After starting my career in advertising and becoming an early digital designer, the next logical step was taking my skills into the experiential marketing space. Much of the advertising and design work I did was related to lifestyle branding in which we were developing new ways for brands to engage audiences in buzz tactics and in-store retail. I saw events and experiences as this amazing unification of all the sensory touchpoints I had (unknowingly) been training myself for.
Most notably my work for technology and healthcare brands at powerhouse agencies GPJ and Jack Morton where I spent a decade pitching clients and delivering on ideas brought to reality. From environments, keynotes, tradeshows, motion design and every tangible way to integrate digital touchpoints. I drove more than $35-million in new business and a rich list of brag-worthy clients. After moving to the in-house side, I did the same from the inside .
IBM: I started at GPJ developing the worldwide capability for Graphic Design and improving how we can create consistency while managing scale. My role evolved to lead the Experience Design on the highest-profile events and activities such as NRF and PartnerWorld, before eventually taking responsibility for the Boston Experience Design team as well and developing Global Guidelines for the team in EMEA and Asia-Pacific to follow. Other work included agency marketing, new business (big wins like BlackBerry, Cisco, Citrix and a range of smaller accounts) and developing the digital capabilities within the agency. Hands-on and learned ALOT about building and scaling a global team.
Taleo: At my first in-house assignment we had the opportunity to dig way more deeply and was responsible for all creative worldwide. For our annual sales kick-off and user conference Taleo World, we did the theming, identity, design for main stage as well as venue branding and wayfinding internally. We then worked with trusted vendors on production side while continuing work developing demos, video and motion content, along with all presentations done with our executives. I personally worked deeply with our CEO and CMO to craft the story and design of how we’d represent in the most impactful way possible. We had a small team and kept most everything in-house in a very DIY (read as awesome) mode.
CA Technologies: Ironically my first work on the CA Technologies account came at Jack Morton Worldwide where I developed the identity and led the design approach for the annual User Conference CA World. Once being hired full-time from my stint at Taleo, that work continued leading the event identity work and full experience design as a partnership between our internal team and agency partners. I also oversaw the global creative that included design and advertising work, sales support and alot of rolling up my sleeves still. My time at CA taught me how to keep a large enterprise brand unified while still developing enviable work.