School: Lew Klein College of Media and Communication
Degree: BA, advertising, 2016
Hometown: Jackson Township, New Jersey
Growing up in rural New Jersey, Lindsey Casella, KLN ’16, dreamed of a fast-paced life in the Big Apple. After four successful years at Temple, that goal was within reach. But the lessons she learned here set her down a different path to try and make the operations of major companies more sustainable and equitable.
Photography by Ryan S. Brandenberg
Casella’s personal journey took her from the New Jersey Pine Barrens community of Jackson Township to the bright lights of Philadelphia. Growing up, she had a multitude of interests. Among them were oil painting and her high school’s business club. Quickly, they converged into a dream of pursuing a big city career in advertising.
Surveying her options, Temple offered both an advertising major and the city life she desired; the school felt more community-minded, and Philly offered real-world opportunities.
“Coming from a relatively small town in New Jersey that had very conservative values, being able to go to a university that exposed me to a diverse view of the world through the perspectives shared by my classmates and professors was truly transformative,” Casella said.
By the end of her four years at Temple, that transformation would leave her thinking about journeys of a very different kind: how clothing and other textiles move about our globalized economy and the dangers that presents.
Casella stumbled across the world of fashion by accident.
At Temple, she took on a variety of internships in marketing, including at Verizon and URBN’s Anthropologie home offices, along with her coursework and extracurriculars, which included running social media for Temple Student Government and her sorority, Delta Zeta. One such experience was working as an on-campus representative for Victoria’s Secret PINK. Based on her performance as a rep, she was offered a job as a marketing coordinator for the Fortune 500 company after graduation. Casella jumped at the chance to work for such a well-established brand.
As it turns out, Casella grew disillusioned as she learned more about the supply chain operations in the fashion industry.
As a marketing operations coordinator, “I was asking why products were arriving to our stores late … and [a production co-worker] said that sometimes our factories must close because the air quality was so bad. That was upsetting to me as I was creating marketing campaigns that stated our brand supported women, but on the opposite side of the supply chain our garment workers, who were women like me, were potentially being completely disenfranchised,” Casella said.
“Coming from a relatively small town in New Jersey that had very conservative values, being able to go to a university that exposed me to a diverse view of the world through the perspectives shared by my classmates and professors was truly transformative.”
–Lindsey Casella
Sustainability business consultant
With this knowledge, and several years of experience with the company, Casella decided to change course. Since 2018, she’s devoted herself to brands and initiatives trying to craft a better world. That included a role as director of global marketing and platforms for TerraCycle’s Loop, which has been recognized by Fast Company and Fortune as one of the most innovative companies for its work helping companies such as Ulta Beauty, Unilever and Burger King divert waste from landfills by reusing packaging materials. She’s also been vice president of marketing for Recycle Track Systems, an environmentally focused recycling company in New York City, where she recently completed her executive MBA in sustainable business and finance at NYU’s Stern School of Business.
On the side, Casella also dove into activism, building a global community of over 100,000 advocates while consulting for the nonprofit Remake, helping engineer a worldwide #PayUp social media campaign, which pressed major brands to provide more economic security for textile workers and collected more than 270,000 signatures.
Reflecting on her journey so far, Casella credits the emphasis on justice and critical thinking she encountered at Temple for her socially minded approach to marketing.
“Discussions I had with my professors about servant leadership and business ethics really shaped my views and I’ve always carried that with me,” she said.
These independent leaders inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs to forge their own path.
Learn more about the advertising program at Temple’s Klein College of Media and Communication.
