Jesse Vendley Email & Phone Number

New York City

I created and co-founded this boutique restaurant chain featuring a lively fusion of California and Mexican cuisine. Launched as a single street cart in New York City, today Calexico has restaurants in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Detroit, and Bahrain, growing from a team of 3 brothers to a company employing more than 300. Learn more at Calexico.com.

New York City

Most of my time and energy over the past 10 years has been spent as the ECD on Comcast, one of Digitas’ largest clients. After leading the winning pitch team, I played a pivotal role in growing the business from $3 million in fees to over $30 million, running a team of 25 and creating of dozens of business-building campaigns for broadcast, digital, social, print, and direct response. Clients: Comcast/Xfinity, The Ad Council, Converse, The New York Stock Exchange, American Express.

New York

My second tour of duty at Grey offered a new set of clients and a new role: Creative Director. I continued to write and produce campaigns, but I also developed a new skillset: managing clients and leading other creatives. I loved it. Still do. Clients: Canon, The U.S. Postal Service, The Manpower Group, Aetna, GlaxoSmithKline, Mount Sinai Hospital.

New York City

Shooting Gallery was an independent film company in Tribeca that gained noteriety with movies like Slingblade and You Can Count on Me. At the height of the dot-com bubble, they started a content marketing department and hired me to help run it. It was a good idea - just a decade too early. But it was fun while it lasted. Lots of glamorous people and expensive parties. My office was located next to the actor Billy Zane’s, who took every opportunity to remind people that he had been in Titanic - an excellent metaphor for what was about to happen to the the high-flying dot-com companies of the day, including Shooting Gallery.

New York City

After taking copywriting classes at the University of Colorado, I put together a spec portfolio and headed for New York City. I managed to land a position as a junior copywriter at Grey, where I was lucky to spend 4 years being mentored by a couple of rock star creative directors who taught me everything I have ever needed to know about the principles of marketing. Clients: FTD, Ethan Allen, Conagra, Kaiser Permanente.

Dutch Harbor, Alaska

After college I did a series of jobs to earn money for grad school: bartending, waiting tables, painting houses, etc. The summer before my studies began, I traveled to Alaska to see if I could find work on a fishing boat, which I had heard could be very lucrative. Plus, I was hungry for adventure. I landed a job as a "greenhorn" on a trawler, and spent 93 days fishing for pollock on the Bering Sea. Ever seen Deadliest Catch? It was pretty much like that. I worked 16/8s, which means I worked for 16 hours every day, with 8 hours off, for 93 days straight. My shift started at 8am and ended at midnight. The work was brutal and the conditions were miserable: cold, wet, and when the weather got bad, terrifying. It was the worst work experience of my life. But it did leave me with one enduring gift: nothing I have done since has ever felt like work to me. Every time I get paid to do something that doesn't involve an Alaskan fishing boat, I feel like I won the lottery. So I have that going for me.

Bachelor Of Arts - Ba, English Language And Literature, General

Master Of Fine Arts - Mfa, Creative Writing