From Bourbon Street to the Red Carpet: The Story-Driven PR of Joel Mandina
Joel Mandina G’12 wants to know your story. As the public relations executive, lifestyle publicist, and entrepreneur says, “I don't care if we are talking about what you ate at the last [New Orleans] Saints game you went to. It’s a voracious hunger for experience, information.” This curiosity has driven him for the nearly 20 years he’s been at the helm of VICE, the global marketing and public relations firm he founded with a focus on lifestyle and luxury.
Mandina’s story—both personal and professional—began, and remains deeply rooted, in his vibrant native city of New Orleans. From its rich culinary traditions to streets swirling with Mardi Gras parades and brass bands, the Big Easy imprinted him early with a love of culture, storytelling, and spectacle. He thrives on the city’s sense of serendipity, like the time he turned a corner on Bourbon Street and stumbled upon Lady Gaga playing piano. “That’s like a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” he says. “That’s what’s happening down here.”
But New Orleans also taught Mandina about resilience. Growing up there meant understanding both the ever-present realities of coastal erosion and natural disasters and the ongoing need for community-driven response. That awareness deepened in middle school, when he joined a program called Future Problem Solving. His prizewinning team tackled complex issues like nuclear waste, instilling a global perspective and belief in the need for strategy, and storytelling to drive meaningful change.
After earning a communications degree from Loyola University, Mandina began his PR career at legacy firm Keating Magee. Just a year later, Hurricane Katrina hit, a pivotal turning point. He lost his position in the aftermath but turned the experience into a six-city speaking tour on communications in disaster recovery. He soon relocated to Boston to join the firm Mullen, an experience that helped prepare him for a future move abroad. “I didn’t have a coat or an apartment,” he recalls, laughing.
Mandina returned to New Orleans to lead public relations at Deveney Communications, managing high-profile restaurant and hospitality accounts during a wave of post-Katrina investment in the city’s tourism economy. Leveraging its reputation as “Hollywood South,” New Orleans was positioning itself as a destination for film, fashion, and media and relaxing tax laws to court business.
Disenchanted by years in high-pressure agency roles, Mandina saw an opportunity, and in 2007, launched his own venture. “The agency was a combination of my own interests—travel, celebrity, fashion, and large global events—with a desire to do things faster, cooler, and sexier than I’d seen before,” he says. With the swagger of a twenty-something, he named it VICE, serving “all the clients nobody wants, like cigarettes.”
Mandina saw that globalization was no longer a trend but a defining force in public relations. To stay ahead, he earned an MA in Global Communications at AUP. The program elevated his international perspective, expanded his network, and offered exposure to the fashion industry. Life abroad also sharpened his adaptability, a strength that continues to serve him across continents and campaigns. And in Paris, he found a second anchor city, with parallels to New Orleans in its layered history, vibrant food culture, and sense of public life.
Equipped with a global outlook Mandina returned to New Orleans and continued growing VICE into the influential media relations platform it is today, with outposts at home and in Paris, Los Angeles, and Denver. His work bridges local markets with the entertainment industry and international influencers through high-profile projects. He led PR for Warner Bros.’ red carpet premiere of The Blind Side starring Sandra Bullock, and in a city nearly synonymous with the Super Bowl, has managed every aspect of media for eight of the events, from press and sponsorship activations to campaigns supporting athletes’ charitable foundations.
These days, Mandina is increasingly focused on harnessing the power of celebrity to not just sell products or ideas, but drive social impact. He promoted Kim Kardashian’s initiative benefiting Dress for Success, which supports underemployed women, led campaigns for former Saints quarterback Drew Brees’s Dream Foundation, and is exploring ways to raise awareness about concussion syndrome among athletes. Now rebranding his firm as (ad)VICE, he explains: “The whole point is to promote a healthier, more holistic lifestyle among brands, their advocates, and their audiences.”
Through it all, Mandina remains compelled by the power of story, and equally enthusiastic about telling one–whether for the Prince of Monaco or his neighborhood pizza shop. “No one wants to be the person at the Sunday brunch table without a good weekend story.”