Creative Migration, Inc. USA
President
Susannah Tantemsapya
Founder & Executive Director
Creative Migration, Inc.
Creative Migration (East) Foundation
Susannah Tantemsapya is the Founder & Executive Director of both Creative Migration and Creative Migration (East). Her career has spanned the fields of music, art, film and journalism with an eclectic mix of experience. Her most ambitious endeavor to date is Bangkok 1899.
Her full bio here︎︎︎
Vice-President
Andy Gershon
Andy Gershon has been a tastemaker in business, discovering and nurturing careers of The Smashing Pumpkins to Moby to The White Stripes. While being in the music business, Gershon has been an artist and photographer in his own right over the past several years. He has created a diverse body of work that has been shown in solo shows in New York City (Castor Gallery), Los Angeles (Kopeikin Gallery) and Kansas City (Weinberger Fine Art). His photography has been collected in various private collections in Los Angeles, Aspen, Miami and New York in addition to several corporate collections in New York and Washington D.C.
Gershon’s musical career began in the late 1980s in artist management, working with English alternative bands Love and Rockets, the Cocteau Twins and The Sundays. In the early 1990s, he discovered the Smashing Pumpkins at what was then a defining moment in music when alternative music was becoming mainstream. In addition to guiding the Smashing Pumpkins to multiplatinum success, Gershon revitalized Bryan Ferry’s career. In 1996, Gershon formed Outpost Recordings with artists ranging from the multiplatinum rock act Days of the New to the first electronic dance music platinum act The Crystal Method. Outpost’s first four albums sold over 3.5million records in America and were critically acclaimed. Also at this time, Gershon had a movie production deal with New Line Studios to produce remakes of several Hong Kong action movies. Gershon was one of the first from Hollywood to make a deal in Hong Kong with the Chinese for their movies in the mid 1990s.
In the summer of 2001, Sir Richard Branson sought Gershon out to run V2 Records in North America, where he signed and marketed hugely successful artists such as The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, The Black Crows and Moby as well as the Grammy nominated soundtrack to the film, “I am Sam.” Gershon was eventually recruited to Sony/BMG to assist in the making and marketing of various rock and mainstream acts, such as Chevelle, Incubus, Ozzy Osbourne, Los Lonely Boys, Alkaline Trio and Cyndi Lauper amongst others. Over the last several years, Gershon has won 13 Cannes Lions Awards for branded music videos that he produced for the video pioneers, Ok Go. In addition, he produced last summer’s Broadway In Residence series, featuring Broadway runs including Dave Chappelle, Barry Manilow, Morrissey and Mel Brooks. He currently lives and works out of his studio in New York City and Sagaponack, NY.
Secretary
Samuel Rubin
Samuel Rubin is the Co-Founder of YEA! Impact and the Hollywood Climate Summit. Born and raised in Barcelona, Samuel began producing films to ignite positive change. His first feature-length documentary, “COLIS SUSPECT” (2017), unpacks border security and received the Best First Film Prize at Tetouan’s Film Festival.
Samuel received a B.A. in Film and Television at UCLA and worked at DeLite! Media, Prodigium Pictures and Good Docs. Now, he serves as the Chief Impact Officer at YEA! where he oversees campaigns such as Can You Hear Us?, for Hulu’s I Am Greta, and previously, Youth v Gov on Netflix, and Since I Been Down on SundanceNow.
In 2021, he developed the impact strategy for the Good Energy Playbook, leveraging his expertise in intergenerational and climate storytelling. Currently, Samuel serves in the Convening Team of the UNFCCC sectoral initiative for climate action in the Film & TV industry and has been included in the 2022 Grist 50 Fixers list for his role in flipping the script on climate change within Hollywood.
Treasurer
Don Guarnieri
Don Guarnieri is currently the Director of Special Projects
for Omnivore Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of
restaurant point of sale integration technology. Guarnieri
was the VP of Marketing for Solid Instance, a Palo Alto
based development company focused on Application
Virtualization and Publishing systems for large software
companies.
Previously, he was a contractor with Playboy Enterprises helping restructure the Playboy.com business model. Guarnieri was the Network Architect for Penthouse.com and served as Business Manager for the video department. Guarnieri got his start in the technology world with LANSystems, one of the first companies to build local area networks for Wall Street investment banks in the 1980s and 1990s. He was the producer for Matrix Art Collective featuring Michael Somoroff's Illumination and Absence of Subject. Guarnieri is the co-creator with Michael Rees of the Sculptural User Interface software, a Creative Capital project. He was the Executive Producer for International WOW Company Drama Desk nominated Surrender: A Simulated War Deployment in Three Acts, and is a Co-Producer of the Sundance Award winning, Emmy Award and Oscar nominated film Gasland and was a consultant to Gasland 2. Guarnieri was the Instigator for the 3D film version of Charlie Victor Romeo (Sundance, Hamptons, New York, CPH:DOX, Perth, DOXA, AFI Fest).
In another life, Guarnieri was Jim Otto in Matthew Barney's OttoShaft at Documenta. He has co-authored two books with James Nadler about computer networks,How to Keep Your Novell Network Alive and Netware Answers. Guarnieri was a member of the Board of Advocates for 3Legged Dog from 2008-2013, and was a member of the Board of Directors of PS122 for 15 years serving as its President from 2005-2007. Guarnieri has a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute.
Previously, he was a contractor with Playboy Enterprises helping restructure the Playboy.com business model. Guarnieri was the Network Architect for Penthouse.com and served as Business Manager for the video department. Guarnieri got his start in the technology world with LANSystems, one of the first companies to build local area networks for Wall Street investment banks in the 1980s and 1990s. He was the producer for Matrix Art Collective featuring Michael Somoroff's Illumination and Absence of Subject. Guarnieri is the co-creator with Michael Rees of the Sculptural User Interface software, a Creative Capital project. He was the Executive Producer for International WOW Company Drama Desk nominated Surrender: A Simulated War Deployment in Three Acts, and is a Co-Producer of the Sundance Award winning, Emmy Award and Oscar nominated film Gasland and was a consultant to Gasland 2. Guarnieri was the Instigator for the 3D film version of Charlie Victor Romeo (Sundance, Hamptons, New York, CPH:DOX, Perth, DOXA, AFI Fest).
In another life, Guarnieri was Jim Otto in Matthew Barney's OttoShaft at Documenta. He has co-authored two books with James Nadler about computer networks,How to Keep Your Novell Network Alive and Netware Answers. Guarnieri was a member of the Board of Advocates for 3Legged Dog from 2008-2013, and was a member of the Board of Directors of PS122 for 15 years serving as its President from 2005-2007. Guarnieri has a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute.
Member
Janet Martin Tantemsapya
Janet Martin Tantemsapya is a retired American citizen that has spent most of her working life overseas. Since 2005, she has been a Founding Donor and Board Member of Creative Migration. In 1947, Janet moved to post-war Paris with her family. Her father, Graham A. Martin, worked for the US Foreign Service in France and Switzerland, and later appointed as Ambassador to Thailand, Italy and South Vietnam until his evacuation during the Fall of Saigon in 1975.
From 1964 to 1988, she served as a Bilingual Flight Attendant (Overseas Division) for Pan American World Airways, the golden years of commercial aviation. During that time, she was on Special Assignment for Pan American Exhibit at World Trade Fair and Asian Games in Bangkok in 1966. Other notable duties include an around-the-world trip with the King & Queen of Thailand in the mid-1960s, and serving as a volunteer to fly American troops in and out of conflict zones for R&R during the Vietnam War. While working for Pan Am, she was based out of Hong Kong, London, Florence, Italy and New York.
Janet graduated from George Washington University in 1960 with a B.A. in French Literature and a Minor in Spanish. During her university studies, she served as a Bilingual Guide & Interpreter for the US Pavilion at the World Fair in Brussels, Belgium, receiving an official letter from President Eisenhower for her Outstanding Contribution to the United States. She continued her post graduate studies at the University of Seville for Spanish (1960), the University of Geneva for French Literature (1961), Georgetown University for Linguistics (1964) and Wake Forest University (1989) with a Minor in Educational Psychology and Fundamentals in Education, Methods & Materials for teaching a Foreign Language. She also earned a Certification to teach the French Language to grades 9-12 in 1989. She was a French instructor through the mid-1990s for junior high and high school students.
Janet is fluent in French and Spanish with a working knowledge of Italian. She enjoys fencing and sculpture in her free time. She also has been a member of the Arbor Day Foundation and National Trust for Historic Preservation for several decades. She currently resides in Winston-Salem, NC.
