I lead a handful of talented teams (made up of really good people) on a variety of projects spanning across several clients ranging from the occasional large-scale 360˚ campaigns to ongoing social, digital, and mobile. In a constantly changing world, we team up with a bunch of other smart people within the agency to make work that breaks through. The daily challenges we face are overcome by pushing our own expectations of creative and continuing to earn the trust of our clients by listening, learning and treating everyone with respect. Every. Single. Day.

Bidding adieu to Honda, the adjustment of shifting from producing creative ideas to leading creatives who produce creative ideas was an easy one thanks to my experience with The Book Shop. I quickly learned that a spirit of optimism was a crucial component to inspiring future success within all departments. The biggest success during this time? In addition to leading all creative efforts for our accounts, we created the Intuit Small Business Big Game program. The idea - create a SuperBowl commercial that wasn’t for Intuit, but an actual small business... and it ended up being the largest coverage driver in Intuit’s history, generating 13 billion impressions with more than 3800 articles. It was so successful, they did it again.

The first 10 years were spent cutting my proverbial teeth on Honda. Beginning with helping to launch the highly divisive Element to overseeing and successfully producing entire car campaigns from brief to launch, I was introduced to the world of automotive advertising, and it was an incredible treasure. I learned so much about so much: Learning to be innovative and strategic in order to create great work within the restraints of relatively small budgets. Understanding the client isn’t always going to be in the buying mood everytime you present an idea. The necessity of never giving up but the essential need to occasionally give in. The vital role producers and production play in taking and making a good idea a great idea. The importance of listening and learning. The power of paying attention. The huge lesson of learning and growing every single day. And the ever-important truth that everything we do and say has both a direct correlational effect on the work and the people you work with.

What began as a simple desire to build a portfolio & get a job as a junior a.d. turned into an opportunity to teach. And honestly, it wasn’t easy and was harder than I could have imagined. Listening to ideas. Figuring out how to tactfuly tell someone an idea “just wasn’t there yet” wasn’t something I was good at. It took time. And practice. And lots of listening. And plenty of awkward pauses. I eventually realized that if they were going to be successful, I had to dig deep and treat each thought and idea like it was my own. I had to care about their work as much as the students did. Because that’s what it takes to push an idea from being mediocre to having meaning. You have to passionately care about the individuals AND the ideas. And as I gained experience, I began to realize that teaching was actually training me for what I would eventually be doing in real life... advocating the idea of others. Teaching has taught me so much: The importance of giving back and helping others. The reality that it takes a lot of effort, focus and determination to break into (and stay) in this business. The power of the team and the potential we have when we work together. And of course, seeing first-hand how talented the next generation is and that the ability to have a long-standing career in this business is based on my ability to listen, learn and lead in humility.