Barb McDonald has led hundreds of successful photoshoots, designed thousands of collateral pieces, and directed production across four continents. Deriving value from producing impactful creative, she inspires photography, art direction, and innovative design that builds consumer loyalty, elevates brands, and drives commercial success. With a keen eye for visually stunning design and recognition of emerging trends, Barb embraces experiential, navigational, and multi-sensory human-centered creative design. Her approach demonstrates strong business acumen through systems thinking, rational processes, resource allocation, brand standard alignment, and production expertise across visual formats.A proponent of work-life integration, Barb, lives by the mantra, “stay curious, work hard, have fun, and care about people.” She takes pride in developing future leaders, enhancing team collaboration, and creating productive partnerships by forming cultures rooted in authenticity, curiosity, data literacy, accountability, and impact. Known as compassionate, loyal, and dependable, Barb instills meaning, sets clear expectations, provides hands-on guidance, and removes roadblocks to ensure successful results.As the VP of Creative & Production at Soft Surroundings, Barb leads enterprise-wide creative and production. She engages teams to conceptualize, optimize, and produce 700+ emails, hundreds of landing pages, and thousands of print pieces, including 20+ catalogs distributed to 150M households annually. The optimized creative strategy, photography, and assets have led to a 27% increase in website traffic conversion, a 10% improvement in total match-back demand for print catalogs, and a 20% improvement in return on ad spend (ROAS) year-over-year, despite economic and traffic tailwinds. She has overhauled processes, renegotiated contracts, and identified creative solutions to drive efficiencies to double budget productivity, leading to $4.5M in cost avoidance and savings. Beforehand, Barb directed creative concepts, photo shoots, and design production for iconic national retailers.Barb earned a BA from Saint Xavier University. A talented athlete, she was awarded a full scholarship to play collegiate volleyball and softball, culminating in induction into the SXU Athletic Hall of Fame. She volunteers by providing creative advisory services to startups, planting flowers in nearby parks, and serving as a neighborhood block captain. On the weekends, Barb attends community festivals, painting in her home studio, and exploring the local food scene.barb.mcd8@gmail.com