Ownership
Brian Dumas
Chief Executive Officer
Brian Dumas has been at the helm of Victory Enterprises for 20 years and has been a dedicated and influential leader, establishing Victory’s strength and lasting power. As an adept salesman and visionary, he has improved many aspects of Victory’s overall approach to politics, advocacy, and corporate work. Brian’s expertise in politics, campaigns and marketing has led to hundreds of successful efforts over the last two decades.
Dave Hageman
President
Dave is a Partner and President of Victory Enterprises. He has worked as a Senior Consultant to Protect the Harvest. He managed the state-wide campaign for U.S. Senator John McCain in 2008 and was the Executive Director of the Missouri House Republican Committee from 2003-2007. Dave and his wife Kylie were married in 2004 and have four children.
Joe Lakin
Chief Development Officer
Joe is a product of the Missouri legislature, having served in numerous capacities for a number of Speakers of the House, the Majority Leader, Rules Chairman and Redistricting Chairman dating back to 2009. He has been a strategist with the Missouri House Republican Campaign Committee ever since and advises dozens of other candidates across the country.
Following his time in the legislature, Joe oversaw the launch of VE’s digital division which twice won the top Pollie Award for Best Digital Media Campaign for a GOP firm. Joe lives in St. Louis with his wife, Emilee, and daughter Georgia Mae.
Wayne Yocum
Chief Creative Officer
With nearly 20 years of campaign experience, Wayne Yocum leads the writing, graphic design, and multimedia production teams at Victory Enterprises. Wayne completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science at Truman State University in 2003, and earned his Juris Doctorate from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law in 2006. After working with the Missouri House Republican Campaign Committee (HRCC) during the 2004 and 2006 elections, Wayne teamed with David Hageman to launch Victory Enterprises-Missouri in September 2007. Mr. Yocum became a full partner at Victory Enterprises in 2013.
Kelli Grubbs
Chief Financial Officer
She began her career in Davenport in 1990 as an Associate attorney with the Stanley, Lande & Hunter law firm. Nine years and four children later, she left the firm to enter the world of small businesses with her husband, Steve. Originally operating out of the couple’s basement, Victory Enterprises, VictoryStore.com, and VictoryVR now occupy a renovated Davenport elementary school and employ 90 people across multiple states. The flexibility of working around the needs of her children and her community involvement has been a key factor in successfully managing the work/life balance. She currently manages the financial and legal aspects of the three companies and oversees the operational divisions of VictoryStore.com.
Steve Michael
Chief Political Officer
Steve Michael’s long history as a political operative has given him the chance to work in 12 states and consult on hundreds of races all across the country. He got his start by interning for Senator Grassley, going on to be the regional field director for the Missouri Victory Campaign. In 2014 he served as the Political Director for Senator James Lankford. He has consulted on Congressional races, statehouse races, and everything in between. Currently, when he isn’t managing Victory’s political operations, he is working as the South Carolina Victory Director.
Consultants
Christian Hulen
Senior Vice President & Principal
Christian Hulen is a seasoned political operative, with experience running countless winning political and public affairs campaigns across the country. He specializes in campaign management, strategic communications, grassroots mobilization, and issue advocacy campaigns. Christian is a trusted resource to the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), and Republican Governors Association (RGA).
Christian’s vast political experience ranges from state races and national committees to independent expenditures and presidential campaigns. Prior to joining Victory Enterprises, he held a variety of roles, including campaign manager and general consultant to candidates in congressional, statewide, and local races around the country. Christian is a native Missourian and graduated from University of Missouri. When he is not thinking about politics, you can find him golfing, attending sporting events, and spending time with his wife and two children.
Brett Dinkins
Missouri State Director
Brett has been involved with politics across the state from the time he was in college, volunteering for campaigns in 2008 and eventually serving as a campaign manager in many high-stakes races in a diverse group of districts. After working with the VE team on a special election in 2017, he joined Victory as a full time consultant. He has been part of two, Pollie-award winning campaigns and holds his BA in Communications with a minor in political science and sociology from Mizzou.
Brit Schiel
Wisconsin State Director and Digital Communications Strategist
Along with his regular duties as Wisconsin State Director, Brit lends his talents to many aspects of the VE machine, working with digital clients, marketing, and messaging. He has been with the company since 2014. He enjoys the unexpected nature of the work Victory does and has learned to adapt to new challenges in the ever evolving political industry. He and his daughter, Lydia, 8, live in Milwaukee and are avid fans of the Green Bay Packers and the Milwaukee Brewers.
Charlie Puyear
Senior Consultant
In early 2016, Charlie came to Victory ready to fight. His work in 2016 helped win Victory Enterprises a Pollie Award for best digital campaign, effectively setting the tone for how he would manage the digital office. Leadership comes naturally to Charlie as he is the tallest person in our company. Now, Charlie helps develop winning campaigns for our clients by building impactful teams and deploying innovative media strategies.
Creative and Support Staff
Michael Kleckner
Director of Sales Support and Client Retention
Mike is the Director of Sales Support and Client Retention. After graduating from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism in 2009, he spent many years working in Marketing & Communications. In addition to sales support and client service, Mike assists our team with strategy, research, messaging, copywriting, and policy consultation. He has published two books focused on St. Louis history. Mike lives in St. Louis with his wife, Christine; son, Theodore; daughter, Josephine; dog, Lucy; and two cats, Jack and Truman. He loves coaching youth sports and rooting for the St. Louis Cardinals and Mizzou Tigers.
Leslie Pike, CMA
Director of Business Operations
A Certified Management Accountant, Leslie is responsible for overseeing all our accounting information and maintaining our customer accounts. Leslie graduated Summa Cum Laude from St. Ambrose University with her Bachelor’s Degree in Applied Management Technology in 2007, shortly before joining the Victory team in 2008.
While she has dedicated her work life to Victory for over 15 years, she has devoted her personal life to keeping physically and mentally active. She plays on an amatuer roller derby team, has been a member of several local gyms, enjoys reading thriller novels, has earned her CMA designation, and maintains that designation through Continuing Professional Education courses.
Cory Done
Research Director
Since May of 2010, Cory has been a valuable member of our team, doing a little bit of everything before he officially took over the role of Research Director. Because we have such a talented researcher in house, clients get the benefit of high-quality work without the cost of outsourcing to another firm. Cory enjoys the challenge of fact-finding and making sense of all the information to help inform our client’s actions throughout their campaign. Whether you have a candidate to research or policy and legislative history to investigate, Cory is the man for the job.
Ben Muehleisen
Head of Production
Ben has been with Victory Enterprises for two years after working as a contractor for the company for four years. He loves the whole process of being on location to film with clients and their families, bringing their stories and ideas to life. As an experienced cameraman and production specialist, he knows how to make people feel comfortable on set and turn hours of footage into a streamlined and effective TV or Web ad. We’re lucky to have such a high-quality media master on the team!
Briana Langlois
Technology Director
Briana started with Victory in 2012 and has helped make our technology and website development team the powerhouse it is today. In an ever-changing field, Briana stays up to date on the latest tech and how we can implement it effectively into our client’s lives and campaigns. She works directly with our clients to make sure they’re satisfied with their project and solving problems all along the way. She is a valuable asset and a strong leader for our tech division.
Kevin Cartwright
Creative Director
Although he started as an Intern in 2012, Kevin has quickly proven that he is an indispensable part of what we do. Now, serving as our Creative Director, he works on the branding and graphic design behind all our collateral, print, digital, web, VR, and media projects. Yes, he really does it all. The opportunity to work in so many departments and try so many different things gives him the ability to create cohesive branding all across a client’s catalog. Having Kevin on staff means we have professional, competitive work every time and we couldn’t do it without him.
Josh McInnes
Web and Virtual Reality Developer
Since August 2017, Josh has been a key player in our web and virtual reality space. As tech continues to evolve, Josh is passionate about finding unique solutions to the challenges a growing market brings. Giving our clients a platform to present their ideas is a huge part of what we do and Josh is an incredibly valuable part of making that happen. Whether you need a web presence developed or an entire world built for virtual reality, you can trust Josh to get it done!
Jared Allen
Web Developer
Jared is a recent graduate from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville with a degree in Computer Science and is on the Victory Enterprises tech team. He has worked hard through college to hone his problem-solving and logical thinking skills to become a better programmer. With a lifelong passion for all things technology, he boasts proficiency in several coding languages, along with skills in web design, search engine optimization, and graphic design.
Cynthia Winschel
Digital Ad Operations Specialist
Joining the team in 2018, Cynthia has quickly made herself invaluable placing social media ads and managing digital ad placement budgets. She loves learning about the clients and their stories, finding effective ways to communicate them to voters. She loves pizza so much she could eat it for every meal of every day and has two dogs that she adores more than anything. Every day she comes into work, Cynthia makes a remarkable difference in the lives and online strategy of our clients.