships with and among consumer brands from Weber Grills, Polar Beverages, and Bacardi, to New Balance, Reebok, and the Bermuda Tourism Authority. Showcasing brands in natural environments that make consumers excited about them is rewarding but not always easy. But Chris describes himself as “an optimistic and creative problem solver who thrives on finding unique solutions to achieve my goals. No matter the challenge, big or small, there is always a way to reach success!”

Like everyone on the Tasty Team, Chris is food lover. “I’m a true fan of all cuisines and most enjoy unique fusions”— a good trait for someone whose job is forging partnerships! But he also has his unique food craving, General Tso’s Chicken—something he’s so into that he perfected his own version of it at home, in addition to spin-off's like Buffalo Tso's mixing his trademark chicken recipe with hot sauce, green onion, celery slices, and blue cheese crumbles.

He’s also passionate about travel and tourism. Living in Australia where he earned his MBA in hospitality and tourism was the spark that ignited this passion. But he also reports that this is what shaped his approach to customer care and branding.

When not getting creative in the kitchen or putting together a live activation opportunity & killer content marketing strategy, you might well find Chris on the slopes. “Getting outside, hitting the mountain, experiencing nature is what it’s all about,” he says, and that could be in Southern Vermont where he spent much of his childhood or in California, Colorado, Bristish Columbia, or even the Alps.

Blake Noyes

Director of Business Operations

Blake Noyes is the Director of Business Operations at Tasty, which he insists “is just a fancy way of saying I handle the company’s finances and make sure the employees are as happy as possible.”  He adds, “The two are often directly related.” But Blake isn’t just about employee happiness. In his role as Director of Ops, he’s wants customers, vendors, and partners to have a “tasty” experience too. Whether it’s negotiating the terms of a contract or resolving a mysterious credit card charge, no operational detail is too small to escape Blake’s attention.

Blake came to Tasty and to Boston from what he describes (you’ll might want to read this aloud to get the full effect) as “ORANGE COUNTY, CAL-I-FOR-NIA! –a sunny suburbia that runs the spectrum from hip beach towns to ritzy country club communities to Stepford-like cities.” And it was there in sunny Southern California that Blake honed the skills that make him a great ops guy.

He spent six years at a national mortgage headhunting firm where he began as a part-time employee performing primarily data entry, and eventually became the  company’s Client Relations Manager, a position that allowed him to hone his financial management chops.  He considers his history and global cultures studies at UC Irvine also to be part of his training for the job. “The most valuable thing I’ve taken from my studies in history is the ability to see the long-term effects of things and understand that decisions and actions move through space and time. Understanding the chain of events that lead to a situation gives you a greater opportunity to see solutions to problems and make informed choices for the future.”

Among other things, it was this love of history that caused him to trade the sun of SoCal for the sunny colors of a New England fall. In Boston, he’s enjoying exploring the winding streets (“There’s no street grid really…it’s as if someone through spaghetti at the wall,” he marvels) and observing the fact that “people still read books, real books made of paper, not just e-readers.”  But don’t be fooled, Blake is no bookworm. “I’m fiercely competitive,” he says. “I love playing tennis, Ultimate Frisbee, basketball, flag football, basically any kind of game or sport.”