Mary Tan & Alexane Ricard
Mary Tan
Whisker Report Co-Host
Mary Tan is the founder and chief storyteller of Whisker Media, a boutique strategic
communications agency where she focuses on public relations strategy for pet
businesses and animal welfare nonprofits across the globe.
While for-profit clients are the bulk of her clientele, she also represents animal
welfare nonprofits. Her experience as a public relations professional is extensive. She
spent many years in municipal government, where she focused on public safety crisis
communications, community outreach and immigrant engagement. She also served
as the public relations manager for the third largest animal shelter in the United
States for five years.
In 2021, she was awarded the Kari Winters Rescue and Rehabilitation Award from the
Cat Writers Association and The International Cat Association (TICA) for her work in
documenting stories of homeless cats. She is also a regular contributor and writer for
Catster, Dogster, Boarding and Daycare, and Grooming Magazines, where she focuses on
animal behavior and pet product innovation. She has won numerous awards for her
public relations campaigns from the Minnesota Chapter of the Public Relations
Society of America.
Mary lives in Buffalo, Minnesota with her cats Farley, Franklin and Fleur and her
elderly father. Franklin also happens to be a therapy cat who visits people in need of
animal assisted therapy. Every year she fosters dozens of kittens for the Bitty Kitty
Brigade, a neonatal cat rescue. She recently lost her dog Josie, who passed at the age of
14. She is hoping to get a dog to compliment her feline zoo in the near future. Mary
believes animals bring people together, and when both animals and people are treated
with compassion, the world is a much better place.
Alexane Ricard
Whisker Report Co-Host
Alexane Ricard, hails from Troyes, France and holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing
and communications. She is a resident of the world, as she loves to move to different
continents every few years. She recently moved back to her French hometown after
several years in Greece but is getting ready to move to Canada as she has always
wanted to live in North America. She will live in the Vancouver area for a year before
she heads to Bali, Indonesia to assist with pet overpopulation issues there.
Alexane is a global animal welfare advocate since the age of 16 and uses her marketing
and public relations skills to advocate for animals and the products they need. In 2022,
she joined the team at Whisker Media after meeting Mary Tan on a Greek cat rescue
mission. Fluent in five languages, Alexane primarily engages with Whisker Media’s
pet product clients in Asia and Europe.